Month: May 2013

Patients, Staff at Moore Medical Center Uninjured in Tornado

The atmosphere never gets a moment’s privacy. It can barely stir enough to move a leaf without some piece of high-tech equipment—often many, many pieces—knowing about it. The U.S. alone has up to 30 satellites at any one moment that devote at least part of their time to monitoring global and national weather patterns; 122 Doppler radar systems scattered across the country looking up from the ground; and a web of computers that just got a massive upgrade—increasing their data-crunching capacity 30-fold—to process the information that all that other hardware gathers.

By Dan Whitcomb (Reuters) – A federal appeals court struck down an Arizona law on Tuesday that bans abortions from 20 weeks gestation, saying it violated “unalterably clear” U.S. Supreme Court rulings that women have a right to terminate pregnancies until a fetus is viable. The decision by a three-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals in San Francisco, which overturned the ruling of a federal district court judge, was hailed by abortion rights groups as a “huge victory” in a state they say has taken one of the nation’s toughest stances on the issue. …

Right now the death toll from the massive tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma on May 20 seems—thankfully—to be less than first thought. City officials now say that 24 people have been confirmed dead, down from 51 people last night, due to double counting of some bodies in the confusion. But the new number still includes 9 children, and the toll could rise as rescuers search through the rubble.

(Reuters) – Amag Pharmaceuticals Inc said its marketing partner in Switzerland, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, is recalling a batch of Amag’s anemia drug, Rienso, because of a death and several cases of hypersensitivity. Amag shares were down about 5 percent at $23.75 in after-market trading on Tuesday. “The batch was only distributed to and sold in Switzerland and the recall is limited to the specific batch and specifically Switzerland,” Lexington, Massachusetts-based Amag said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday. (http://r.reuters. …

By Corrie MacLaggan AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – The Texas House passed a measure on Tuesday that would prevent the state from expanding its Medicaid program as outlined by President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law. Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican, notified the Obama administration last summer that his state would not expand Medicaid, and he reiterated his opposition at an April press conference at which he called expansion “foolish. …

Frown lines, forehead creases and crow’s-feet, oh my! If the rise in Botox procedures is any indication, the fountain of youth might be found in a syringe, even for 20-somethings whose signs of aging are invisible to the naked eye.        

Shooting the Wheeze: Whooping Cough Vaccine Falls Short of Previous Shot s Protection