Meat plant recalls 14.5 million pounds of ready-to-eat products
CLINTON, Okla. – A meat plant is recalling 14.5 million pounds of meat and poultry products that may be contaminated, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. Bar-S Foods Co. voluntarily recalled the meat, which may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service said Thursday. Recalled products include lunch meats, whole hams, sausages, hot dogs and corn dogs.

Kaiser Foundation settles discrimination lawsuit
SAN FRANCISCO – The nation's largest not-for-profit health maintenance organization has settled a lawsuit accusing it of failing to provide disabled patients with accessible facilities and equipment. The suit, filed in July and settled Thursday, had charged that Kaiser Permanente does not offer accessible examination tables, toilets, scales and other medical devices in its California hospitals and clinics.

Groups question guidelines on fish
Federal guidelines don't protect pregnant women from mercury in fish, two groups said Thursday. "We find the guidelines staggeringly inadequate," Luke Metzger of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group said in Dallas.

Medical privacy limits set
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration said Thursday that it will begin implementing sweeping medical privacy protections this weekend, turning aside requests for delays from hospitals, health plans and business groups.

Fitness briefs
• Getting potassium into your diet
• There really are healthy ways to snack

04/12/2001

Bush administration to implement medical privacy rules
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration said today that it would immediately implement sweeping rules giving patients their first federal right to guard health records. President Bush said he decided to let the rules crafted by the Clinton administration take effect, although he directed a change giving parents the right to see their children's records.

Noses are red
Achoo! If you're bugged by allergies, Houston isn't the best place to call home.

State industries get a little cleaner
Industries' toxic pollution jumped 5 percent nationwide in 1999 but fell in Texas, federal officials said Wednesday. The government released its annual Toxics Release Inventory report, which lets the public track industries' chemical releases into the environment.

04/11/2001

Injection an Alzheimer's first
Doctors in California have implanted genetically modified cells into the brain of a 60-year-old woman with an early stage of Alzheimer's disease in an effort to slow her mental decline, members of the research team announced Tuesday.

Germ's genetic code unlocked
OKLAHOMA CITY – Scientists have cracked the genetic code for the bacteria that cause strep throat, rheumatic fever and a flesh-eating disease, raising hopes of better treatments for such illnesses.

Netherlands is first nation to approve euthanasia
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Despite protests outside Parliament, the Netherlands legalized mercy killings and assisted suicide Tuesday, becoming the first nation to allow doctors to end the lives of patients with unbearable terminal illness.

Human 'blood substitute' approved for use in South Africa
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – A product that can emulate the work of red blood cells, transporting oxygen throughout the body, has been approved for use in South Africa, making it the first human "blood substitute" available anywhere, the products' developers announced Tuesday.

04/10/2001

Siamese twins separated successfully in Singapore
SINGAPORE – Eleven-month-old twins Jamuna and Ganga Shrestha were in different rooms for the first time in their lives today after doctors successfully separated the girls, who were born joined at the head.

04/09/2001

President reorganizing White House AIDS office
WASHINGTON – President Bush will soon announce a reorganized White House AIDS office that will tie efforts to combat the disease into a key domestic policy team and two Cabinet agencies, an administration official said Sunday.

FDA questions safety of Lyme disease vaccine
WASHINGTON – Vanessa Raffio was a horsewoman and a veterinarian's helper who loved hiking and riding in the woods – hobbies that seemed to place the suburban New Jersey teenager at high risk for getting Lyme disease. So two years ago, Ms. Raffio, then 17, asked her doctor for the recently approved vaccine against the tick-borne infection.

Experts confident vaccine is safe
While Prevnar's safety remains controversial to some consumer groups, few medical experts are concerned.

What Jailan Smith can teach us
It started with a slight fever, a bit of crankiness and a refusal to play outdoors with another toddler, which was highly unusual for Jailan Smith. The rambunctious 18-month-old boy liked nothing better than to be outside, picking up stones and throwing them as far as his chubby arms could manage.

Health calendar

Health briefs

Study finds 'fat trap' a failure
WASHINGTON – Those dietary supplements that are supposed to gobble up fat before it shows up on your waistline – so-called "fat trappers" – don't work, according to a recent study.

04/08/2001

Impoverished Mali gets deal on Western HIV drugs
BAMAKO, Mali – Mali said it has reached a deal for cut-rate HIV drugs from four major Western drug companies, becoming at least the fourth African country to do so. Even at the sharply reduced rates, the Health Ministry said, treatment still will remain out of reach for most of the HIV-positive people in Mali – one of the world's poorest countries.