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He won the hearts of San Francisco five months ago, when the city morphed into Gotham City to lift the spirits of a 5-year-old battling leukemia. And Batkid still evoked strong emotions when he took the mound at the Giants home opener at AT&T Park on Tuesday against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The tiny superhero, aka Miles Scott of Siskyou County, threw the first pitch at the game, where the Giants were victorious, 7-3. An especially poignant image was when the little boy dressed all in black held hands with pitcher Matt Cain on the field. SF Morphs Into Gotham City...

<p>WASHINGTON — Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo is pushing a bill in Congress that would shift responsibility for any labeling of genetically modified foods to the hands of the federal government, potentially stopping the efforts underway in many states to mandate labels on such foods.</p>

President Obama took a victory lap on Tuesday, celebrating 7 million Obamacare enrollees. Let’s take a look at this success. President Obama and the Democrats pushed through their signature domestic policy stating the “Affordable” Care Act would cover “every American.” They have used the figure of “48 million uninsured Americans.” To date, Obamacare has then enrolled less than 2 percent of those uninsured Americans. “It’s working!” exclaimed the president. The Rand Corporation crunched the numbers and discovered only 858,000 people of the 7 million enrollees have actually paid their premiums, which is required to actually be covered.

Researchers at Stanford University have designed a new technique that may soon make this a reality. Tumours are called 'solid' or 'liquid' based on where in the body they grow. More than 80 percent of all cancers are caused by solid tumours that grow as a mass of cells in particular organ, tissue or gland. The new technique called CAPP-Seq (cancer personalised profiling by deep sequencing) is sensitive enough to detect just one molecule of tumour DNA in a sea of 10,000 healthy DNA molecules in the blood.

Australian researchers published findings this week on a newly-discovered plant compound that destroys cancer cells, but leaves healthy cells unharmed. They found it in possibly the last place you'd look for a cancer cure: the family of plants that brings us cancer's number-one culprit, tobacco.

A new report from the Medical University of Graz in Austria presents evidence that the “vegan” lifestyle is actually dangerous. The study found that purely vegetarian diets lead to poorer general health and a diminished quality of life marred by both physical and mental problems. In spite of the vegan tendency to smoke less if at all; have higher socioeconomic achievement, eat less fat, get more exercise, eat more veggies and fruits and drink less alcohol they do not have a better life style by objective standards. Vegans suffer from higher rates of cancer; are twice as likely to be...

When Maureen Burns’ 9-year-old dog, Max, started to act strangely, she worried that her beloved pet was sick. Turns out that Burns herself was ill—and Max knew it. In a video shared by BBC Earth, Burns describes the “odd signs” that Max started to exhibit. "The odd signs were when he would come up and touch my breast with his nose, and back off so desperately unhappy with such a sad look in his eyes," Burns said in the video. It turns out that Burns had a lump in her breast, undetected by her last mammogram. She then decided to...

Remember Julie Boonstra? She’s the single mother fighting leukemia who appeared in an anti-Obamacare television ad running in Michigan: (see video at link) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid assailed Ms. Boonstra, and others like her, in a breathtakingly mean-spirited floor speech — going so far as to say that “all” of their negative experiences were “untrue” and “lies.” Reid now claims he doesn’t remember saying any such thing, but there’s video tape: (see Reid video at link) In his effort to discredit Boonstra, Reid relied on a Washington Post “fact check,” which effectively ruled her story half true. In fact,...

Welcome to your feel-bad story of the month. Remember Julie Boonstra? She’s the single mother fighting leukemia who appeared in an anti-Obamacare television ad running in Michigan:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEOS Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid assailed Ms. Boonstra, and others like her, in a breathtakingly mean-spirited floor speech — going so far as to say that “all” of their negative experiences were “untrue” and “lies.” Reid now claims he doesn’t remember saying any such thing, but there’s video tape: In his effort to discredit Boonstra, Reid relied on a Washington Post “fact check,” which effectively ruled her story...

Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is battling cancer and will retire at the end of his term.... When Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., pointed out that the majority of cancer centers in the country aren´t covered under Obamacare while arguing that the law´s problems go beyond early website issues, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., dismissed the critique as too "in the weeds." Coburn, a medical doctor battling cancer, panned the coverage offered to cancer patients. "Nineteen of the cancer centers in this country, only five are covered under Obamacare," he told the Washington Examiner Tuesday, a data point he

Our Noel Sheppard passed away yesterday (Friday) morning at about 5:00 AM. Say a prayer for the soul of a man we'll all miss professionally, and many, many of us will miss personally as well. Noel was not just a force of nature, he was a very good man. How quickly this all happened. Just two months ago, Noel wrote about suddenly getting cancer at 53 called "Cancer's Ray of Hope." Nine days ago, he wrote us and said he was interested in writing about his "progress" -- and he put "progress" in quotes. We were all wishing for better...

As barbecue season approaches, researchers have discovered an unlikely ingredient that could improve the safety of your meat - letting it swill in beer. They say that letting meat marindade in pilsner can help reduce the formation of potentially harmful cancer-causing substances in grilled meats. They say pilsner and black beer are most effective, halving the amount of Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which have been linked to colorectal cancer.

Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly is preparing for another surgery related to his oral cancer. ... On her personal website, Kelly’s wife wrote that “the cancer’s back, aggressive, and starting to spread.”

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have discovered that a substance called Vacquinol-1 makes cells from glioblastoma, the most aggressive type of brain tumour, literally explode. When mice were given the substance, which can be given in tablet form, tumour growth was reversed and survival was prolonged. The findings are published in the journal Cell . The established treatments that are available for glioblastoma include surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. But even if this treatment is given the average survival is just 15 months. It is therefore critical to find better treatments for malignant brain tumours. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and...

Obamacare patients are discovering that many doctors, hospitals, and top cancer centers do not accept the plans they purchased. "It's so frustrating," Terri Durheim of Enid, Okla.,told CNN. "It's not doing me a lot of good." Durheim is not alone. Obamacare's so-called "narrow networks" are designed to limit customer choices to push patients into cheaper choices in an effort to control costs. Earlier this year Washington Post health writer Sarah Kliffwarned that "Obamacare's narrow networks are going to make people furious – but they might control costs." A McKinsey and Co. study finds that more than one in three (38%) Obamacare plans permit patients to select...

The first symptoms of throat and mouth cancer -- also known as oropharyngeal cancer -- may differ depending on whether the condition is caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), a small study suggests. Oropharyngeal cancer arises in the throat, soft palate, tonsils or base of the tongue. Smoking is a major risk factor, as is chronic infection with certain strains of HPV -- which causes warts in the genitals, mouth and anus, and is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States. Although oropharyngeal cancer is relatively uncommon, the rate of HPV-linked cases has been rising -- particularly...

Erin Youngerberg learned in 2010 that she was facing a possible death sentence. “I had a mole on my back that started to grow,’’ she told The Post. “Dermatologists removed it and said it was nothing. But they called back and said it was a form of melanoma.’’ And it was the worst possible type of the skin cancer — the kind that causes tumors to grow all over the body. But she has new hope — thanks to a remarkable drug called Yervoy, developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center using millions of dollars donated by billionaire David Koch.

Hal Douglas, the voice behind scores of movie trailers and television commercials, died Thursday. The Connecticut-born voice actor died in his home in Lovettsville, Va., of complications from pancreatic cancer — his daughter, Sarah Douglas, confirmed to TMZ. Douglas was 89 years old. The voice artist enjoyed a career spanning over several decades, lending his voice to trailers and roles in movies like "Forrest Gump," "Lethal Weapon," and "The Holiday." “I’m not outstanding in any way,” he told The New York Times in 2009. “It’s a craft that you learn, like making a good pair of shoes. And I just...

A pediatric cancer charity is offering to pay for 7-year-old cancer survivor Josh Hardy to receive lifesaving medication that could cure him of a potentially deadly virus. But Chimerix, the pharmaceutical company that produces the medication, is still refusing to give Josh the treatment he so desperately needs. In fact, a representative for the charity said he tried speaking with Chimerix CEO Kenneth Moch about Josh's case - but Moch hung up on him. **SNIP** Josh’s mother, Aimee Hardy, has appealed to Moch to grant Josh emergency access to the medication, but the company is refusing to make an exception....

imee Hardy says her son is in agony. He has battled cancer on and off, and now he's in jeopardy again due to complications from a bone marrow transplant. Doctors believe Brincidofovir could save his life, but the maker of the drug won't provide it. Chimerix is the company that makes Brincidofovir. They're facing a major ethical dilemma because they say there are hundreds if not thousands of people who need it, but if they give it to patients like Josh, it will slow down their efforts to make it widely available. They hope that will happen in 2016 if...