Health

Some Pain Relievers May Help Prevent Parkinson's Disease

Regularly taking certain over-the-counter pain relievers may significantly reduce the risk of developing Parkinson's disease, a neurological disorder that afflicts about 500,000 people in the United States.

Most Heart Disease Patients Had One of Four Major Risk Factors

The vast majority of heart disease patients had one of four risk factors, according to two studies contradicting the often-cited figure that only 50 percent of such patients had smoked or suffered high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes.

Panel Cautions Against General Public Getting Smallpox Vaccine

Members of the general public should not get vaccinated against smallpox unless they are part of a carefully monitored study, a committee of scientists said Tuesday in a report.

Costs Rising for Those in Private Medicare Plans

As Congress considers expanding the roll that private plans play in Medicare, a report released Monday by The Commonwealth Fund cautioned that those enrolled in private Medicare+Choice plans have seen their costs double over the past four years.

West Nile Cases Triple in Past Week, CDC Reports

The number of West Nile virus cases in 2003 has tripled since last week and may eventually surpass the total for last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

Pfizer Cracks Down on Drug Reimportation

Less than two weeks after the House passed a bill that would let U.S. consumers buy medicine at lower prices from Canada, Pfizer moved to prevent reimportation of its drugs.

India's AIDS Epidemic

While the HIV infection rate for residents of India's cities has stabilized, increasing numbers of people in rural areas are becoming infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on efforts to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic…

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CDC Reports Rise in HIV Infections in Gay, Bisexual Men

The number of gay and bisexual men in the U.S who tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS jumped 7.1 percent in 2002, while the number of new HIV diagnoses remained stable for other vulnerable groups.

PSA Tests Miss Over Half of All Prostate Cancers, Study Says

The widely used screening test for prostate cancer did not detect most tumors, according to a study published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

One in Ten New HIV Patients in Europe Have Drug-Resisant Strain

Drug resistant strains of HIV were found in almost ten percent of newly diagnosed patients in Europe, researchers said on Wednesday.