Health News Blog @newzblogz.com

Medical advances seem to be shifting the care of patients with coronary artery disease away from hospitals to outpatient care for more routine procedures. What happens after they go home has a lot to do with how financially secure they are.

Two studies just published in medical journals underscore the complexity of dealing with a disease responsible for one in five deaths in this country each year.

According to the American Heart Association, 1.2 million Americans suffer a first or repeat heart attack every year, and more than 15.8 million are living with the aftermath of coronary artery disease.

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Since September 11th, the medical care and support of the soldiers and families in our Army have never been more important to the Army Medical Department. At Blanchfield Army Community Hospital at Fort Campbell, Ky., keeping soldiers healthy and medically ready for combat operations has always been our mission and priority.Over the past several years, the staff has conducted thousands of pre-deployment health assessments ensuring appropriate immunizations, physical examinations and maintenance ...

Intensive training involved

About 100 days following redeployment, the staff conducted a post-deployment health reassessment for every soldier so that he/she again can present any further medical or mental health concerns that may have surfaced since redeployment. Of significance, the soldier may receive these services at any time from the hospital or its network providers.In addition to delivering quality services to the soldiers at Fort Campbell, the staff, medics and health-care providers from the hospital, the 101st Ai...

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Firefighters on an emergency call to suppress a blaze are up to 100 times more likely to suffer a fatal heart attack than during any other duties, according to a new study.

The report, published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, used a federal database and more detailed information from 18 fire departments, mainly in major cities, to examine the circumstances under which firefighters died on duty between 1994 and 2004. Deaths associated with the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks were not included.

Heart disease causes 45 percent of all deaths among U.S. firefighters while they are on duty. Researchers in earlier studies had difficulty establishing the extent that the job itself increases risk compared with other occupations because the death risk from heart and artery disease for a firefighter over a lifetime is only slightly greater than that of the general population.

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For many Americans, the words "VA hospital" may evoke the image of a hospital in decrepit condition and neglected patients in wheelchairs sitting aimlessly in the hallway.However, what some people know, and even fewer believe, is through systematic changes VA medical centers today are a far cry from those depicted in the films, Born on the 4th of July and Article 99.

Business Week magazine, U.S. News and World Report, Fortune magazine, Time and The New York Times, as well as NBC, ABC and CBS nightly newscasts all have applauded VA's state-of-the-art medical care. In addition, a national customer satisfaction survey, the American Customer Satisfaction Index, has reported VA scoring higher than private-sector health care for seven years in a row. If you subscribe to the adage of not believing everything you read, why not ask the more than 76,000 medical resid...

Millions are being helped

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- States that rely on tourism and entertainment for much of their economy would likely be the hardest hit during a severe influenza pandemic. Nevada and Hawaii are at the top of the list, according to a report released Thursday. The Trust for America's Health projected a $683 billion economic loss nationally during a pandemic, which is about 5.5 percent of the goods and services produced in the United States. The number is comparable to a previous analysis conducted for Cong...

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ABILENE, Texas An Abilene hospital won't appeal a decision that revokes its Medicare certification.West Texas Hospital won't provide health care services after March 30th.Hospital staff called 9-1-1 when there were complications in the patient's spinal surgery.U-S Senators Max Baucus of Montana and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, plus California Congressman Pete Stark, reviewed the case.All three asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to re-examine Medicare payments made to West Texas Hosp...

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WEDNESDAY, March 21 (HealthDay News) -- In experiments with mice, researchers have uncovered a gene that may have the potential to suppress colorectal cancer.

The gene, called Atp5a1, is an essential part of any cell's energy-production system. In mice that had a mutation of this gene, the number of precancerous polyps in the digestive tract was reduced by about 95 percent, researchers said.

"We have identified a gene that is involved in energy synthesis and is a major modifier of colon cancer in mice," said lead researcher Arthur Buchberg, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the Kimmel Cancer Center, in Philadelphia. "When mutated, it dramatically reduces the number of polyps that form."

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ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Colon cancer patients who have more lymph nodes removed and examined have a better chance of survival, recent research reveals.

"What this research does for the first time is provide a rigorous evaluation of available data," lead author George Chang, M.D., of the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, told Ivanhoe. "It reminds us of the importance of the fundamental principles of colon cancer surgery. Abiding to those principles, both by the surgeon and pathologist, would allow for an optimal evaluation of the lymph nodes and maximize the outcomes."

Lymph nodes filter cancer cells from the lymph. Lymph node extraction thus removes a source for potentially lethal cancer.

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WEDNESDAY, March 21 (HealthDay News) -- On March 22, thirsty New York City diners will be helping poor children around the world with every gulp.

Diners at 225 restaurants around the city will be asked to pay $1 for something that normally comes free: the water that arrives with their meal.

That dollar will then be turned over to UNICEF's "Tap Project," an initiative aimed at bringing fresh, safe water to the children of the developing world.

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WEDNESDAY, March 21 (HealthDay News) -- Low levels of activity -- especially a lack of moderate and vigorous exercise -- play an important role in the development of childhood obesity, says a British study that compared the amount of fat in children to their levels of physical activity.

University of Bristol researchers used special techniques to measure the fat mass and activity-related energy expenditure of 5,500 children.

The results showed consistently that the less active children were, the greater their fat mass. This effect was stronger in boys than in girls. The statistical association between fat mass and low activity levels was greater for moderate and vigorous activity than for total activity, the study found.

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— A norovirus outbreak sickened at least 150 inmates and seven guards at the county jail, authorities said Wednesday as crews tried to decontaminate the building.

Most of those sickened since Saturday complained of stomach-related distress such as diarrhea, vomiting and cramps, said Brian Labus, senior epidemiologist with the Southern Nevada Health District in Las Vegas. None was hospitalized.

"It's going to make people feel miserable for a couple of days, but they will recover after it runs its course," he said.

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(AP) ? Firefighters face a far greater risk of dying of heart problems while battling a blaze than was thought, suggests a large U.S. study that offers more evidence of their need to stay in shape. The risk of a heart-related death while putting out a fire was up to 100 times higher than the risk during down time, Harvard researchers found, even though fighting fires accounts for only a small percentage of these workers' time.

About 100 firefighters die in the line of duty each year and previous research has shown that nearly half of the deaths are due to heart disease. The vast majority ? about 70 percent ? of the nation's roughly 1 million firefighters are volunteers.

Experts say diet and exercise should be priorities at the firehouse.

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WASHINGTON - The typical Chinese restaurant menu is a sea of nutritional no-nos, a consumer group has found. A plate of General Tso's chicken, for example, is loaded with about 40 percent more sodium and more than half the calories an average adult needs for an entire day.

The battered, fried chicken dish with vegetables has 1,300 calories, 3,200 milligrams of sodium and 11 grams of saturated fat.

That's before the rice (200 calories a cup). And after the egg rolls (200 calories and 400 milligrams of sodium).

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ARMONK, N.Y. (AP) ? IBM Corp. is pledging that by 2012, it will have reduced its greenhouse gas footprint by 7 percent since 2005, primarily through energy conservation.

The technology company made the vow Thursday as part of the Environmental Protection Agency's voluntary "Climate Leaders" program, in which more than 100 companies have committed to reducing their output of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

IBM's first such pledge was a 4 percent decrease from 2002 to 2005; the company says it achieved a 6.2 percent reduction.

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OSTON, March 20 — Massachusetts took a major step toward enacting its near-universal health care overhaul, with the board that oversees the plan voting on Tuesday to require insurers to provide certain minimum benefits, including coverage of prescription drugs.The decision, subject to final approval in June, would make Massachusetts the first state to establish standards that apply to every resident and every health insurer.“It’s setting the definition of what is acceptable ...

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WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A colossal half-ton squid, believed to be the largest ever caught, may be destined for the microwave oven. But researchers say they don't want to cook the massive creature - just defrost it so they can study it better. Scientists at New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, have taken possession of the beast that took fishermen two hours to land after it was netted by chance in Antarctic waters last month and was frozen soon afterward to preserve it. E...

 Purchase

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Vice President Cheney's Federal Income Tax Return

Interactives

Game: Balance a State Budget Yourself

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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? A new species of North American bamboo was recently discovered by Iowa State University and University of North Carolina botanists, making it the third known native species of the hardy grass in the United States. The "hill cane" was discovered in the Appalachian Mountains. It's different from the other two native species of bamboo, which were discovered more than 200 years ago, because it drops its leaves in the fall.

"We tend to think that we ... know our own biodiversity, and that there isn't much left to discover in a place like the United States. I think this demonstrates that that's not true," said Lynn Clark, an ISU professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology.

She said that she and Ph.D. student Jimmy Triplett were first tipped off that this might be a different type of bamboo by University of North Carolina botanist Alan Weakley. They drove to the mountains to see the plant, which locals knew about but hadn't been recognized for its distinctiveness.

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Cardiac Risk Greatest While Firefighters Fighting Flames

WEDNESDAY, March 21 (HealthDay News) -- Firefighters are much more likely to die from heart disease when they are actually fighting fires, new research finds.

"The fact that firefighters do have a physical risk is not something new," said study author Dr. Stefanos N. Kales, an assistant professor of occupational medicine at the Harvard School of Public Health. "This is the strongest evidence to date that specific firefighting acts can trigger cardiac events."

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GALVESTON, Texas (AP) ? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is conducting a special investigation to determine what caused an unusually high number of dead dolphins to wash ashore in Galveston and Jefferson counties.

The discovery of at least 60 dolphin corpses on the beaches of the two Southeast Texas counties this month prompted the National Marine Fisheries to declare the occurrence an "unusual mortality event," said Blair Mase, marine mammal stranding coordinator for NOAA.

Nine dead dolphins were discovered in March 2006 and 11 in March 2005.

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — For some of the most frail and chronically ill of the

region's elderly population, an old-fashioned practice

is back: doctor house calls.

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In a makeover of extraordinary proportions, scientists have dismantled a 75-foot-long sauropod dinosaur that roamed Wyoming 150 million years ago and will rebuild it to reflect the latest paleontological research findings. The fossil display of the plant-eating Apatosaurus that had dominated the University of Wyoming Geological Museum in Laramie for about 45 years will be worked on for a year and then returned to the museum in 2008, according to Brent Breithaupt, director of the UW museum.

"It's basically like extreme home makeover, only this is extreme dinosaur makeover," Breithaupt said Wednesday. "Everything from the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail."

The Apatosaurus fossil is one of only six on display in the world, he said.

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GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) ? A spacesuit developed by students at the University of North Dakota and four other schools will be tested in the Utah desert. UND officials said researchers from the school will travel with the spacesuit to Utah during the first week in April. Students from the Spaceward Bound education program will help the designers test the suit at Utah's Mars Desert Research Station.

The Spaceward Bound program is sponsored by NASA in cooperation with the Mars Society, a group devoted to promoting Mars exploration, and seeks to train students in space-related fields, its Web site says.

Researcher Pablo de Leon, a UND aerospace engineer, said the testing in Utah will offer the chance to solve problems in the same way an astronaut would be forced to do on Mars.

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WASHINGTON (AP) ? Federal health officials used a flawed analysis when they gave preliminary approval to food from cloned animals, a consumer group charged Wednesday.

In its report, the Center for Food Safety said the conclusions the Food and Drug Administration drew late last year were based on "scant data from few peer-reviewed studies" and failed to consider possible side effects of cloning.

"There isn't the science to show that these foods are safe," said Charles Margulis, a spokesman for the Washington-based center and author of the report. "I think the agency was heavily influenced by the biotechnology industry."

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WASHINGTON (AP) Federal health officials used a flawed analysis when they gave preliminary approval to food from cloned animals, a consumer group charged Wednesday.

In its report, the Center for Food Safety said the conclusions the Food and Drug Administration drew late last year were based on "scant data from few peer-reviewed studies" and failed to consider possible side effects of cloning.

"There isn't the science to show that these foods are safe," said Charles Margulis, a spokesman for the Washington-based center and author of the report. "I think the agency was heavily influenced by the biotechnology industry."

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Eli Lilly and Co. is pumping an additional $50 million into a partnership it created four years ago to treat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, a disease found mostly in poor or developing countries. Lilly started the partnership in 2003 and has donated two antibiotics that are used in a four-drug cocktail to treat patients. The drug maker also gave the technology, formula and trademark for the antibiotics - Capastat and Seromycin - to generic drug makers in countries ha...

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Two weeks after Kroger Co. said it was clarifying its policy on stocking the so-called "morning after" pill, activists say dozens of stores continue to block sales of the emergency contraceptive.

Representatives of NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion-rights group that also works on other reproductive health issues, sent a letter to Kroger officials Wednesday asking them to carry the drug at all of their pharmacies.

Ted Miller, communications director for the group, said members called 231 Kroger-run pharmacies across the country and found that 21 percent of the stores did not make the drug immediately available.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government scientists want to know if a dietary supplement thought to boost muscles might boost the brains of Parkinson's patients. The National Institutes of Health began a major study Thursday to see if creatine might help preserve the nerve cells that die off in Parkinson's, and thus slow the disease's worsening. The study will enroll more than 1,700 people with early-stage Parkinson's - using doses higher than usual with today's over-the-counter brands, said Dr. Debra ...

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— An international team of mathematicians says it has cracked a 120-year-old puzzle that researchers say is so complicated that its handwritten solution would cover the island of Manhattan.

The 18-member group of mathematicians and computer scientists was convened by the American Institute of Mathematics in Palo Alto to map a theoretical object known as the "Lie group E8."

Lie (pronounced Lee) groups were invented by 19th-century Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie in his study of symmetrical objects, especially spheres, and differential calculus.

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WEDNESDAY, March 21 (HealthDay News) -- The more lymph nodes that colon cancer patients have removed and examined, the longer they will live after surgery, new research shows.

Unfortunately, not enough patients are having enough these nodes removed and analyzed, the study's authors add.

"Just over one-third of patients are having more than even 12 lymph nodes [the number recommended by one expert panel] evaluated or identified," said study lead author Dr. George Chang, assistant professor of surgical oncology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. "Clearly, we can do more."

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WASHINGTON - House Democrats are seeking to boost spending for domestic programs while assuming that a variety of popular tax cuts expire at the end of the decade.

The House Budget Committee on Wednesday was to take up a $2.9 trillion Democratic plan envisioning big increases for homeland security, veterans health care and aid to local schools. A late-night vote was expected.

The House budget plan, like a companion version before the full Senate, promises a federal surplus in five years - if President Bush's tax cuts indeed disappear and, as a result, more revenue flows into the federal treasury.

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Ann Cooper is not your typical lunch lady. She is more likely to wear a chef's toque than a hairnet and her roasted chicken and potatoes bear no resemblance to nuggets and Tater Tots. The former chef, who spent much of her 30-plus-year career working in white-tablecloth restaurants and catering for celebrities, is now best known as the "Lunch Lady" in Berkeley, Calif., schools. In cafeterias there she has tossed out fried, frozen, and sugary foods and replaced them with fresh, seasonal, and mostly organic meals.

Driven to reform school lunches as concerns grow over childhood obesity and diabetes, Ms. Cooper gets up at 3:30 each morning to begin cooking school lunches by 5 a.m. Somehow, she also eked out time recently to write "Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children," which offers inspiration, guidance, and recipes to those wishing to duplicate her efforts in their own school districts.

Cooper is motivated by more than alarming health reports. She believes there's a direct correlation between what kids eat and how they perform at school, that knowledge of food is integral to one's education, and that all children deserve delicious and nutritious meals. Most of all, she says: "I want to change children's relationship to food." Given that kids are bombarded daily by persuasive ads selling them on a diet of fries, chips, and soda; that fast food is often part of a child's reward; ...

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- General Motors Corp.'s OnStar service is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help emergency responders more effectively treat crash victims. On Wednesday, the automaker was scheduled to announce a partnership with federal health officials to create guidelines, expected in 2008, for the use of real-time crash data to help emergency services provide a more targeted response to those injured in a car accident. GM's OnStar system alerts emergency res...

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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments,

compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Cheney Visits Hospital for Checkup on Leg Clot

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DALLAS (AP) -- Like a lot of people, former flight attendant Mary Nicholson wasn't an exerciser. But two years ago she changed all that - at age 71. For Nicholson, part of the motivation to exercise was to be strong and agile enough to avoid a fall. "I'm bound and determined I'm not going to fall and break a bone," she said during a workout that included balancing on one leg, working with weights and stair-climbing.

Nicholson says she feels better, is stronger, and her balance is much improved.

With one in three adults over the age of 65 falling each year, experts say that people should follow Nicholson's lead as they get older.

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STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) ? The European Union will ask all member states to draft action plans to prevent the spread of tuberculosis, as a new drug-resistant form of the disease is becoming an increasing threat, the EU health commissioner said Tuesday.

Markos Kyprianou said the EU must increase its efforts to fight tuberculosis, as the emergence of a new extremely drug-resistant strain, XDR-TB, has caused increasing concern about a widespread epidemic in Europe.

"We can't underestimate the threat of drug-resistant TB strains," Kyprianou said after inaugurating the new headquarters for the EU's disease control agency, ECDC, in Stockholm. "We want to take all necessary actions to prevent the disease from spreading."

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U.S. hospitals have improved the care they offer for heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia, according to a report released Tuesday by a hospital accrediting group.

The Joint Commission report examines how well more than 3,000 hospitals follow guidelines for care of the potentially deadly conditions. It found that quality improved consistently from 2002 to 2005.

Ninety-six percent of heart attack patients were given aspirin when they arrived at the hospital in 2005, which can save lives, the report found. That represented an improvement of 3.6 percentage points from 2002.

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UNDATED Millions of doses of flu vaccine will expire at midnight on June 30th and then be destroyed before a new supply is guaranteed.This is supposed to ensure that Americans get the most up-to-date flu vaccine. But an Associated Press examination of the practice raises questions about its consequences.Wasted vaccine means lost money for drug companies. And no vaccine in the summer means travelers won't have the chance to get a shot before they visit places where flu is in season. Plus, it prev...

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LOS ANGELES - A new commercial rocket reached space after launching from a Pacific atoll Tuesday but then probably re-entered the Earth's atmosphere after half an orbit because of a problem during the second-stage burn, an entrepreneur said.

Nonetheless, Elon Musk, founder of Space Exploration Technologies, characterized the launch as "a pretty good test" during a post-flight teleconference.

"We successfully reached space and really retired almost all the risk associated with the rocket, so I feel very good about where things are," he said.

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BERLIN (AP) -- Berlin Zoo's abandoned polar bear cub Knut looks cute, cuddly and has become a front-page media darling, but an animal rights activist insisted Monday he would have been better off dead than raised by humans. "Feeding by hand is not species-appropriate but a gross violation of animal protection laws," animal rights activist Frank Albrecht was quoted as saying by the mass-circulation Bild daily, which has featured regular photo spreads tracking fuzzy Knut's frolicking. "The zoo...

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BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) - The number of wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming continues to grow, with at least 1,300 in the three states at the end of 2006, federal officials say.

"I keep thinking we're at the top end of the bubble," said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "I can't see that there's room for any more, but we'll see."

The wolf population has, on average, grown by about 26 percent a year for the past decade. The reports of livestock being killed by wolves have also increased, as has the number of wolves killed after livestock attacks.

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Alzheimer's disease, a 10 percent increase since the last

Alzheimer's Association estimate five years ago - and a count that

supports the long-forecast dementia epidemic as the population

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CHICAGO (AP) ? Want to know if your doctor accepts money and gifts from drug companies? Chances are it will be pretty tough to find out, a study of disclosure laws in two pioneering states suggests.

Minnesota and Vermont were the first two states to enact laws designed to shed light on the practice, but getting key information required a lawsuit in Vermont and photocopying individual disclosure forms in Minnesota, the researchers said.

Also, loopholes allow drug companies to hide millions of dollars in payments and make it difficult to know who's receiving them, according to the report.

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CHICAGO -- U.S. hospitals have improved the care they offer for heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia, according to a report released Tuesday by a hospital accrediting group.

The Joint Commission report examines how well more than 3,000 hospitals follow guidelines for care of the potentially deadly conditions. It found that quality improved consistently from 2002 to 2005.

Ninety-six percent of heart attack patients were given aspirin when they arrived at the hospital in 2005, which can save lives, the report found. That represented an improvement of 3.6 percentage points from 2002.

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WASHINGTON - In response to concerns that some babies may be missing out on essential health care, the Bush administration will issue a rule making it easier for the infants of non-citizens to gain access to services covered through Medicaid.

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WASHINGTON The Bush administration is easing access to Medicaid for infants whose parents are not citizens.The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will change the documentation requirements to allow all babies born in the United State to be treated equally, even if their births were covered through emergency Medicaid.Previously, the parents of babies born under those situations had to abide by their state's requirements on proof of citizenship and identity. Judith Solomon -- a senior fell...

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TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese doctors were warned on Wednesday against prescribing Tamiflu to teenagers after several young patients taking the bird flu-fighting drug reportedly exhibited dangerous behavior. The Health Ministry issued emergency instructions Tuesday to a Japanese Tamiflu distributor, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., to warn doctors not to give the drug to teenagers, a Chugai official said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol. Chugai began distributing warnings to doctors, hospitals ...

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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Want to keep your nice, smooth skin longer? Don't smoke.

According to University of Michigan researchers, smoking increases the fine wrinkling of skin not regularly exposed to the sun, such as the skin found on the inside of the upper arms or on the buttocks. Their study noted significantly more of this kind of wrinkling on photo-protected (not exposed to sunlight) skin in smokers older than age 65, and similar effects were noted for those between ages 45 and 65.

The researchers decided to study aging of nonfacial skin to see what might cause accelerated wrinkling on areas of the body that don't usually get a lot of sun. Using a technique similar to that used to study other types of aging, the investigators took medical photographs of the inside of the upper right arms of 82 healthy people between ages 22 and 91 and then had experts rate the photographs in terms of fine wrinkling.

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TUESDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) -- Laws in two states -- Minnesota and Vermont -- that require public disclosure of drug company gifts to doctors still don't offer the public easy access to the information, a new study finds.

Even when the information is accessed, it is often of limited quality, researchers noted in a report in March 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Individuals who want to know how much drug company money their doctor is accepting and from whom will have a difficult time finding the information, because the state disclosure laws are so riddled with holes and inconsistencies," study co-author Dr. Peter Lurie said in a prepared statement. Lurie is deputy director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.

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TUESDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) -- People with artery blockages suffered a surprisingly high incidence of major problems, including death, in the course of a single year, a large international study found.

The finding is a clear sign that patients and their doctors aren't being aggressive enough in dealing with the condition, experts say.

"A year ago, we published baseline data showing a fair amount of underutilized information in these patients," said Dr. Deepak Bhatt, associate director of the Cleveland Clinic's cardiovascular coordinating center, and one of the study's authors. "What we find now in the one-year results is that, in outpatients with risk factors, we observe a high rate of ischemic events, such as heart attack and stroke and of hospitalization. About one in seven of these patients had one of these events in the course of the year."

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TUESDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) -- The official pet death toll inched up Tuesday as U.S. health officials continued to look for the contamination source that spurred a massive recall of moist dog and cat food involving some of the top brand names.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, so far there have been 14 dogs and cats that died within a few days of consuming the pet food made by a Canadian company.

The toll included nine cats in the manufacturer's quarterly taste test that involved up to 50 animals, along with four pet dogs and one pet cat, according to the FDA's lead veterinarian. However, he added, the toll is expected to rise.

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WASHINGTON (AP) ? Nuthatches appear to have learned to understand a foreign language ? chickadee. It's not unusual for one animal to react to the alarm call of another, but nuthatches seem to go beyond that ? interpreting the type of alarm and what sort of predator poses a threat. When a chickadee sees a predator, it issues warning call ? a soft "seet" for a flying hawk, owl or falcon, or a loud "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" for a perched predator.

The "chick-a-dee" call can have 10 to 15 "dees" at the end and varies in sound to encode information on the type of predator. It also calls in other small birds to mob the predator, Christopher Templeton of the University of Washington said in a telephone interview.

"In this case the nuthatch is able to discriminate the information in this call," said Templeton, a doctoral candidate.

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Here is some information from MyPyramid, a food-guidance system from the USDA:

1. Make half your grains whole: Eat at least three ounces of whole-grain cereals, breads, crackers, rice, or pasta every day. Look for the word "whole" before the grain name on the list of ingredients.

2. Vary your veggies: Eat more dark-green veggies, such as broccoli and kale. Eat more orange veggies, such as winter squash, carrots and sweet potatoes. Limit the amounts of starchy vegetables, such as potatoes and corn.

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With rising health care costs causing some people to choose between food on the table or prescription drugs, taxpayers need to ask, “Can we afford to mandate the new human papillomavirus vaccine for every schoolgirl?”    If it is mandated, is it the best use of our scarce federal and state health care dollars?    Three hundred and sixty dollars (that’s the minimum per-person cost of the HPV vaccine) per schoolgirl translates to a Medicaid investmen...

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