Month: October 2013
U.N. Security Council urges easier access for Syria aid
By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Building on a fragile unity, the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday urged Syria’s government to allow cross-border aid deliveries and called on combatants in the country’s war to agree humanitarian pauses in fighting and aid convoy routes. Millions of people in Syria are in desperate need of help as a result of a 2-1/2-year civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people, but aid has slowed to a trickle because of violence and excessive red tape. …
Obama welcomes Pope Francis’ remarks on gays, abortion
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Wednesday welcomed Pope Francis' recent remarks that the Catholic Church must shake off an obsession with teachings on abortion, contraception and homosexuals, saying the pontiff was showing incredible humility. "I tell you, I have been hugely impressed with the pope's pronouncements," Obama said in a CNBC interview. Obama has worked to expand gay rights as president and last year backed same-sex marriage. He also supports the use of contraception and a woman's right to an abortion. …
Benefits of a Carbohydrate Rich Diet
Texas experimenting with secret execution drugs -lawsuit
By Jim Forsyth SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) – Three Texas death row inmates claim the state plans to execute them by experimenting with new drugs, never used for such a purpose, that were obtained under false pretenses, attorneys told Reuters on Wednesday. Texas is turning to the new execution drugs in a desperate attempt to keep the United States’ most active execution chamber operating despite dwindling supplies of the drug traditionally used for lethal injections, a lawsuit filed by the inmates says. …
Insurance may narrow race gap in access to surgery
By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Wider insurance coverage erased racial differences in who got minimally invasive surgery in Massachusetts, according to a new study. After the state increased access to insurance in 2006, racial disparities in the proportion of people having gallbladders or appendixes removed with minimally invasive techniques – versus traditional “open” surgery – disappeared, researchers found. “The Massachusetts experience provides a really unique and natural experiment to measure the effect of insurance expansion,” Dr. …
Stressful events linked to fall risk for older men
By Kathleen Raven NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Loss of a loved one, serious financial trouble and other major stressful life events could set older men up for a fall, researchers say. In a new study, men aged 65 and older who experienced stressful events were more likely than men who didn’t to fall during the subsequent year, and multiple stressful events raised men’s chances of taking a tumble even further. Once researchers adjusted for other factors, however, stressful events did not increase the men’s risk of breaking a bone. One in three adults over age 65 falls each year in the U.S. …
Heavy Traffic Delights Obamacare Insurance Sites
Exercise ‘as good as medicines’ in treating heart disease
By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) – Exercise may be just as good as medication to treat heart disease and should be included as a comparison when new drugs are being developed and tested, scientists said on Wednesday. In a large review published in the British Medical Journal, researchers from Britain’s London School of Economics and Harvard and Stanford universities in the United States found no statistically detectable differences between exercise and drugs for patients with coronary heart disease or prediabetes, when a person shows symptoms that may develop into full-blown diabetes. …
After melanoma, people head back to the sun: study
By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People with the most dangerous type of skin cancer tend to stay out of the sun and wear extra sunscreen the year after being diagnosed. But a new small study suggests those precautions don’t last. Two to three years after being diagnosed with melanoma, people spent as many days in the sun and were exposed to at least as much UV radiation as their peers without the disease, researchers found. “Something tells us that they relax more when time passes by after diagnosis,” Dr. …