Archive for the ‘Medicare News’ Category
A week after Jess’s post on preparing for storms, a major thunderstorm came through my neighborhood. One neighbor who was at home said it reminded him of hurricanes he lived through in Florida. If the wind had blown in a slightly different direction, massive tree limbs would have hit my apartment, causing a lot of damage. More importantly, my cat who sits religiously in the window under that tree (she’s even sitting there in my Gov Gab profile picture), could have been injured.
After that near miss, I wanted to know more about what I could do to protect our two cats during emergencies. What I found was that all you really have to do is to have a good plan. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the first step is to think about what disasters could happen in your area and how that might affect you. From there, develop an emergency plan with your veterinarian and make a pet evacuation kit. If the emergency is going to require you to leave home for a while, find places to board or stay with your animal.
Expanding on the success of its online Drug Facts Chat Day, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) today announced it is launching National Drug Facts Week, a new national awareness week designed to bring together teens
and scientific experts to discuss the facts about drug abuse. NIDA is a component of the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Using a new, rapid and less expensive DNA sequencing strategy, scientists have discovered genetic alterations that account for most cases of Kabuki syndrome, a rare disorder that causes multiple birth defects and mental retardation. Instead of sequencing the entire human genome, the new approach sequences just the exome, the 1-2 percent of the human genome that contains protein-coding genes.
A newly formed advisory committee will develop and coordinate a strategic federal research agenda on environmental and genetic factors related to breast cancer. The 19-member Interagency Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Coordinating Committee (IBCERCC) was established by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), to review all breast cancer research efforts conducted or supported by federal agencies.
Nearly 40 percent of people with major depression may also have subthreshold hypomania, a form of mania that does not fully meet current diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder, according to a new NIMH-funded study. The study was published online ahead of print August 15, 2010, in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
People with a particular kind of knee alignment have a greater chance of developing osteoarthritis than do those with other types of leg alignment, reported researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health.
A regulatory protein best known for its role in a rare genetic brain disorder also may play a critical role in cocaine addiction, according to a recent study in rats, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of
the National Institutes of Health. The study was published today in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Carolyn Cihelka is the editor of the Consumer Information Catalog and the writer/editor of the FedInfo enewsletter.
I’d always been too cheap to buy organic, and in too much of a hurry to give my fruits and veggies more than a quick rinse, so I was horrified recently when, as the mother of a child with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), I read about an article in a respected medical journal indicating a possible tie between pesticides on produce and ADHD.
Each payday I have some money deducted from my paycheck to buy a U.S. Savings Bond. I’m used to having savings bonds arrive in my mailbox, but in September there will be a change for federal employees, and in January the change happens for everyone else. No more paper savings bonds through the payroll deduction program.
The payroll deduction program will still exist, but it will be an online savings program. Don’t worry, not all paper bonds are being phased out now. You can still go to the bank and buy a paper savings bond for your grandkids.