Cancer vaccines are becoming an increasingly attractive focus of study, but there are still perils and pitfalls along the way to success. Two recent studies have looked at ways to get around these, focusing on experimental cancer vaccines boosted by existing drugs. One of the issues that cancer vaccines face is that tumors can hide from Continue Reading
After years of speculation, estimates and projections, the Census Bureau has made it official: White births are no longer a majority in the United States. Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49.6 percent of all births in the 12-month period that ended last July, according to Census Bureau data made public on Thursday, while minorities — including Hispanics, blacks, Continue Reading
Look for a fundamental shift in how scientists hunt ways to ward off the devastation of Alzheimer’s disease — by testing possible therapies in people who don’t yet show many symptoms, before too much of the brain is destroyed. The most ambitious attempt: An international study announced Tuesday will track whether an experimental drug can Continue Reading
Health insurers will gain $1 trillion in new revenue over the next eight years under the 2010 health- care law, assuming it’s upheld by the Supreme Court, according to a Bloomberg Government study. The amount is equal to about one-half percent of the nation’s estimated gross domestic product from 2013 to 2020, and insurers led Continue Reading
Umar, 3, loved to eat chocolate chip cookies and drink orange juice. All of this changed last September when he ingested a lithium button battery. His parents never actually saw him swallow the battery, but they began to get suspicious when they noticed that Umar was particularly lethargic, lying on his bed and breathing but not Continue Reading
Many of us have had to undergo a nuclear stress test for medical purposes. Whether for high blood pressure, irregular heart beat or for chest pains, we get a small amount of radioactive solution injected through an IV. As the nuclear material travels through our veins, a technician follows the radioactive tracer through our veins Continue Reading
Bob Sessions has never had a drop of alcohol in his life. Yet at age 86, the teetotaler is eager to see if a natural compound found in red wine can combat disease. Sessions enrolls Wednesday in a first-of-a-kind government-sponsored study examining whether resveratrol can alter or delay the destruction of the brain in people Continue Reading
Five years ago, as soon as her breast cancer treatment ended, Mindy Saifer Cohen put on the pink. She e-mailed everyone she knew, asking if they’d walk in her name at the annual Race for the Cure. By that first race day, Team Mindy was already a juggernaut. About 120 people marched by her side Continue Reading
When researchers in Oregon finally blamed a norovirus outbreak on a reusable grocery bag, shoppers across the country might have stopped to rethink their habits. After all, doctors say that reusable bags can be a great source for germs. Wegmans would prefer that shoppers keep an open mind — and that they keep washing their reusable bags. Continue Reading
Women who use some non-oral forms of hormonal contraception are at higher risk of blood clots than those not taking any hormone-based birth control, a Danish study suggests. In Friday’s issue of the British Medical Journal, Professor Øjvind Lidegaard at the University of Copenhagen reviewed data on risks of the patches and rings for venous Continue Reading