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California is in the midst of its worst outbreak of whooping cough in a half-century. More than 2,700 cases have been reported so far this year — eight times last year's number at this point. Seven of the victims, all infants, have died. And here's what really worries pediatricians like UCLA's Harvey Karp: Doctors thought they wiped out whooping cough when they developed vaccines decades ago. The disease hits young children hardest, especially ones who are not vaccinated or who have not yet built up full immunity. The prescribed vaccination regimen begins with a shot at two months and continues...

Every five years, the federal Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services revise their Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a publication that sets the direction for federal nutrition-education programs. In an age when aggressive government agencies in places like New York City seek a greater hand in shaping Americans’ diets, the next set of guidelines, published later this year, could prove more controversial than usual because increasing scientific evidence suggests that some current federal recommendations have simply been wrong. Will a public-health establishment that has been slow to admit its mistakes over the years acknowledge the new research...

Los Angeles County public health and U.S. Forest Service officials have closed the Los Alamos Campground in the Angeles National Forest after a California ground squirrel captured two weeks ago tested positive for plague. The camp, between Gorman and Pyramid Lake, was closed Saturday afternoon and will remain closed for at least 10 days, said Jonathan Fielding, the county's public health director. Squirrel burrows in the area will be dusted for fleas, and further testing will be conducted before the campground is reopened. "We're fortunate to have caught this," Fielding said. "This case now is about prevention." Plague is a...

Even before the doors opened on the $1.02-billion Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center many observers warned that the new hospital was too small. Now, more than a year and a half of experience appears to confirm it. The overcrowding has become so intense that health officials asked county Supervisor Gloria Molina eight months ago what she would think if the hospital began placing patients in the hallways, the supervisor recalled in an interview. "I said, 'Absolutely not. We will not have patients in the hallway,' " Molina said. Instead, County- USC officials have increased patient transfers to other hospitals. Despite...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-establishing-national-prevention-health-promotion-and-public-health Home • Briefing Room • Presidential Actions • Executive Orders The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 10, 2010 Executive Order-- Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council EXECUTIVE ORDER ESTABLISHING THE NATIONAL PREVENTION, HEALTH PROMOTION, AND PUBLIC HEALTH COUNCIL By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 4001 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148), it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Establishment. There...

Following two days of testimony, a federal panel Friday voted against recommending changes to ease the current blood donation restrictions for gay men, saying more research was needed to help “create a road map forward” for future change. By a 9-6 vote, members of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability agreed to continue the current donor policy which rejects blood donations from any man who has had sex with another man — a category know as "MSM" — even once in the past 33 years. Gay rights groups and others...

During past recessions, the financial stability of hospitals seemed to be nearly indestructible. But researchers at the University of Michigan Health System and St. Joseph Mercy Health System say the current national economic crisis may be an exception. Hospitals are reporting declining profits, likely as a result of Americans losing health insurance as they lose jobs. As a result, hospital plans for renovation and new construction are being scrapped, and hospitals are being forced to reduce hospital staff, according to an analysis in the just-released May/June issue of the Journal of Hospital Medicine. The researchers speculate hospital cutbacks may risk...

Groups urge government to lift lifetime restriction Should gay men be allowed to donate blood? A government health committee is re-examining that question today. A regulation created at the height of the 1980s' AIDS epidemic banned men who have had sex with another man since 1977 from ever giving blood. Advocacy groups, blood-collection organizations and some members of Congress are calling for the Food and Drug Administration to revise the lifetime ban, which has been reviewed twice in the past 10 years, but left unchanged.

More than two dozen cases of locally-acquired dengue fever have hit the resort town of Key West , Fla., in the past nine months, officials from the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Lesbians, gays and bisexuals in California are almost twice as likely to experience intimate partner violence as heterosexuals, researchers said. Elaine Zahnd, a sociologist at the Public Health Institute, partnered with the University of California, Los Angeles, Center for Health Policy Research in conducting the California Health Interview Survey, which found almost 4 million adults in California reported being a victim of physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner. One-quarter of the 4 million report being forced by their intimate partner to have sex, the researchers said. Almost 28 percent of lesbian or gay adults in California report intimate...

A potentially deadly strain of fungus is spreading among animals and people in the northwestern United States and the Canadian province of British Columbia, researchers reported on Thursday. The airborne fungus, called Cryptococcus gattii, usually only infects transplant and AIDS patients and people with otherwise compromised immune systems, but the new strain is genetically different, the researchers said. "This novel fungus is worrisome because it appears to be a threat to otherwise healthy people," said Edmond Byrnes of Duke University in North Carolina, who led the study. "The findings presented here document that the outbreak of C. gattii in Western...

The UK Department of Health recently announced that it would loosen hygiene rules for Muslim and Sikh doctors and nurses. From now on, Muslim female staff will not need to wash their hands before procedures as it compromises their modesty. Instead, they will have the admittedly less sanitary option of wearing disposable plastic over-sleeves. Acknowledging the danger of microbes and death, a Department of Health spokesman said, “The guidance is intended to . . . balance infection control measures with cultural beliefs.” But, believe it or not, from a culturist perspective, the death of some patients is not the main...

While the Obama Administration and its "progressive" supporters in Congress insist they want a federal health care bill to protect people from deadly diseases, liberal senators led by John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.) have pressured the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) into considering lifting the ban on male homosexuals donating blood. It's a decision that could mean disease and death for many Americans, and billions of dollars in additional health care costs. "John Kerry Supports Gay Blood" declared a column on a pro-homosexual website. Kerry, Franken and 16 other liberal senators insist they want the blood supply...

CDC Analysis Provides New Look at Disproportionate Impact of HIV and Syphilis Among U.S. Gay and Bisexual Men A data analysis released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention underscores the disproportionate impact of HIV and syphilis among gay and bisexual men in the United States. The data, presented at CDC's 2010 National STD Prevention Conference, finds that the rate of new HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men (MSM) is more than 44 times that of other men and more than 40 times that of women. While CDC data have shown for several years that...

"It speaks of regular and reserve Officers, scholarships, loans, obligated service, individual contracts, training centers, the traditional income redistribution scheme of grants and grant proposals, etc. The debt repayment provisions are especially attractive to certain sectors of our population. It appears to be an indentured servitude gig. You sign up, do your part for nationalizing health care and the Corps will get the American taxpayer to foot the bill for your training and educational costs and retire your debts. Of course, if pinned down, I'm sure this will be characterized as a draft, a proposal, need to modify, hasn't been...

Sen. John Kerry is slamming the Food and Drug Administration with letters, demanding that it justify and reconsider its "outdated" ban on blood donation by men who have sex with men. According to the FDA policy, homosexual men are banned from donating blood if they have had sexual intercourse with a male since 1977. Kerry, D-Mass., and 17 other Democratic lawmakers asked FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to reverse the policy in a March 4 letter. "Not a single piece of scientific evidence supports the ban." Kerry wrote. "A law that was once considered medically justified is today simply outdated and...

This has been a flu season like few others. Normally at this time of year, influenza is rampant in the U.S., prompting hundreds of thousands of people to stay home in the dead of winter with fever, aches and pains. Now, after raging through college campuses and communities last summer and fall, cases of the new H1N1 swine flu virus have dwindled to a trickle, and run-of-the-mill seasonal flu has barely made an appearance. Not one state reported widespread flu illness to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the week ended Feb. 20, the latest data available. The...

VANCOUVER -- Health officials confirmed Friday a crew member has a case of leprosy aboard a cruise ship anchored in the city's harbour that houses police and Canadian Forces personnel providing security for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is curable and is not considered highly contagious, said provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall. He said the young crew member worked in the engine room and did not have contact with police or military. The crew member, who is not a Canadian citizen, was diagnosed Thursday and has received treatment, he said. "I think he's gone...

United States' Largest Outbreak In Years Ransacks Hasidic Jewish Communities In Rockland County NEW YORK (CBS) ― More than 300 people have been diagnosed with the mumps in suburban New York as the nation's largest outbreak of the disease in years continues to spread. A health official says a total of 303 people in the Rockland County towns of Monsey and New Square have been diagnosed with the highly infectious disease. Almost all the cases are among Orthodox or Hasidic Jews. Investigators say the outbreak started in August 2009 at a Jewish summer camp in Sullivan County with an 11-year-old...

LANTANA, Fla. – It started with a cough, an autumn hack that refused to go away. Then came the fevers. They bathed and chilled the skinny frame of Oswaldo Juarez, a 19-year-old Peruvian visiting to study English. His lungs clattered, his chest tightened and he ached with every gasp. During a wheezing fit at 4 a.m., Juarez felt a warm knot rise from his throat. He ran to the bathroom sink and spewed a mouthful of blood. I'm dying, he told himself, "because when you cough blood, it's something really bad." It was really bad, and not just for him....