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Disabled people need better specialist equipment

For many disabled people, assistive technology is crucial to their ability to choose how they want to live and whether they can live independently.

20 Sep 2004

Today’s scientists have the skills and experience to transplant a human face

A University of Louisville-led research team studying the face transplant has developed guidelines it says are critical to the success of the still-untried procedure.

20 Sep 2004

Genome researchers to look at 1918 Spanish flu

University of Washington researchers will be taking part in a multi-site project examining a portion of the genome of the strain of influenza responsible for the "Spanish Flu" outbreak in 1918.

20 Sep 2004

BBC focuses on the rise of complementary or alternative medicines

Broadcaster Anna Ford investigates why people are turning to CAM in a new six part BBC Radio Four series, The Other Medicine. Is there any evidence that CAM works, is it harmful and should the CAM industry, worth £1.6 billion a year, be made more available on the NHS?

20 Sep 2004

Fathers' occupational exposures may play an important role in the development of birth defects

Can exposure to hazardous substances at work contribute to the development of birth defects? If so, then fathers' occupational exposures may play a more important role than mothers' exposures

20 Sep 2004

Research findings may help stave off full-blown diabetes

A new study by researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center sheds light on the key mechanisms by which new pancreatic beta cells normally form in response to insulin resistance. These findings may some day help researchers devise ways of staving off full-blown diabetes.

18 Sep 2004

Inflammation could have important implications for modern-day health care

Starting in the mid-1850s, humans began living longer due, researchers believe, to improvements in living conditions, nutrition, income levels and medicine.

18 Sep 2004

Possibility of developing drug therapies that target eosinophils, white blood cells long known to be associated with the asthma

The studies discount a 2000 study published in The Lancet which concluded that eosinophils do not have a significant role in the development of asthma in humans.

18 Sep 2004

40 percent of women of childbearing age take folic acid

A record 40 percent of American women of childbearing age reported taking a daily multivitamin containing folic acid in 2004, up from 32 percent last year and the highest level since the March of Dimes began surveying women in the 1990s, according to the organization's latest survey, which was published today in Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report.

18 Sep 2004

Further study is needed before link between gastroesophageal reflux disorder and otitis media can be firmly established

Does gastroesophageal reflux disorder (GERD) lead to middle ear infections in young children? Otitis media (OM) or ear infection, has the highest incidence, 62.9 percent, among all medical conditions in children younger than age five. Recent studies have suggested that GERD may cause OM.

18 Sep 2004

Study hints at antioxidants being able to prevent and restore hearing loss

In a preliminary study, researchers find that vitamin E may be effective in restoring sudden onset hearing loss of unknown origin (idiopathic sudden hearing loss). These findings suggest that further research may reveal the role of antioxidants in the prevention and restoration of hearing loss.

18 Sep 2004

Reading performance is not affected once otitis media has been cured

One year ago, study results were presented addressing the reading performance in children with otitis media in early childhood. The findings revealed that middle ear diseases during early years and the attendant hearing losses adversely affect reading performance in first and second graders.

18 Sep 2004

Mastoidectomy does not decrease the possibility that young patients will develop a middle ear infection

Performing a mastoidectomy, a group of operations on the temporal bone and middle ear to drain, expose, or remove an infectious, inflammatory, or neoplastic lesion, during cochlear implantation for young children does not decrease the possibility that the young patient will develop a middle ear infection.

17 Sep 2004

Study compares cheap take-home sleep test to expensive polysomnography test

Diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea usually involves polysomnograpy, an overnight sleep test in a sleep clinic or lab. Results of a new study indicate that a take-home sleep test is just as effective as a polysomnography and is less expensive while providing timely results.

17 Sep 2004

Study compares coblation tonsillectomy to traditional method of removing tonsils

Tonsillectomy remains one of the most common childhood surgeries with an increasing number of the surgeries being done to treat obstructive sleep apnea or sleep disordered breathing.

17 Sep 2004

Poverty not linked to winter deaths in elderly

Although Britain has a large burden of excess winter deaths, this study suggests that policies to relieve fuel poverty alone may only be partially successful.

17 Sep 2004

Consumption of milk seems to be evaporating

Just as the milkman disappeared from America’s cultural horizon, the consumption of milk seems to be evaporating, replaced by more — and more super-sizing — soda drinkers.

17 Sep 2004

Wyeth supports FDA recommendation to strengthen antidepressant labeling

Statement by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals supporting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Joint Advisory Committee’s recommendation to strengthen the product labels across the antidepressant category regarding use in the pediatric population.

16 Sep 2004

One-third to buy cheaper Canadian drugs, 100 million find insurance coverage cut or costlier

Faced with a double-barreled crisis of shrinking health care coverage and fast-rising medical costs, two out of three American adults (67 percent) now think health care coverage should be a “guarantee” as in Canada, Britain and other nations.

16 Sep 2004

Celacade shown to reduce risk of death and hospitalization in patients with advanced chronic heart failure

Vasogen has announced that comprehensive results from the Company's phase II trial of Celacade (immune modulation therapy) in advanced chronic heart failure patients were published in the September 15 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC).

16 Sep 2004