MS Maze

Kids who play with high-powered laser pointers may cause permanent damage to their eyes.

A 15 year-old Swiss teen permanently damaged his vision when he beamed a laser into his eyes while using a mirror. His innocent attempt to create a laser light show resulted in internal bleeding in his left eye and scars in his right. Despite blurred vision, he waited two weeks before telling his parents.

Read the article:

Teen Zaps Eyeballs with Laser Pointer

Image used under Creative Commons License via Flickr with thanks to jackiembarr

Sheriffs in North Carolina want to know exactly what’s in your medicine cabinet.

The sheriffs want to know who is getting what controlled substances — and they don’t want to have to get a warrant or to explain their reasons.

North Carolina’s sheriff’s association told a legislative health care committee that they want access to the state’s computerized prescription drug records, saying that the information would help them make drug arrests and to stop those who are abusing the system.

Read the article and check out the poll:

Sheriffs Want Easy Access to Your Medicine Cabinet

Photo courtesy of photoXpress.com

A federal court ruled that federal funding for embryonic stem cell research can resume while the court considers a judge’s order that halted the funding.

The three-member appeals court lifted the ban imposed just a few weeks ago by District Court Judge Royce Lamberth.

According to the Washington Post, opponents of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research have until September 14 to file a response and the government must respond in turn by September 20.

The Justice Department has argued that the ban on federal funding was causing irreparable harm to researchers and to patients waiting for cures.

Read the article:

Federal Funding for Embryonic Stem Cell Research Resumes

Photo: http://www.atp.nist.gov

The makers of two brands of green tea drinks received warnings from the Food and Drug Administration about their unauthorized claims regarding the nutritional value of its products.

Read the story:

FDA Warns Green Tea Makers about Health Claims

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Canada has issued a Travel Health Notice, warning its citizens of the whooping cough (pertussis) epidemic in California. The epidemic has so far caused 3,311 cases of the disease resulting in eight deaths, seven of whom were infants under two months of age who had not received any doses of the vaccine.

They go on to warn that other states are experiencing localized cases of whooping cough.

The Public Health Agency of Canada advises travelers to make sure their pertussis vaccination is up-to-date prior to traveling to the states and to visit their health care providers upon their return if they experience symptoms that may be whooping cough.

Read the article:

Canada Warns of Whooping Cough Risk in US

Photo Courtesy photoXpress.com

More than half of the 354 million doctor visits for acute care made each year are not with a primary physician and more than one quarter take place in the emergency room.

Acute Care in the ER… Expensive and Wasteful
Acute medical care is generally a flare-up of a previous condition or a sudden onset of symptoms like cough, sore throat, stomach problems, respiratory illness, fever, etc.

Read the article:

Health Care Dollars Wasted in the Emergency Room

Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling recently donated £10,000,000 to multiple sclerosis (MS) research — that translates into more than $15 million U.S. dollars.

The money will go to the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic at Edinburgh University which was named for Ms. Rowling’s late mother. The clinic plans to “focus on patient-based studies to help find treatments that could slow progression of the disease, working towards the eventual aim of stopping and reversing it.”

The BBC quotes the author as saying, “I have just turned 45, the age at which my mother, Anne, died of complications related to her MS…

Read the article:

Harry Potter Author Donates Millions to Multiple Sclerosis Research

Related reading:

Who Gets MS and Why

10 Tips for Managing Daily Living with Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple Sclerosis for Newbies

MS Activist John Hicklenton Ends Life at Euthanasia Clinic

Photo used under Wikimedia Commons License with thanks to Sjhill

Thirty percent of overweight Americans simply do not see themselves that way… and 11 million live with some form of eating disorder.

Perhaps beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but when it comes to weight, a lot of us are downright confused about what we are beholding.

According to a Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll, 30 percent of people who are overweight think they are actually of “normal” size. Seventy percent of obese people say they are merely overweight and 39 percent of morbidly obese people think they are overweight, but not obese.

We’re not only having difficulty with perception, we are awash in a sea of eating disorders. Americans’ relationship with food and weight is a complicated one.

Read the article:

Poll Finds 70% of Obese People Think They’re Just Overweight

photo courtesy of photoxpress.com

Mandatory flu vaccines for health care workers. That’s the strong recommendation of the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).

In a press release dated August 31, SHEA said:

“Influenza vaccination of health care personnel is a professional and ethical responsibility and non-compliance with health care facility policies regarding vaccination should not be tolerated…”

Read the article and weigh in on the poll:

Mandatory Flu Vaccine for Health Workers, Say Experts

Photo courtesy of photoxpress.com