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October 5, 2012 At first it seemed likely that the two known cases of illness from the new cousin-of-SARS virus may have been exposed in or near the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah. But now it's pretty certain that a 49-year-old Qatari man who had traveled to Jeddah last month didn't pick up the virus there after all.

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October 4, 2012 A steroid drug administered to relieve back pain has been contaminated by the spores of a common leaf mold. Five deaths have been reported so far.

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October 3, 2012 Public health experts have gotten better at detecting new diseases and figuring out their cause since the SARS outbreak nearly 10 years ago. Advances in communications and genetics mean information about new microbes is more accessible.

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On Morning EditionPlaylist

October 2, 2012 Some lab studies suggested vitamin D supplements might enhance immunity. But a clinical test in New Zealand found that taking vitamin D didn't reduce the frequency or duration of colds for the people who took the supplements.

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September 25, 2012 Patients who had multiple counseling sessions lasting 10 to 15 minutes were 12 percent more likely to quit binge drinking a year later, says a federal task force. Those benefits are enough to justify primary care doctors screening all adult patients for signs of problem drinking and providing counseling, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force says.

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September 24, 2012 They found 40 or so key differences — all potential targets for cleverly designed drugs. But the researchers caution that their study is a long way from the outmoded dream of a silver bullet that would knock out breast cancer – or any other kind. The report was published in the journal Nature.

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On All Things ConsideredPlaylist

September 21, 2012 The Swedish team transplanted uteruses from two women in their 50s to their daughters, and an Indiana group is recruiting women willing to undergo womb transplants in this country. It's the latest frontier in a field launched in 1954 with a successful kidney transplant. But one expert cautions against premature enthusiasm.

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On Morning EditionPlaylist

September 19, 2012 The experimental treatment, which hasn't been tried in humans, encapsulates pure oxygen in microbubbles made of fat molecules. The bubbles look quite a bit like shaving cream, one of the researchers says.

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September 19, 2012 The World Health Organization has confirmed 72 cases of the dreaded virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo since May; 23 of them are health care workers. Despite elaborate protective garb and other precautions, it's hard for doctors, nurses and health aides to avoid virus-laden bodily fluids of Ebola patients.

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On Morning EditionPlaylist

September 12, 2012 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is confident the nation has turned the corner on its worst-ever epidemic of West Nile virus disease. Next, scientists will try to figure out what made 2012 so bad.

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September 11, 2012 An influenza virus that only infects pigs could very quickly lead to a dangerous flu pandemic in humans, a recent study reports. Results of an experiment in ferrets, a model for flu in humans, suggest that a swine flu virus can mutate into a contagious and fatal disease within 10 days.

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September 10, 2012 A recent study found 1 in 10 American men and 1 in 14 women has had a kidney stone. Being obese or diabetic seems to raise the risk of getting them. Now lasers are becoming the treatment-of-choice for kidney stones in academic medical centers.

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On Morning EditionPlaylist

September 4, 2012 The results comes from Zanzibar, an island state of Kenya, where half the people in six rural and urban areas received two doses of oral cholera vaccine. The vaccinations led to fewer bacteria circulating, lowering the infection risks even for those who weren't vaccinated.

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