HEALTH

Some countries have been ambushed by sudden severe outbreaks of disease and death from the H1N1 flu pandemic, and have gone over the top in their response, a European flu specialist said on Friday.

The H1N1pandemic flu virus could kill up to 40,000 people across Europe and be followed by seasonal flu waves that could kill the same number, European health experts said on Friday.

Home heart rate monitors are dangerous in the hands of untrained mothers according to new information published by the BMJ say the Telegraph.

An experimental vaccine cured nearly half of women with pre-cancerous growths on their genitals, producing major improvement in nearly four out of five, researchers in the Netherlands reported on Wednesday.

Women who smoke while pregnant risk having hyperactive preschoolers who can't pay attention, a large study from the UK hints.

Democrats in the House of Representatives scrambled on Wednesday to iron out lingering concerns over abortion in a healthcare reform bill that was headed to a close and potentially historic weekend debate.

Nearly a third of Americans who die are in the hospital at the time and their last treatments cost the U.S. economy $20 billion, according to a report released on Wednesday.

States and counties will be struggling to vaccinate people against the swine flu pandemic well into December and January -- long after the first peak of the virus in the United States, officials said on Wednesday.

Americans are more likely than people in 10 other countries to have trouble getting medical treatment because of insurance restrictions or cost, an international survey of primary care doctors released on Wednesday found.

Swine flu can cause severe disease in people of all ages and appears to pose a special threat to those who are obese, according to an analysis ofH1N1 cases in California released on Tuesday.

The United States ranks 30th in terms of infant mortality, an important measure of the quality of healthcare, according to a report released on Tuesday.

Dutch Philips Electronics is betting it can help doctors monitor patients remotely to keep an aging population healthier and battle rising medical costs.

U.S. employers who tell workers to stay home when they are sick will have to give them paid time off for up to five days under new federal legislation proposed on Tuesday.

Babies whose mothers used antidepressants during pregnancy visit the doctor more often and have higher risks of certain health problems than other children their age, a new study suggests.

Low total cholesterol may be a sign of cancer rather than a cause, as some researchers have suggested, and men who have low cholesterol actually have a lower risk of developing high-risk prostate cancer, two teams reported on Tuesday.

Smokers who switch to a low-tar, light or mild brand of cigarette will not find it easier to quit and in fact may find it harder, researchers reported on Tuesday.

Remnants of a bygone world, these colonial memorials are places of nostalgic luxury where century-old traditions are preserved with meticulous care. Their Victorian flavour is reminiscent of Agatha Christie stories (actually, the famous writer stayed in some of them herself).

Poultry workers may be at particularly high risk of developing several forms of cancer, according to a new study that points to viruses carried by birds as a possible cause.

When it comes to treating kids for acute gastroenteritis - an infection of the stomach - many children's hospitals in the U.S. are ignoring evidence-based guidelines - and costing the health care system more than $1 billion in unnecessary spending, according to the authors of a new study.

U.S. researchers have engineered an enzyme that can gobble up scar tissue formed after spinal cord injuries in rats, overcoming a key hurdle to getting injured nerves to reconnect and heal.

The more TV a 3-year-old watches, the more likely he or she is to behave aggressively, a new study shows.

Up to 30 million doses of vaccine against the pandemic H1N1 flu have been delivered to the U.S. government and production is now picking up, officials said on Monday.

China is experiencing an epidemic of syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease that the country virtually wiped out in the 1960s, a senior public health official was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

Many U.S. primary care doctors are out of step with guidelines on Pap testing for cervical cancer -- largely because they overuse the test, according to a study published Monday.

Pregnant women and other people at high risk should be vaccinated against the H1N1 swine fluvirus as the cold weather begins to bite in the northern hemisphere, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

Getting a patient's family history is widely regarded as a standard element of good medical care. But a report published today concludes that there isn't much good evidence that obtaining such

The hepatitis B vaccine - given to protect against infection by a virus that can cause severe liver damage and cancer - may protect for more than two decades, according to a new study.

Worried about what to do with fat you've had liposuctioned from pudgy areas? Researchers have turned it into stem cells in the lab, but here's a more immediate use: Fat liposuctioned from other parts of the body can safely be used to increase a woman's breast size, according to study findings presented this week at the Plastic Surgery 2009 meeting in Seattle.

An international team of researchers said Monday it had mapped the DNA of a domestic pig, work they say could help lead to better breeding techniques as well as improve vaccines against diseases such as swine flu.