Aug 23 2015 — Helen Branswell — TORONTO - The scientist who led the work to develop the Ebola drug ZMapp is going to be leaving the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.Dr. Gary Kobinger is the lab's chief of special pathogens, heading a team that works on some of the world's worst disease threats.Kobinger will be vacating that position next June to […]
Aug 20 2015 — Helen Branswell — The Canadian Press — TORONTO - Many women are receiving unnecessary treatment for a condition that is sometimes called Stage 0 breast cancer, the findings of a new Canadian study suggest.Women who undergo single or double mastectomies or radiation as treatment for ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS, do not appear to be increasing their chances of survival, the […]
Aug 18 2015 — Helen Branswell — The Canadian Press — TORONTO - A dangerous bacterial disease that has been rendered rare by vaccination has struck a little boy in Toronto.One-year-old Ethan Faria has had part of both legs amputated in an attempt to save him from a blood infection triggered by Hemophilus influenzae Type B.The child is being cared for at Toronto's Hospital for Sick […]
Aug 13 2015 — Helen Branswell — TORONTO - Moments after the first person treated with ZMapp started receiving the experimental Ebola drug he could feel effects which suggested it was working.Dr. Kent Brantly's soaring temperature abated within 15 minutes. Ninety minutes after the infusion started, the American doctor was able to walk to the bathroom for the first time in a […]
Aug 12 2015 — Helen Branswell — TORONTO - Some sort of fresh produce has been making a number of Canadians sick this summer. But with grocery stores a veritable cornucopia of fruits and vegetables, how do public health experts figure out what is to blame?It ain't easy.In fact, it takes a lot of dogged work to figure out what is the […]
Jul 31 2015 — Helen Branswell — TORONTO - A team of international researchers has reported an Ebola vaccine developed at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg works.In a study in Guinea, the vaccine protected 100 per cent of the people who got it from infection with the deadly virus.The world has been waiting for years for an effective Ebola vaccine and […]
Jul 30 2015 — Helen Branswell — TORONTO - A Toronto hospital investigating claims two of its researchers fabricated data in published scientific papers was told the image-altering program Photoshop was commonly used in their lab, a court document reveals.The researchers, Dr. Sylvia Asa and Dr. Shereen Ezzat, are asking Ontario's Divisional Court to quash a University Health Network decision that found […]
Jul 30 2015 — Helen Branswell — TORONTO - A quarter century after women in France were first given access to it, the abortion drug known as RU-486 is finally going to be available in Canada.Health Canada confirmed late Wednesday that it had approved the drug for use here, 2 1/2 years after the manufacturer's application was submitted. Women will need to […]
Jul 29 2015 — Helen Branswell — TORONTO - Health Canada says it will regulate cosmetic or decorative contact lenses in the way it oversees the sale of corrective lenses.In a statement, Health Minister Rona Ambrose says the risks cosmetic lenses pose to the eyes of people who wear them are the same as those associated with corrective lens wear.Cosmetic lenses change […]
Jul 27 2015 — Helen Branswell — The Canadian Press — TORONTO - A cheap and simple procedure that seems more like a party trick than a medical therapy appears to help young children clear their ears of fluid, a condition sometimes called glue ear.British researchers reported Monday that having affected children inflate a balloon by blowing air through their nostrils helped rid the middle ear […]
Jul 24 2015 — Helen Branswell — TORONTO - Health Canada has agreed to review the prescription-only status of an antidote used to treat heroin and other opioid overdoses.A number of provinces have called for naloxone to be easier to access, so people who might one day need it can keep it on hand.The idea would be to treat naloxone like EpiPens […]
Jul 24 2015 — Helen Branswell — TORONTO - A new study suggests the number of Canadians living with stroke-induced disabilities will rise substantially over the next couple of decades.More people are surviving strokes — a good news story about what can be a devastating and even fatal attack on the brain.But the study authors say that with an aging and expanding […]
Jul 13 2015 — Helen Branswell — TORONTO - One couple renewed their wedding vows. Another had a date night. A group of family and friends gathered for one last sing-along.These are some of the outcomes that resulted from a Hamilton hospital's novel "three wishes" program, an effort to make dying in an intensive care unit a bit less impersonal."Humanizing the environment […]
Jul 10 2015 — Helen Branswell — TORONTO - Stool transplants appear to be a veritable home run in the treatment of recurrent C. difficile infections. Researchers are now questioning whether the therapy would work for a range of other bowel diseases, and even obesity.The first trials looking at whether ulcerative colitis could be treated with an infusion of a healthy person's […]
Jul 10 2015 — Helen Branswell — TORONTO - A member of Mexico's female soccer team at the Pan Am Games has been diagnosed with chickenpox, Games officials have confirmed.Here are some facts about chickenpox, a miserable ailment rendered fairly rare since the advent of an effective vaccine:— That's not its real nameWe call it chickenpox. But this disease, which was once […]