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Deadly mystery: Breast cancer study targets racial disparities
McClatchy-Tribune
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Thousands of women are helping scientists learn more about breast cancer in African-Americans, including why it strikes young black women more aggressively and more often than white women. More than 2,400 New Jersey women have joined the study already. When these participants are combined with those from three other studies nationally, more than 10,000 women — half of them diagnosed with cancer and half of them healthy "controls"
— will have participated. The National Cancer Institute provided $19.6 million in added funding this summer to allow four separate regional studies to pool their data, making it the largest study of its type.
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Declining numbers of blacks seen in math, science
The Tennessean
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With black unemployment reaching historic levels, banks laying off tens of thousands and law school graduates waiting tables, why aren't more African-Americans looking toward science, technology, engineering and math — the still-hiring careers known as STEM? The answer turns out to be a complex equation of self-doubt, stereotypes, discouragement and economics — and sometimes just wrong perceptions of what math and
science are all about.
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Health and healing in Oaxaca, Mexico, still widely indigenous
JSNMA
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Yale physician candidate Noreen Singh writes that temazcal, which she says is not your typical sweat bath. It is a healing practice that dates back before Spanish conquerors arrived in the New World. Still widely practiced today, it is indigenous medicine in a remarkably preserved form, surviving Mexico and Central America’s evolution from Mesoamerica. The harnessing of energy when the body is subjected to extreme heat can be
a form of therapy for a wide range of medical problems.
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Doctor says at times, doing nothing is the best medicine
The New York Times (blog)
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"Don't just do something; stand there!" It's one of those phrases that attending physicians will spout off to their medical students while on rounds, trying to sound both sagacious and clever at the same time. It sometimes grates, but it does make a valid point, because so much of medicine is about "doing something." Doctors tend to want to "do something" whenever they note something amiss. And patients, by and large, want something
done when they have a symptom. Few people like being told just to watch and wait, according to a New York Times blogger.
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White children more likely than minorities to receive CT scans following minor head trauma
University of Michigan Health System News
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African-American and Hispanic children are less likely to receive a cranial computed tomography (CT) scan in an emergency department following minor head trauma than white children, according to University of Michigan research presented at the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition in Boston. While racial disparities in adult
healthcare are well documented, less is known about the variations in pediatric, and specifically, emergency department care. Appropriate CT scan use can ensure optimal diagnosis.
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India 'close to wiping out polio'
BBC News
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India has "never been closer" to wiping out polio, India's health minister has said. There have been no new cases for more than nine months, making it the longest polio-free period since the global eradication campaign was launched. The only case reported this year was in the state of West Bengal in January. There were 39 cases reported over a similar period in 2010. India
is one of only four countries in the world where polio is still endemic.
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Study: Babies born in US declined along with economy
Scripps Howard News Service via Chicago Sun-Times
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When the economy tanks, women are less likely to have children. That's a conclusion of a new Pew Research Center study that found that states with the greatest economic declines in 2007 and 2008 — calculated by per capita income, unemployment rates and several other indicators — experienced the greatest birth declines in 2008 and 2009. And women's healthcare organizations say a trifling economy doesn't only affect
babies, it also puts a strain on related services. Fertility clinics are losing patients, and family planning clinics are struggling to keep up with a surge in demand for their services.
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New report shows low-income Latinos at-risk for poor quality of care at one-star hospitals
Latina Lista
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When it comes to Latinos and healthcare coverage, there are just some indisputable facts that can't be ignored: more Latinos are uninsured; too many Latinos are unemployed; and the healthcare coverage
critical for low-income Latinos is Medicaid. These truths should already raise a red flag as to the quality of health among Latinos. The 2011 Healthcare Consumerism and Hospital Quality in America report found that patients who were admitted and stayed at five-star-rated hospitals, five being the highest rating, were 73 percent less likely to die than those patients who stayed at a one-star rated hospital.
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Mini-medical schools helping people age in better
health
The Sacramento Bee
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Dr. Michael McCloud of the University of California Davis Medical Center started off thinking small. He
expected only a handful of people to show up in early 2002 for what he thought would be a one-time series of classes on healthy aging, his spin on the growing "mini-medical school" concept. In general, mini-medical schools — a public outreach program with a catchy name — provide classroom sessions on the health sciences for laypeople. Universities across the country have used them primarily to showcase their institutional research.
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Moms who lose a baby face higher stillbirth risk
Reuters
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Parents who've suffered the death of an infant may have a higher-than-normal risk of stillbirth in the next pregnancy, a new study suggests. But the new study suggests that the death of a baby in the first year of life also points to an increased risk of stillbirth in the next pregnancy. Black women had a particularly elevated risk: Those who'd suffered an infant death were more than four times more likely to have a stillbirth than
black women whose first baby survived. That finding is in line with past research showing that African-American women face a higher stillbirth risk than white women do.
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New study finds Malaria vaccine protects children
The Columbus Dispatch
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Researchers have reported that, for the first time, an experimental malaria vaccine has been shown to safely protect large numbers of children against the mosquito-borne scourge. The study involving more than 15,000 newborns and babies in seven African countries found that the vaccine cut the risk of being infected with the malaria parasite by about half and the chances of
getting deathly ill from an infection by more than a third. The findings were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Vaccine for meningitis faces unnecessary delays
Hispanic Leadership Fund via Miami Herald
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Bella Estrada was, by all accounts, a healthy, happy baby until just three months into her young life when she suddenly contracted bacterial meningitis and became desperately ill. Her mother, Yecenia, recalls that she was in the hospital for 40 days and "we had to watch her lose her face, her arms, and her legs. After her death, we learned this could have all been
prevented had there been a vaccine available." Many Americans, including many minorities, are not familiar with the dangers of meningitis, including how it can quickly kill and maim young children, a columnist writes.
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