Month: August 2014

By Christina Farr SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc has been discussing how its "HealthKit" service will work with health providers at Mount Sinai, the Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins as well as with Allscripts, a competitor to electronic health records provider Epic Systems, people familiar with the discussions said. While the talks may not amount to anything concrete, they underscore how Apple is intent on making health data, such as blood pressure, pulse and weight, available for consumers and health providers to view in one place. Currently, this data is being collected by thousands of third-party health care software applications and medical devices, but it isn't centrally stored. Apple also hopes physicians will use this data to better monitor patients between visits – with the patient's consent — so the doctors can make better diagnostic and treatment decisions.

A U.S. missionary being treated for Ebola and her quarantined husband could still return to Liberia after her recovery and his temporary isolation, their son said. In an interview on NBC’s “Today” show on Tuesday, Jeremy Writebol said his parents, David and Nancy, still feel called to serve and could return to their Christian mission work in West Africa. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based couple were in Liberia along with other Christian missionaries helping to care for patients at a SIM USA hospital on Monrovia amid the worst outbreak of the Ebola virus on record. Nancy Writebol returned last week and is being treated for Ebola in isolation at Emory University’s hospital in Atlanta.

By Dan Williams GROUND FORCES COMMAND BASE Israel (Reuters) – Israel fired almost five times more artillery shells into Gaza during the last month of fighting than in the 2008-2009 war there but did not use controversial white phosphorous this time around, an Israeli general said on Tuesday. Criticized by human rights groups after the previous conflict for posing a burn risk to civilians by shelling the congested Palestinian enclave with white phosphorous to create smoke-screens, Israel said last year it was phasing out those rounds. …

An elderly Spanish priest became the first European to die from a fast-spreading Ebola outbreak on Tuesday, succumbing to the virus in a Madrid hospital five days after being evacuated from Liberia. The 75-year-old Roman Catholic priest, Miguel Pajares, had been treated in Spain with an experimental US serum, ZMapp, after being flown to Madrid on August 7. He was the first patient to be evacuated to Europe from the African outbreak, which has claimed 1,013 lives since early this year, according to the World Health Organisation. The Spanish priest contracted Ebola at the Saint Joseph Hospital in the Liberian capital Monrovia where he worked with infected patients.

MADRID (AP) — A Spanish missionary priest being treated for Ebola died Tuesday in a Madrid hospital amid a worldwide debate over who should get experimental Ebola treatments.

The United States will provide approximately $180 million on Tuesday to help feed the people of South Sudan, the White House said, citing a risk of famine there. "The people of South Sudan are suffering because of the inability of South Sudan’s leaders to put their people’s interests above their own," U.S. national security adviser Susan Rice said in a statement.

In 1990, I lost more than 100 pounds. … I discovered "The Choose to Lose Diet: A Food Lover's Guide to Permanent Weight Loss," a low-fat, weight–loss diet. … They made a boatload of bucks (and still do); I jeopardized my health.

By Clair MacDougall and Daniel Flynn MONROVIA/DAKAR (Reuters) – Liberia said on Tuesday it would treat two infected doctors with the scarce experimental Ebola drug ZMapp, the first Africans to receive the treatment, while authorities in Spain said a 75-year-old priest had died of the disease. The death toll from the worst ever outbreak of the highly contagious disease has climbed to 1,013 since it was discovered in remote southeastern Guinea in March, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It said ZMapp doses were very scarce, raising ethical questions of who should have priority. …

By Barbara Goldberg NEW YORK (Reuters) – Yanking a bicycle from the docking station outside New York's Grand Central Terminal, a helmetless rider slung a golf bag full of clubs over his shoulder and, along with another rider wearing headphones but no helmet, merged into rush hour traffic. Against all odds – including novice riders, refusal to wear bike helmets and the daily crush of weaving, horn-blaring traffic – not a single rider in New York City's bike share program has been killed since it launched in May 2013, a Citi Bike representative said. …