archive

May 15, 2012 Has the massive amount the United States has to treat people with HIV in poor countries crowded out prevention and treatment of other diseases? An analysis of health data from nine countries in Africa suggests that's not the case.

Summary

May 2, 2012 Years after more than 40 patients with HIV received immune cells designed to attack and kill cells infected with HIV, the specialized cells are still present in their bloodstreams. There's been no sign the cells, a form of gene therapy, caused any serious side effects.

Summary

May 1, 2012 You don't have to lift heavy weights to build muscle strength. Lifting lighter weights can be just as effective if you do it right, and you're much less likely to hurt yourself, researchers say.

Summary

April 20, 2012 Couples should get tested for HIV together, and if one person is infected, that partner should start treatment right away, the World Health Organization says. This new strategy is aimed at reducing transmission between "discordant" couples, which accounts for most new HIV infections.

Summary

April 19, 2012 Patients can often skip expensive treatments for simpler, cheaper alternatives. That's the gist of a new campaign from the American College of Physicians. But they've got to convince not just patients, but doctors, too.

Summary

April 17, 2012 The campaign "will prevent 20,000 to 50,000 deaths among children in Haiti over the next decade," Dr. Thomas Frieden says at the end of a two-day trip to the nation.

Summary

April 17, 2012 Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is expected to show her support for two big vaccination initiatives in Haiti, including one against cholera. Previously, U.S. health officials were cool to the cholera pilot project .

Summary

April 13, 2012 Cholera was introduced into Haiti 18 months ago. So far, more than a half-million people have gotten sick and 7,000 have died. Public health authorities say the disease will linger for a long time because Haiti has the worst sanitation in the Western Hemisphere.

Transcript

On All Things ConsideredPlaylist

April 12, 2012 Today, 50,000 people living in the slums of Port-au-Prince will start to get immunized against the disease. This weekend, another 50,000 villagers in the low rice-growing areas of the Artibonite River valley will get their first doses of an oral cholera vaccine. All told, though, the immunization will cover only 1 percent of the Haitian population.

Summary

April 12, 2012 Life for most Haitians is a constant struggle for clean water. And now that cholera has invaded Haiti, safe drinking water has become Haiti's most urgent public health problem. The disease has killed more than 7,000 people since late 2010.

Transcript

On Morning EditionPlaylist

April 10, 2012 Researchers conclude that spiral CT, which makes 3-D pictures of lungs, could reduce lung cancer deaths by 35 percent at a cost of $19,000 to $26,000 per year of life saved. The findings apply to people at high risk for developing lung cancer.

Summary

April 5, 2012 Malaria parasites resistant to the last, best drug treatment, called artemisinin combination therapy, or ACT, are infecting people along the border of Thailand and Myanmar. And it arose independently of the resistant malaria found in Cambodia. Now health workers face a two-front war.

Summary

April 4, 2012 Nine national medical groups have identified 45 diagnostic tests, procedures and treatments that they say often are unnecessary and expensive. The head of one of the specialty groups says unneeded tests probably account for $250 billion in health care spending.

Transcript

On All Things ConsideredPlaylist

April 3, 2012 Norwegian scientists say as many as 1 in every 4 cases of breast cancer doesn't need to be found because it would never have caused symptoms or death. They also question a fundamental justification of mammography: that it finds more cancers when they're early and more curable.

Summary