Free Republic

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is having a “minor, unscheduled” medical procedure to address recurring back problems, spokesman Michael Steel said Wednesday. Boehner, 64, was in the Capitol on Tuesday and not in any obvious discomfort when speaking to reporters. Steel would not provide further details on his procedure. The Speaker had been scheduled to attend a Holocaust remembrance ceremony in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, where congressional leaders are dedicating a tree in honor of Anne Frank. Boehner’s back problems date to when he tended his family’s bar as a young man, and he had surgery at the Cleveland Clinic about...

Victims of chronic back pain were offered fresh hope with news of successful 'spinal transplant' surgery. Spinal discs from accident victims were transplanted into patients with disc degeneration in the cervical spine, the area nearest the neck. All reported improvements in their mobility and a reduction in symptoms such as weakness of the legs and bladder. A report in The Lancet says the pioneering treatment, carried out in China, offers hope for thousands of sufferers of severe disc problems, particularly young people. They often cannot be helped by existing treatments such as spinal fusion - which surgically joins bones in...