Children’s health featured at Emory forum

April 17th, 2011 by Joseph Tishler | Tags: Forum

The forum on children’s health is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Monday at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and local doctors will discuss how toxins in the air and water can cause mental and physical developmental problems for children, along with other health problems.

My new hand will help me take care of my daughter, says transplant mother

April 17th, 2011 by Declan Nguyen | Tags: Mother

A 26-year-old mother who lost her right hand in a traffic accident several years ago has reunited with her doctors to show off her new donated hand.

Emily Fennell from Yuba City, California received the donor limb in a marathon operation after her hand was damaged in a car crash.

‘It has been surreal to see that I have a hand again, and to be able to wiggle my fingers, Ms Fennell said. 

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Success: Emily Fennell had wanted a new hand to better care for her daughter, after she lost hers in a 2006 car crash

Miracle workers: Dr Kodi Azari, left, performing the hand transplant at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center

She was living with a prosthetic after her accident in 2006 but wanted a hand transplant to better care for her six-year-old daughter.

Ms Fennell told Today: ‘She really wanted Mommy and Mommy couldnt do everything for her anymore’.

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What Drug Did Doctors Prescribe Most Last Year?

April 16th, 2011 by Abby Hitchcock | Tags: Drug, Drug Did

Generics are king.

Thats the message from the latest report on U.S. medication use by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, which found that non-branded drugs now make up 78% of all prescriptions dispensed.

There are only three name-brand drugs on the list of the most commonly prescribed medications: Pfizers Lipitor, at #12; Sanofi-Aventiss and Bristol-Myers Squibbs Plavix, at #23 and Mercks Singulair, at #25. And all three are due to lose patent protection this year or next. (The report also says that within 6 months of patent loss, generics take 80% of prescription share.)

The years runaway favorite drug was, once again, hydrocodone/acetaminophen, the generic form of the painkiller Vicodin.

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Kaiser Permanente opening office downtown

April 14th, 2011 by Joseph Tishler | Tags: Office, Office Downtown

On Thursday, the company will open its Peachtree Center Medical Office at 225 Peachtree St.

The $2.3 million facility offers adult medicine and dermatology, said Peter Andruszkiewicz, president of Kaiser Permanente of Georgia. The company has 28 facilities in the metro region, officials said.

Family of four lose 44st after taxpayers pay for their gastric bypass surgery

April 12th, 2011 by Declan Nguyen | Tags: Bypass Surgery, Gastric Bypass, Gastric Bypass Surgery, Surgery

A family-of-four have lost 44-stone between them after undergoing gastric bypass surgery on the NHS.

Craig and Denise Watson and their two daughters Rebecca, 24, and Rachel, 21, all had their free surgeries within a six-month period.

News of their expensive operations, which could have cost taxpayers up to 40,000 for the Watson family, comes after surgeons claimed performing gastric operations could save the NHS money in the long run.

Drastic action: The Watson family from Sheffield have lost a combined 44st after all undergoing gastric bypass surgery on the NHS

The Watsons say they had tried everything to lose weight including joining a gym and consulting health professionals before they went to their GP.

Mrs Watson, 45, began putting on weight after giving birth to her first daughter and was unable to shed the pounds.

After her weight ballooned to 19-and-a-half stone in 2009 she decided to take drastic action.

She told BBC Radio Sheffield: ‘I went to the doctors and I was told that I wasn’t heavy enough to be considered for gastric surgery.

‘I deliberately put a stone-and-a-half on to be able to be considered for the operation.’

Her overweight husband was told he qualified for a gastric band because he also had high blood pressure and arthritis.

All the family’s stomachs were made smaller through keyhole surgery.

Mr Watson’s weight dropped from 29 stone to 20 stone and his wife of 26 years saw hers plummet by eight stone.

Mrs Watson’s dropped eight dress sizes to a size 16 and her husband’s waist size was reduced from 58ins to 40ins.

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