The FDA botched the last big outbreak of salmonella when it issued a huge warning to avoid tomatoes based on the fact that people who’d eaten salsa were getting sick. Turns out salsa was indeed making people sick — but that’s because the jalapenos in it were alive with the salmonella bacteria, not tomatoes. The tomato industry was nearly crippled and people continued to get sick off of jalapenos.
The FDA is well on its way to messing up another Read the rest of this entry »

President Barack Obama is ordering a “complete review” of the Food and Drug Administration after it failed to detect shipments of salmonella-contaminated peanut products that have sickened more than 500 people and may be linked to as many as eight deaths, he told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer.
In an interview that aired Monday, Obama said the agency’s failure to recognize and intercept the products was only the latest of numerous “instances over Read the rest of this entry »

“We can move forward as a community to strengthen the health-care system,” said Bronconnier. “(We could) attract doctors with a free or cheap space.”
Ken Hughes, chairman of the Alberta Health Services Board, said he’s open to exploring the idea.
“I welcome that kind of creative proposal,” said Hughes.
The mayor’s proposal comes as dozens of Calgary family doctors close their practices because of high rents.
Many of the physicians are retiring Read the rest of this entry »

Re “Defective Medical Devices” (letter, New York Times on the Web, Feb. 6):
Speaking for personal injury lawyers denied a lucrative line of lawsuits in state courts by the Supreme Court’s 8-to-1 “pre-emption” decision last year, which reaffirmed the Food and Drug Administration’s pre-eminence in determining the risks and benefits of medical devices, the American Association for Justice urges Congress to empower Read the rest of this entry »

A majority of students in San Mateo County and statewide still fall below state physical-fitness standards, although they have demonstrated some improvement, according to a state Department of Education report released Tuesday.
“It’s not a fast solution to undo childhood obesity,” said Bill Baynes, operations manager for Project Healthy Eating and Right Training, a student-driven enterprise in the Jefferson Union High School District in Daly City. Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight’s 7 p.m. game between the Seattle University men’s basketball team and Linfield College at the Connolly Center has been postponed due to an impending snowstorm and hazardous road conditions, which hampered the Wildcats’ drive from McMinnville, Ore., to Seattle.
The game is expected to be rescheduled for Jan. 12 or 13.
“They called this morning when they were driving up and said they’d been on the road for two hours and had only gotten Read the rest of this entry »

A dramatic rise in the use of the medical imaging tools like CT scans are increasing health care costs and patients’ exposure to radiation, according to a new study.
The provocative conclusion by a University of California-San Francisco research team challenges the more-is-better conventional wisdom of many consumers and their doctors.
The use of innovative imaging tests like computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which Read the rest of this entry »

South Carolina has the ninth-highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the nation, but 25 percent of those infected don’t realize they carry the virus, Beaufort health care providers say.
Getting that 25 percent into a clinic for diagnosis and treatment is the goal of eight Lowcountry medical school students who are launching a local HIV/AIDS awareness program as part of Monday’s World AIDS Awareness Day.
Their long-term objective, according to student Derek Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination on Tuesday as President Obama’s nominee to lead the Health and Human Services Department, a decision that came one day after Mr. Obama declared that he would stand behind Mr. Daschle as problems over unpaid taxes were scrutinized on Capitol Hill.
“I accept his decision with sadness and regret,” Mr. Obama said in a statement.
The decision to withdraw his nomination as a member of the Obama cabinet comes Read the rest of this entry »

Last week,
, who chairs a
panel on the chemical bisphenol-A, defended himself in an editorial in a Milwaukee newspaper against charges that he has been influenced by millions of dollars in donations to his research center by BPA makers.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)
, who heads a House panel that oversees FDA funding. In a letter sent to FDA today, DeLauro asked the FDA to delay the release later this week of its report on the safety of BPA, Read the rest of this entry »