, according to a new report in the journal
. The child had a rare, deadly brain disease called ataxia telangiectasia, or A-T. The disease can lead to degeneration of a region of the brain; most people with A-T die by their teens or early 20s. The boy had traveled to Russia at age 9, when he was injected with fetal neural stem cells in his brain and spinal cord, the Associated Press reports. He received two additional sets of injections at ages 10 Read the rest of this entry »

LONDON (AP) — Doctors have long assumed that most antidepressants are interchangeable. But according to a new study, Zoloft and Cipralex work slightly better than 10 other popular drugs, and should be psychiatrists’ first choice for patients with moderate to severe depression.
Previous research found few differences between antidepressants. A U.S. government study in 2006 concluded that patients with major depression did equally well on different Read the rest of this entry »

Going to a doctor who is out of your insurance company’s network typically carries extra cost, but a recent investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo found that beneficiaries of UnitedHealth Group have seen especially hefty charges. The result of a newly announced settlement with the insurance giant: B
, reports
U.S. News
’s Michelle Andrews. Unfortunately, excessive past charges will not be refunded.
UnitedHealth Group’s medical Read the rest of this entry »

With the first-ever human test of a medical treatment based on embryonic stem cells gaining federal approval, researchers are optimistic that President Obama will soon lift a controversial Bush administration ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and speed work to
. The newly approved human trial involves an attempt to repair severed spinal cords in paraplegics.
can replicate over and over, thanks to an enzyme that slows their Read the rest of this entry »

commissioner, Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, said Tuesday that he would resign on
Day, Jan. 20, part of a parade of expected departures at the nation’s crucial public health agencies.
Leaders of these agencies have sometimes straddled administrations, but the
is expected to make a clean sweep in part because of repeated assertions that the Bush administration allowed politics to play an unusually forceful role in science policy, and because Read the rest of this entry »

that have been recalled in the nationwide salmonella outbreak, which has made at least 600 people ill and is tied to nine deaths, the Associated Press reports. With the poor economy and millions of families depending on food pantries for help, it’s a particularly bad time to have to toss thousands of pounds of food. The Houston Food Bank, for example, has already thrown out 3,000 recalled peanut products, and the Cleveland Food Clinic has discarded Read the rest of this entry »

that have been recalled in the nationwide salmonella outbreak, which has made at least 600 people ill and is tied to nine deaths, the Associated Press reports. With the poor economy and millions of families depending on food pantries for help, it’s a particularly bad time to have to toss thousands of pounds of food. The Houston Food Bank, for example, has already thrown out 3,000 recalled peanut products, and the Cleveland Food Clinic has discarded Read the rest of this entry »

A Link Between Sleep and Heart Disease?
each night have less risk of having artery-clogging calcifications that can lead to heart disease, according to a study published in the December 24–31 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. That doesn’t mean that people should pop sleeping pills in order to get more rest, experts say. “We don’t know why there is an association,” Diane Lauderdale, the study’s author and an associate Read the rest of this entry »

Starting with the current state fiscal year, which began July 1, mental health services are being paid based on the amount of services billed. Previously, the state distributed money for mental health services through grants approved at the beginning of the fiscal year.
“They were advanced too much [money] in fiscal year 2008, and they didn’t bill for [services]” after the new payment system began, said
, a spokesman for the Illinois Department Read the rest of this entry »

received fertility treatments in order to conceive the babies, infertility specialists told the
that they question whether enough was done to prevent such a risky pregnancy. Chances are very small that the babies were conceived naturally, experts said, and reproductive-medicine specialists have the expertise to avoid high-risk pregnancies such as this one. The octuplets—two girls and six boys—were born via cesarean section about 9 weeks Read the rest of this entry »