MEDICINE

An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo has health officials scrambling to contain the contagious disease.

Kathy Bates has had to battle cancer for a second time after having to undergo a double mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer nine years after she surviving ovarian cancer, People reported.

The nation watched as Aimee Copeland, the 24-year-old girl from Georgia, who contracted necrotizing fasciitis (a flesh eating bacteria) after she fell into infected water when her zip line broke. Months later she appeared on Katie Couric's new show on "Katie" September 11 and walked out onto the stage.

Between 40,000 and 90,000 emergency workers and volunteers spent time sifting through the remains at Ground Zero, and were exposed to toxic materials that have been blamed for a range of respiratory illnesses and other ailments.

A new paper taking a closer look at the people who volunteered for a previous HIV vaccine trial in Thailand has identified precise targets on the virus that could form the base of a more effective vaccine.

While more and more patients are getting a new kind of treatment called cardiac resynchronization therapy, a racial gap persists, doctors say.

One scientist says a new kind of way to detect Down syndrome, which looks for traces of the baby's DNA in the mother's blood sample as early as the first trimester, will pick up nearly all cases of the genetic disorder in the womb.

Fast-food franchise owners say the Affordable Care Act could virtually put them out of business with its requirements that they provide health-care coverage.

Brett Favre's lawyers say the football legend should not have to respond to allegations made against his personal life in an ongoing lawsuit brought against him by a pair of massage therapists. The women claim Favre inappropriately sexted them and have called on the quarterback to identify himself in the pictures.

Manufacturers currently warn against putting pacemakers into MRI scanners, whose strong magnetic field might in principle cause the metal wires from the devices to heat up and burn the heart tissue.

The findings don't prove that exercising more cuts the risk of chronic disease, because it could be that people with a lot of physical activity also eat healthier foods - something the researchers didn't take into account.

More than 95 percent of kindergartners were vaccinated for diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis, polio and hepatitis B, meeting federal guidelines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new report.

All told, the number of ‘fat’ Americans far surpasses those of any racial, ethnic or religious minority.

Researchers from one head and neck specialty program found that a resident having excelled in team sports was a more accurate predictor of success in the program than any of those other factors.

Researchers estimated that the relative risk of dying from cancer among people that took aspirin every day for five years or more was about 16% less than the risk for those that did not take aspirin.

After being diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Linda Cifuentes, 16, felt restless sitting day after day in her hospital room. Her mother, who adopted her two years prior, thought she would get her creative juices flowing by bringing her colorful beads to make jewelry with -- and thus a dream was born!

Swine flu is making a comeback as a new strain of the virus has begun spreading, with more than 100 cases reported this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The surprising culprit? State and county fairs. And doctors warn its now much easier to transmit among humans.

Employers in the restaurant and retail industries -- those with a large number of hourly wage workers who traditionally had minimal or no health insurance -- are more likely than other companies to drop their health plans or cut worker's hours in order to maintain their already slim profit margins.

State officials said a mild winter in the Northeast United States contributed to higher mosquito populations this summer in Massachusetts and potentially neighboring states, and is also why mosquitoes carrying EEE were found earlier than normal.

The main pollen culprits tied to the increase in hospital visits came from oaks and grasses, whose levels spike in the spring.

Chemotherapy treatment for certain types of cancer might actually make tumors grow, a study revealed on Sunday.