| Cultural habits influence oral cancers
Clinicians from the USC School of Dentistry unravel connection between the incidence of oral cancer and race and ethnicity-- as part of first epidemiological study of oral cancer in California. Dr. Satish Kumar and Dr.Parish Sedghizadeh, clinical professors in the school's Division of Diagnostic Sciences, gleaned through 20 years of records from the California Cancer Registry (CCR)-the state's cancer surveillance database-for the incidence rates of invasive squamous cell carcinoma, the most common form of oral cancer. Their findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Oral Radiology and Endodontology and are currently available online at www.ooooe.net. Kumar and Sedghizadeh theorized that groups who engaged in these high-risk behaviors would also experience higher rates of oral cancer.
Clinics far more than last resort
Griselda Ruiz is like thousands of seasonal cannery workers in Stanislaus County. She has employer-provided health insurance when she is sorting vegetables from late August to October, then hopes she doesn't get sick the rest of the year. The Modesto woman was stricken with diabetes when pregnant with one of her two children, and as often happens with gestational diabetes, the disease came back. As her diabetes escalated this past year, Ruiz bought medicine during two trips to Mexico. She sought help at the Golden Valley Health Center on Sixth Street in Modesto last summer after the pills ran out. At the clinic, a test showed her blood sugar was five times above normal and put her at risk of a stroke or going into a diabetic coma. Ruiz, 52, told Marlene Perez, the clinic's health educator, that she hadn't come in sooner because she was unaware of the nonprofit clinic's sliding fee scale.
Public never warned about dangerous device
A young mother in Los Angeles was desperate. A rare form of cancer was ravaging her 5-month-old son. Their doctor said chemotherapy offered the best hope for survival, a 1-in-4 chance. Natalia Campos watched as her baby, Antonio, struggled in pain through the first few treatments. Then she learned of an alternative-therapy clinic that promised a cure, without pain, using a machine called a PAP-IMI. Twice a day at the Bio-Energy Services clinic, Campos held Antonio while the 260-pound machine pulsed powerful electromagnetic waves into the tumor bulging from his neck. The treatments failed, and Antonio died — the victim not only of his cancer, but of what one health official later called a "major national health fraud." The man behind that fraud is Panos Pappas, a math professor from Athens, Greece, who invented the PAP-IMI.
Uganda: Nakaseke Hospital - What is Behind the Health Workers' Strike?
HELL fury has erupted in Nakaseke Hospital. Not the whole hospital, but the gate. About 20 former members of staff demand to be let in. They want to strike. Of the 174 hospital staff, 28 have been transferred to health centres. These include clinical officers, nurses, nursing assistants, pharmacists, administrators and potters. Nakaseke chief administrative officer (CAO), Andrew Kyamanywa, insists the transfers were aimed at improving health centres. "Victimisation, sexual harassment," some transferred staff cry. But what is really happening? The cops are here. Their brief? .
|
