Free Republic

A 29-year-old terminal cancer sufferer who had previously spoken of her right to die has ended her own life surrounded by her family. According to friends and family of Brittany Maynard, she passed away in her Portland, Oregon, home after her condition worsened and the tumor took over. However she was able to choose to die before she lost her ability to function. People.com said she wrote on Facebook : 'Goodbye to all my dear friends and family that I love. 'Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness,...

SHELBY COUNTY, TN - (WMC) - With concerns over the spreading Enterovirus, Shelby County health leaders are also preparing for a possible outbreak of the flu. October is about the time of year that doctors start seeing more flu cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That is why the emergency room at Regional Medical Center and more than a dozen Mid-South hospitals will be packed with fake patients on Wednesday. High school and medical reserve corps volunteers will be transported in masses to at least 18 Mid-South hospitals, all with fake flu symptoms. The Shelby County Health Department...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Health officials are investigating nine cases of muscle weakness or paralysis in Colorado children and whether the culprit might be a virus causing severe respiratory illness across the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday sent doctors an alert about the polio-like cases and said the germ - enterovirus 68 - was detected in four out of eight of the sick children who had a certain medical test. The status of the ninth case is unclear. The virus can cause paralysis but other germs can, too. Health officials don't know whether the virus...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has an unspecified medical problem, state media report, after he failed to appear at a key political event. A report on state television said on Thursday that Mr Kim, 31, was in an "uncomfortable physical condition" but gave no details. Earlier, the leader was absent from a session of the Supreme People's Assembly - North Korea's legislature. Mr Kim has not been seen in public for more than three weeks. His non-appearance at the SPA - to which he was elected in March with 100% of the vote - on Thursday prompted renewed speculation about...

The mysterious respiratory illness enterovirus has spread to more than half the United States — with symptoms ranging from mild colds to serious breathing problems, health officials said. Since mid-August, 175 people across 27 states have been diagnosed with the sickness caused by the enterovirus D68, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The enterovirus, a more virulent strain of the virus that causes the common cold, can lead to fever, sneezing and coughing in mild cases. Hospitalization for breathing difficulties and wheezing is required in more severe cases....

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Enterovirus D68 is likely coming -- if it hasn't already -- to a state near you. Since mid-August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed 140 cases of respiratory illness caused by Enterovirus D68 in 16 states: Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Virginia. New Jersey also has confirmed a case of EV-D68, according to Donna Leusner, director of communications for the New Jersey Department of Health. And "in the upcoming weeks, more states will have confirmed cases of EV-D68 infection," the CDC said in a statement...

Experimental drugs and airport screenings will do nothing to stop this plague. If Ebola hits Lagos, we're in real trouble. Attention, World: You just don't get it. You think there are magic bullets in some rich country's freezers that will instantly stop the relentless spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa? You think airport security guards in Los Angeles can look a traveler in the eyes and see infection, blocking that jet passenger's entry into La-la-land? You believe novelist Dan Brown's utterly absurd description of a World Health Organization that has a private C5-A military transport jet and disease...

Ebola can be contained, President Obama stressed, addressing the press at the U.S.-Africa Summit Wednesday. “What we do know is that the Ebola virus, both currently and in the past, is controllable if you have a strong public health infrastructure in place,” Obama said when asked about experimental Ebola treatments, explaining it would be premature to address them as not all the science “is in.”

The deadly Ebola epidemic engulfing three West African countries is "out of control," health experts at the Council on Foreign Relations said Tuesday.. The virus, which has claimed almost 900 lives since March, hasn't "ever been in control" since Ebola was first discovered in 1976, said Laurie Garrett, CFR's senior fellow for global health. Garrett spoke on a conference call with reporters as the second American infected with Ebola in Africa arrived in Atlanta for treatment under strict quarantine, and a day after a patient in New York City was tested for the disease. City health authorities concluded the patient...

Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are going through the worst Ebola outbreak in history and health officials believe that it has killed more than 700 people there. Now, for the first time, Ebola has entered the United Sates via two health aid workers that contracted the disease while working in Africa where the Ebola outbreak continues. Ebola in the U.S. The first patient landed in the United States on Saturday, August 2, 2014. Dr. Kent Brantly was then flown from Africa to the United States and then transported via ambulance to Emory University Hospital. The second person, Nancy Whitebol, will...

Dr. Elaina George, an ear, nose, throat and chest specialist from Atlanta, told Charles Payne on FOX News today that the US could be facing a health crisis as the thousands of newly illegal children enter the classrooms this fall. “There’s an example in Maryland, where parents got a letter from the school that there children had been exposed to an illegal child who had TB who was one of their classmates. So this fall it is potentially possible that these children entering the school systems could be carrying all sorts of things, diseases that are not on the radar.”...

A border patrol agent was diagnosed with scabies after processing undocumented immigrants in Otay Mesa, California, the agent's union representative said. Ronald Zermeno, health and safety director for the National Border Control Council union, said the agent told him that he observed several people with open sores while screening them in preparation to be released to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Scabies is caused by a mite that burrows into skin and lays eggs, causing an intense itching and rash, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The future scares a lot of people. Climate change, a growing population, and fewer natural resources will certainly pose new challenges for the human race in the next few decades. But when you consider ongoing social and economic progress and all of the coming innovations in science and technology, there’s plenty of room for optimism. We’ve pulled out some of our favorite ideas about the future of our world. Child mortality rates will be vastly lower. During the 20th century, the sharpest declined in mortality involved deaths of children under 5 years old, according to the assessment on human health...

Scientists at the University of East Anglia have made a breakthrough in the race to solve antibiotic resistance. New research published today in the journal Nature reveals an Achilles’ heel in the defensive barrier which surrounds drug-resistant bacterial cells. The findings pave the way for a new wave of drugs that kill superbugs by bringing down their defensive walls rather than attacking the bacteria itself. It means that in future, bacteria may not develop drug-resistance at all. The discovery doesn’t come a moment too soon. The World Health Organization has warned that antibiotic-resistance in bacteria is spreading globally, causing severe...

Stephanie Nebehay and Saliou Samb, ReutersMay 28, 2014, 10:49 AM Guinea's capital Conakry has recorded its first new Ebola cases in more than a month, while other previously unaffected areas have also reported infections in the past week, according to the World Health Organization. The spread of the two-month-old outbreak, which Guinean authorities had said had been contained, risks further complicating the fight against the virus in a region already struggling with weak healthcare systems and porous borders. "The situation is serious, you can't say it is under control as cases are continuing and it is spreading geographically," Dr Pierre...

Type 2 diabetes could cause the brain to age by up to two years every decade a person has the disease, researchers have claimed. It is the first time diabetes has been linked to a change in the size of the brain. The study also found that, contrary to common clinical belief, diabetes may not be directly associated with small vessel ischemic disease, where the brain does not receive enough oxygenated blood. 'We found that patients having more severe diabetes had less brain tissue, suggesting brain atrophy,' said lead author R. Nick Bryan, M.D., Ph.D., professor of radiology at the...

Much-Needed Tool for Neuroscience Emerges After Years of Work.Nearly a decade ago, the era of optogenetics was ushered in with the development of channelrhodopsins, light-activated ion channels that can, with the flick of a switch, instantaneously turn on neurons in which they are genetically expressed. What has lagged behind, however, is the ability to use light to inactivate neurons with an equal level of reliability and efficiency. Now, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientists have used an analysis of channelrhodopsin’s molecular structure to guide a series of genetic mutations to the ion channel that grant the power to silence neurons...

TRES RIOS, Costa Rica (AP) — On a warm spring day, Floribeth Mora was in her bed waiting to die from a seemingly inoperable brain aneurysm when her gaze fell upon a photograph of Pope John Paul II in a newspaper. "Stand up," Mora recalls the image of the pope saying to her. "Don't be afraid." Mora, her doctors and the Catholic Church say her aneurysm disappeared that day in a miracle that cleared the way for the late pope to be declared a saint on April 27 in a ceremony at the Vatican where Mora will be a guest...

Black and Asian families are significantly healthier than white people, official figures suggest. A study found that one in three people from white families had long-standing illnesses, compared to only one in five of those from non-white ethnic groups. White people were almost twice as likely as black and Asian people to have long-term illnesses which limit their lifestyle, the research suggests. The figures, released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show that 36 percent of people from white ethnic groups had long-standing illnesses, while among non-white groups the proportion was 21 percent. …

Bad infection in my right leg. Went to the local VA Clinic a week ago and the physician insisted that I be rushed to the local emergency room to check for a blood clot. Hours later - no blood clot found, so ER doctor prescribed two antibiotics. Have been on them for a week now and while they've tamped the infection down, they aren't defeating it. So I've pleaded with the VA Clinic to please give me the antibiotics that have successfully fought it in the past. I'm still waiting to hear back. Meanwhile, lots of pain.