Studies show that texting or talking on the cell phone is the equivalent of drinking and driving.

eHealthSupplies.com , a leading online portal for health and survival products, if offering their customers a 5% discount on all purchases.  Over 500 products to choose from.  Use discount code: labor5off and redeem your discount. visit www.eHealthSupplies.com

Wein Viramasks (Swine Flu Masks)

Wein Air Supply

Waterwise Waterdistillers

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Reports have been coming in tonight that Ted Kennedy has died. He was 77 years of age.

Ted Kennedy was the youngest brother of former President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy, both who were victims of assassination.  Senator Kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer about 1 year ago and has been undergoing treatment for such. He has survived  longer than his doctors expected.

More information coming..

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TedKennedy/story?id=6692022

Swine Flu Could Infect Half of U.S.
Presidential Panel’s Estimate Is First To Gauge Possible Impact of Pandemic

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Swine flu could infect half the U.S. population this fall and winter, hospitalizing up to 1.8 million people and causing as many as 90,000 deaths — more than double the number that occur in an average flu season, according to an estimate from a presidential panel released Monday.

The virus could cause symptoms in 60 million to 120 million people, more than half of whom might seek medical attention, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology estimated in an 86-page report to the White House assessing the government’s response to the first influenza pandemic in 41 years.

Although most of the cases probably would be mild, up to 300,000 people could require intensive care, which could tie up all those beds in some parts of the country at the peak of the outbreak, the council said.

“This is going to be fairly serious,” said Harold E. Varmus of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, co-chair of the 21-member council. “It’s going to stress every aspect of our health system.”

The estimates mark the first time experts have released specific calculations about the possible U.S. impact of the pandemic. The “plausible scenario” is based on previous pandemics and how the swine flu behaved in the United States this spring and during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter over the past few months, said Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard School of Public Health, who helped prepare the estimate...read more here…

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Learn how vitamin D can help prevent swine flu

Studies have shown that exercise is better than heart surgery, or angioplasty.

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(NaturalNews) At the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation meeting recently held in Barcelona, Spain, new heart research was presented that shows one treatment in particular can provide remarkable help for patients with certain forms of serious heart disease. It’s not a new drug or surgical procedure. Instead, it’s a natural therapy — plain old-fashioned regular exercise.

In fact, in several studies just presented at the meeting, exercise reduced the markers of heart disease in patients following coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG). What’s more, it improved indications of disease in people with heart failure, a condition usually thought to be incurable and often just treated with symptom-relieving drugs. But the news that’s perhaps most likely to make some interventional cardiologists’ hearts skip a beat or two was the evidence presented that showed that exercise improved cardiac event-free survival in coronary patients better than angioplasty with stents.

Also called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), angioplasty is commonly used to help people with coronary artery disease whose arteries are narrowed and even blocked by a build-up of sticky plaque. By threading a thin tube through a blood vessel in the arm or groin, interventional cardiologists perform angioplasty to restore blood flood through a clogged artery. A tiny balloon at the end of the tube is inflated when it reaches the exact spot of blockage. That pushes the plaque outward against the walls of the artery, restoring blood flow. A small metal device called a stent is also carried by the tube and deployed at the site of the blockage in order to prop open the artery.

This approach to treating heart disease is a huge business. A report in Bloomberg News last fall noted that about 800,000 angioplasties are performed each year in the U.S. at a cost of about $10 billion annually. And, although many cardiologists consider angioplasty to be the “gold standard” of care in most types of acute coronary events such as heart attack, the procedure’s long term benefits have been questioned by many doctors. In addition, the role of angioplasty in treating other kinds of coronary disease, like angina, isn’t clear....read more here…

Heart Drugs More Cost-Effective Than Angioplasty, Study Finds

By Alex Nussbaum

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) — Artery-opening angioplasty adds $10,125 to a patient’s medical bill without significantly extending life or improving health for someone with chest pain, researchers said.

The figure, released today by the American Heart Association, is the latest finding that prompts some doctors to question the value of angioplasty procedures performed on more than 800,000 U.S. patients each year, at a cost of about $10 billion annually. Half of those are done to treat “stable” angina — temporary chest pains that can be treated with drugs, diet changes and exercise, the study said.

The procedure, in which a heart artery is unclogged with a balloon and propped open with a tiny tube called a stent, costs $34,843, including follow-up care. That compares with $24,718 for a regimen of anti-cholesterol medicines and lifestyle changes, researchers reported in the association’s journal, Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

“Although the difference narrows somewhat over time, it is never made up,” the researchers said in the study. While angioplasties may make sense for heart attack or severe blockages, “medical therapy alone offered better outcome at a lower cost” for those with stable coronary disease.

The results pose a challenge for device makers including Boston Scientific Corp., Abbott Laboratories,Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic Inc., whose revenue from drug-coated stents topped $4 billion in 2007. Sales of the $2,000 tubes have rebounded after falling 30 percent last year amid concerns the products triggered fatal blood clots.

Seven-Year Study

The study, funded by the U.S. and Canadian governments, is the third installment of a seven-year investigation dubbed Courage. Last year, researchers said drugs and lifestyle changes prevented deaths and heart attacks just as well as angioplasty. A report last month found both methods effective at easing chest pains after two years, though angioplasty offered some early advantages.

Most of the increased expense of angioplasty came from the operation itself, which cost $12,162 compared with $752 for the initial drug therapy. After that, follow-up care and medication expenses were about the same.

Angioplasties increased costs by $206,229 per year of extended life, said the researchers, led by William Weintraub, a cardiologist at Christiana Health Care System of Newark, Delaware….read more here…

NEW YORK TIMES CONFIRMS- MICHAEL JACKSON DEAD

FoxNews Reports He Is In Coma–

Pop star Michael Jackson dead: report Reuters Thursday, June 25, 2009 5:56 PM LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop giant Michael Jackson, who took to the stage as a child star and went on to set the world dancing to the thumping rhythms of his music for decades, died Thursday, TMZ website reported. He was 50. “We’ve just learned Michael Jackson has died,” TMZ said. “

Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon and paramedics were unable to revive him. We’re told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back,” the entertainment site said. There was no official confirmation of the reported death and spokespersons for Jackson could not be reached for comment. Earlier, the Los Angeles Times said that the singer had been rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital by fire department paramedics who found him not breathing when they arrived at the singer’s home.

The newspaper said paramedics performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the scene before taking him to the UCLA Medical Center hospital. Jackson had been due to start a series of comeback concerts in London on July 13 running until March 2010. The singer, whose hits include “Thriller” and “Billie Jean,” had been rehearsing in the Los Angeles area for the past two months. The shows for the 50 London concerts sold out within hours of going on sale in March.

 Jackson started out as a child star in the band “The Jackson 5″ more than 40 years ago. He has lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on charges of child molestation. There have been concerns about Jackson’s health in recent years but the promoters of the London shows, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson had passed a 4-1/2 hour physical examination with independent doctors. (Additional Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Writing by Frances Kerry, Editing by Jackie Frank) © 2009 Reuters

A chemical found in green tea appears to slow the progression of prostate cancer, a study has suggested.

Green tea has been linked to a positive effect on a wide range of conditions, including heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

The research, in the US journal Cancer Prevention Research, found a significant fall in certain markers which indicate cancer development.

A UK charity said the tea might help men manage low-risk tumours.

Although previous studies have shown benefits from drinking green tea – including some positive findings in relation to prostate cancer, there have been mixed results.

In this study, Philadelphia-based researchers tested a compound called Polyphenon E.

They were looking for a number of biomarkers – molecules – including vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) which are indicators of developing cancer.

They also looked for prostate specific antigen (PSA) – a protein only found in the prostate. Levels can rise if cancer is present.

‘12 cups’

The study included 26 men, aged 41 to 72 years, who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and who were scheduled for radical prostate surgery.

Patients took four capsules containing Polyphenon E for an average of 34 days, up until the day before surgery – the equivalent of around 12 cups of normally brewed concentrated green tea.

The study found a significant reduction in levels of HGF, VEGF and PSA, with some patients demonstrating reductions of more than 30%.

Dr James Cardelli, from the Feist-Weiller Cancer Center, who led the study, said the compound, which was provided by the company Polyphenon Pharma, “may have the potential to lower the incidence and slow the progression of prostate cancer.”

There were only a few reported side effects associated with this study, and liver function remained normal….read more here…

By Michelle Fay Cortez

June 16 (Bloomberg) — Medical imaging scans may be an appropriate alternative to colonoscopies for some people who have a high risk of colon cancer, researchers said.

The computed tomography, or CT, scans identified 85 percent of advanced abnormal-growth spots and colorectal cancers in the Italian study, and correctly ruled them out in 88 percent of cancer-free patients. The report in the Journal of the American Medical Association involved 937 patients with signs of the cancerous lesions or a family or personal history of the disease.

The scans are already one of the methods recommended for screening people with an average risk of cancer. For those who are most prone to the disease, however, doctors recommend colonoscopies that have higher cancer detection rates. These procedures require a tube with a tiny camera to be threaded through the rectum, and many people are reluctant to undergo the process.

A CT scan is “better accepted than colonoscopy,” said the researchers, led by Daniele Regge from the radiology unit at the Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment in Turin, Italy. “Thus, it may help increase the low adherence reported for individuals who are candidates for screening.”

About 210,000 Europeans and 50,000 Americans die each year from colorectal cancer, making it one of the most deadly tumor types, according to the American Cancer Society. Most cases arise when benign-growth polyps turn malignant, a process that can be circumvented by finding and treating the spots before they become cancerous.

Cost, Availability

The scans costs $600 to $1,200 and can be done using standard computed tomography equipment and software made by companies including General Electric Co.’s GE Healthcare unit, Royal Philips Electronics NV, Siemens AG and Vital Images Inc.

…read more here…

By Nicole Gaouette and Laura Litvan

June 17 (Bloomberg) — The largest expansion of U.S. health care since the creation of Medicare in 1965 may emerge from legislation designed to reshape the medical industry and change how Americans receive and pay for care.

Congress today begins crafting legislation that Democratic leaders plan to push through both chambers by their August recess. The measure may require all Americans to get medical insurance, force insurers to accept all patients and end the tax break for employer-paid health benefits. These changes may be hammered out with unprecedented speed at the urging of President Barack Obama, who four days ago said “this is the moment.”

Obama has made a health-care overhaul his top domestic priority, using his February budget proposal to call it a “moral” imperative to extend coverage to the country’s 46 million uninsured. Obama also tied the long-term fiscal soundness of the U.S. to controlling medical costs. Health care consumes 18 percent of the U.S. economy and may rise to 34 percent by 2040, the White House Council of Economic Advisers reported June 2.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had anything this large in American history aimed to go this quickly that touches everybody’s lives,” said Robert J. Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a telephone interview. “They’re moving at a pace we’ve never seen before.”

‘Moment is Right’

The U.S. will spend more than $2 trillion this year on health care, the Health and Human Services department reported in February. Today, the Senate Health committee will begin debating a bill that includes “gateways” where consumers may compare coverage plans. The Senate Finance Committee later this week will unveil a bill that among its provisions will call for taxes on health benefits, and House committees will release a draft of their own comprehensive measure that would create a government-backed plan to compete with private insurance.

“We know the moment is right for health care reform,” Obama told the American Medical Association in Chicago in a speech June 15. “We know this is a historic opportunity we’ve never seen before and may not see again.”

The coming weeks will be pivotal if the House and Senate are to meet their goal to send Obama a single bill in October, said Drew Altman, president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, one of the nation’s largest private foundations devoted to health…read more here…