Year: 2014

By Kathryn Doyle NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Black and Latina breast cancer patients were more than twice as likely as white women to have lingering medical debt and to skip treatments because of costs, according to a new U.S. study. “Although we were able to control for factors such as overall household income in this study, it is likely that other disparities and challenges faced by minority populations persist in our society even today, contributing to the differences observed,” author Dr. Reshma Jagsi told Reuters Health by email. That group included nine percent of the white women participating in the survey, compared to 10 percent of the Spanish-speaking Latinas, 17 percent of the English-speaking Latinas and 15 percent of the black women, according to the results in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. About 35 percent of the women reported spending $2,000 or more out-of-pocket on cancer treatments, and 17 percent spent more than $5,000.

Although the research wasn’t specifically looking at people who were trying to lose weight, it “indicates that single-serving packages may help overweight individuals,” author Hollie A. Raynor told Reuters Health by email. Some were overweight and some were healthy weight, and some were watching their food intake while others were not. Half the participants received a box of 20 single-serving packs of pretzels, each just under one ounce. The rest received two standard-size bags of pretzels, each ten ounces.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seemingly divided, the Supreme Court struggled Tuesday with the question of whether companies have religious rights, a case challenging President Barack Obama's health overhaul and its guarantee of birth control in employees' preventive care plans.

By Shereen Jegtvig NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Teenage boys who played football, basketball or both were about twice as likely as other boys to have recently abused their girlfriends in a new study from California. Researchers say the “hypermasculine” attitudes encouraged in some sports may foster aggression off the field, but the locker room can also be a place to teach boys about healthy relationships and avoiding violence. “We need to create a safe place for our youth to discuss healthy masculinity, healthy relationships and the idea that violence never equals strength,” said Heather McCauley, a researcher at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, who led the study. In the U.S., women experience 2 million injuries from intimate partner violence each year, and nearly one quarter of women experience violence by a current or former spouse or boyfriend at some point in their lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

(Reuters) – A passenger train that slammed through its end-of-the-line barrier at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport this week tripped an automatic emergency stop system and was not speeding when it entered the station, a federal investigator said on Tuesday. The crash sent the Chicago Transit Authority train hurtling onto an escalator and stairs at the airport's mass transit station early on Monday. Investigators hope to interview the train operator on Tuesday afternoon and have not reached any conclusions about the cause of the crash, Ted Turpin, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters. The NTSB hopes to release the train on Tuesday to the CTA, which will be responsible for clearing the tracks, Turpin said.