Month: August 2014

By Will Boggs MD NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – New guidelines from the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association would change the way doctors prescribe cholesterol-lowing statin drugs, but not every doctor agrees with the new strategy. Under the old guidelines, the statin dose depended on how much it took to get a person’s blood cholesterol levels into a certain target range. Under the new guidelines, which were issued last year, once someone qualifies for statin therapy, the dose should be determined by the person’s risk of cardiovascular disease and not according to how cholesterol levels respond to treatment.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agents at U.S. airports are watching travelers from Africa for flu-like symptoms that could be tied to the recent Ebola outbreak, as delegations from some 50 countries arrive in the nation's capital for a leadership summit this week.

By Courtney Sherwood PORTLAND Ore. (Reuters) – Supporters of a recreational marijuana ballot initiative in Oregon have raised $1 million in their effort to legalize, regulate and tax use of the drug by adults, campaign finance documents showed on Monday. The state said last month the initiative qualified for the November ballot, meaning Oregon could become only the third U.S. state after Colorado and Washington to allow recreational pot use. According to the campaign finance records released by the state, the largest donations by individuals came from out-of-state, with Philip Harvey, a Washington, D.C.-based libertarian activist, giving $150,000 to the legalization effort, and New York fragrance heir Henry van Ameringen giving $100,000. The group behind the legalization drive hopes to raise much more money before voters consider the issue, said Peter Zuckerman, spokesman for New Approach Oregon.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Where a woman delivers her baby can make a major difference to her own health — a quality gap that remains largely hidden from mothers-to-be.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York City hospital is testing a patient who traveled to a West African nation where Ebola has been reported, local media reported on Monday. Mount Sinai Hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side said the male patient, who had a high fever and gastrointestinal symptoms, had been placed in strict isolation and was being screened to determine the cause of his symptoms, according to reports. (Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Frank McGurty)

The World Health Organization said Monday the death toll from the Ebola epidemic in west Africa has now reached 887 after 61 more fatalities recorded at the end of last week. Giving an update on the deadly virus — the worst Ebola outbreak ever — the UN health agency said the 61 deaths were reported between last Thursday and Friday in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. According to the latest WHO tally, which includes both laboratory-confirmed and suspect cases, Guinea saw 13 new cases and 12 deaths last Thursday and Friday, Liberia, 77 new cases and 28 deaths, while Sierra Leone saw 72 new cases and 21 fatalities. WHO Director General Margaret Chan has warned that the response of some of the affected countries to the epidemic had been "woefully inadequate", and that the outbreak has been "moving faster than our efforts to control it".