New Surgeon General's Report Expands List Of Diseases Caused By Smoking US Surgeon General Richard H Carmona today released a new comprehensive report on smoking and health, revealing for the first time that smoking causes diseases in nearly every organ of the body Published 40 years after the surgeon general's first report on smoking -- which concluded that smoking was a definite cause of three serious diseases -- this newest report finds that cigarette smoking is conclusively linked to diseases such as leukemia, cataracts, pneumonia and cancers ...

Bird Flu Pandemic Phases Bird flu is a disease caused by a specific type of avian (bird) influenza virus, the so-called H5N1 virus This virus was first discovered in birds in China in 1997 and since then has infected 165 people, mainly in Asia but now also Turkey, bringing it closer to the west It has killed 83 people worldwide since 2003 It spreads by infected migratory birds to domestic poultry Millions of birds have been killed to try and stop the spread of the virus Humans ...

The Costs Of Raising A Child With Cerebral Palsy When a child develops cerebral palsy, the financial costs of required care, therapies, education, special equipment, and the cost of daily living, can total in the millions of dollars Because cerebral palsy is a lifelong condition without a known cure, the costs of raising a child with cerebral palsy place a tremendous financial burden on a family of the course of an individual's lifetime These financial costs do not factor in the damages resulting from reduced earning capacity, ...

Health And The Economy We normally do not think that health is related to economics other than with regard to the costs of medical care But there is another more fundamental way money impacts our wellbeing If you could not pay your bills or had to worry about where the next meal would come from, would you be thinking about health, or survival? When we are trying to stay alive moment-to-moment we don’t think about food choices, supplements, organic farming, ...

Drug Abuse 101 - What You Absolutely Need To Know IntroductionDue to the change in world’s social and economic pattern with so much of stressors and so less time for each other and even for oneself to get relaxed, there is a hug scope for the immature population to go for unnatural and short-lived pleasures which although might pose severe threat to one’s own health and well being and even to life Hence late teenagers and people in early twenties ...

The Joys And Magic Of Music What is the one single existing thing today that can bring people, regardless of race, creed, gender or religion together as one? Just recently, for the first time in history, a Zulu Rock concert was performed before a mixed, sell out crowd in South Africa Music is known to transcend bounds that politics can't even get close to How important is music in our lives? What control do we have over the one thing that seems to invade our lives wherever we ...

Avian Flu Symptoms Avian Flu Symptoms Influenza viruses are constantly changing and mutating Today the current risk to the world population in that the H5N1 strain of avian bird flu will adapt and start to spread from human to human If the H5N1 strain does adapt and start to spread, the concern for health and government officials is since humans do not have any natural protection or immunity against the new strain of bird flu, we will quickly be in a worldwide pandemic There have been bird flu epidemics ...

Stigma: Building Awareness And Understanding About Mental Illness Mental illness can strike anyone! It knows no age limits, economic status, race, creed or color During the course of a year, more than 54 million Americans are affected by one or more mental disorders Medical science has made incredible progress over the last century in helping us understand, curing and eliminating the causes of many diseases including mental illnesses However, while doctors continue to solve some of the mysteries of the brain, many of its functions remain a puzzle Even at ...

Face Transplants: Medicines New Victory The whiners who cry about face transplant surgery not being warranted need try walking around the mall for a couple days shopping for Christmas presents and then get back to me about moral and ethical issues There are no moral or ethical issues Period As you read this the Cleveland Clinic in the United States is screening candidates in preparation for the world's first full face transplant Nothing could be more exciting or moral ethical! The surgeons, who need not defend themselves spoke at ...

Bird Flu: Diagnosis Central to the problem of dealing with bird flu is diagnosis A number of upper respiratory infections have similar symptoms--at least at the onset of the illness, including the common cold, seasonal influenza, and bird flu Seasonal flu and bird flu have almost identical symptoms--including fever, cough, malaise (feeling unwell), nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea This is, needless to say, a gigantic problem in accurately diagnosing bird flu--which is critical to beginning appropriate treatment as well as initiating infection control procedures and public health measures Currently, accurate ...