- News

ACF Announces The Availability Of $42 Million In Competitive Grant Funding For Native American Communities And Organizations

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:00:00 PST

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Administration for Native Americans (ANA) announces the availability of $42 million in competitive grant funding for fiscal year 2010 for community-based projects that promote economic and social self-sufficiency and cultural preservation for American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and other Native American Pacific Islanders from American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The fiscal year 2010 funding includes $27 million for continuing multi-year projects...

Physical Therapists Unite To Support The Uninsured

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:00:00 PST

The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) is urging residents across the country to contact their local elected officials and members of the media to draw attention to the problem of the nation's uninsured during "Cover the Uninsured Week," March 14-20. APTA is a supporting organization of the observance, designed to raise awareness of the plight of 46 million uninsured Americans, including 9 million children, and the effect it is having on the country's health care system...

Virgin Plans To Coordinate GP Care Across Country, UK

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:00:00 PST

Sir Richard Branson's Virgin empire plans to use its newly acquired network of polyclinics to co-ordinate GP services across the country, Pulse can reveal. Virgin Healthcare told Pulse its acquisition of Assura Medical Ltd last week had given it control of 15 'GP-led health centres' and a total of 30 GP companies - believed to make it the biggest private provider of GP services in the country...

Meat And Colorectal Cancer Risk: Scientists Suggest Potential Mechanisms

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:00:00 PST

Scientists in the US who undertook a large study to investigate what biological mechanisms might be behind the already established link between colorectal cancer and consumption of red and processed meat, confirmed that such a link exists and suggested the main players are three compounds: heme iron, nitrate/nitrite, and heterocyclic amines. You can read a paper on the research behind these findings in the published online first 9 March issue of Cancer Research...

2010 Recipient Of Minority Scholar Award Will Conduct Clinical Research On Leukemia

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:00:00 PST

Alison Walker, MD, has been selected to receive the ASH-AMFDP Award, and will begin her research in acute myeloid leukemia in July of this year. The award, designed to help increase the number of underrepresented minority scholars in the field of hematology, is the result of a partnership between the American Society of Hematology (ASH) and the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program (AMFDP) of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It provides four years of support, including an annual stipend of up to $75,000 and an annual grant of $30,000 to support research activities...

Visit Your Pharmacy This No Smoking Day

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:00:00 PST

Helping a man to stop smoking after 43 years and supporting a woman to quit cigarettes following 15 previous relapses are just two examples where a local pharmacy made the difference of a life time. This No Smoking Day on Wednesday 10 March the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) is advising the public to make a trip to their community pharmacy as the first step towards quitting for good. Every year thousands of people across the UK give up smoking on the national day and this year's campaign theme, Break free, we can help, has come from smokers themselves...

Advocates Seek Increased Federal Funding To Bridge The Gaps In Lupus Research, Awareness, And Education

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:00:00 PST

On March 16, 2010, an anticipated 1,000 advocates will band together for lupus in person and virtually by phone, email, and through social media networks, to share their personal stories with Members of Congress during the Lupus Foundation of America's, (LFA) Twelfth Annual Advocacy Day. Advocates' personal stories will demonstrate how the gaps in lupus research and understanding have a profound effect on the estimated 1.5 million people in the United States who are living with the disease. It has been more than 50 years since the U.S...

Los Angeles Times Profiles Antiabortion Pastor Who Travels Southern Calif. In Mobile Pregnancy Clinic

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:00:00 PST

The Los Angeles Times on Monday profiled Dave Wilkinson, an evangelical pastor who runs three Ventura County, Calif., pregnancy clinics that try to urge women not to have abortions. Once weekly, Wilkinson and other antiabortion-rights advocates drive to Los Angeles in a donated motor home to offer ultrasounds to pregnant women and urge them not to have abortions through "prayer-filled counseling sessions," according to the Times. Wilkinson said that many of the women promise to carry their fetuses to term...

Study Shows Need To 'Speak Plainly' When Discussing Sex, Columnist Writes

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:00:00 PST

"A new study suggests that what people mean when they say they've had sex -- or haven't -- depends on whom you ask," St. Petersburg Times columnist Colette Bancroft writes in an opinion piece about new research from the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction and the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention. The study, published in the journal Sexual Health, examined how men and women in various age groups classify whether various physical acts constitute "having sex...

Health Overhaul Policy Tidbits

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:00:00 PST

NPR: For those who have forgotten what the Senate's bill would actually do as the debate has turned to politics and procedure, "a short refresher" may come in handy. The legislation's main concepts include the requirement that individuals buy health insurance, a plan that would help eliminate pre-existing condition exclusions and spread risk more widely, and subsidies to help people buy coverage to meet the new requirement (Rovner, 3/9)...

Senate Test Vote Today On Bill To Extend COBRA Subsidy, Doc Fix And State Medicaid Funding

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:00:00 PST

The Senate is poised to consider a measure today that would include extending subsidies for COBRA benefits and unemployment insurance, prevent the Medicare payment cut for doctors and provide additional funding to state Medicaid programs. The legislation "faces a key test vote in the Senate, its momentum helped by about 60 popular tax breaks for individuals and businesses that expired at the end of last year," The Associated Press reports. "All told, the measure would add $107 billion to the deficit over the coming decade...

Questioning The Benefits Of Elective Removal Of Ovaries During Hysterectomy: Evidence Suggests Procedure May Do More Harm Than Good

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:00:00 PST

Removal of the ovaries (bilateral oophorectomy) while performing a hysterectomy is common practice to prevent the subsequent development of ovarian cancer. This prophylactic procedure is performed in 55 percent of all US women having a hysterectomy, or approximately 300,000 times each year. An article in the March/April issue of the Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology suggests that this procedure may do more harm than good.. William H...

Brain Activity Predicts Emotional Resiliency Following A Fight With A Partner

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:00:00 PST

Common wisdom tells us that for a successful relationship partners shouldn't go to bed angry. But new research from a psychologist at Harvard University suggests that brain activity - specifically in the region called the lateral prefrontal cortex - is a far better indicator of how someone will feel in the days following a fight with his or her partner. Individuals who show more neural activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex are less likely to be upset the day after fighting with partners, according to a study in this month's Biological Psychiatry...

Fashion And IT

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:00:00 PST

Consider this T-shirt: It can monitor your heart rate and breathing, analyze your sweat and even cool you off on a hot summer's day. What about a pillow that monitors your brain waves, or a solar-powered dress that can charge your ipod or MP4 player? This is not science fiction - this is cotton in 2010. Now, the laboratory of Juan Hinestroza, assistant professor of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, has developed cotton threads that can conduct electric current as well as a metal wire can, yet remain light and comfortable enough to give a whole new meaning to multi-use garments...

Male Batterers Consistently Overestimate General Rates Of Violence Toward Partners

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:00:00 PST

Men who engaged in domestic violence consistently overestimated how common such behavior is, and the more they overestimated it the more they engaged in abusing their partner in the previous 90 days, according to new research conducted at the University of Washington. Those men overestimated by two to three times the actual rates of seven behaviors ranging from throwing something at a partner to rape, according Clayton Neighbors, lead author of a paper to be published in a spring issue of the journal Violence Against Women...