Allergic to eggs, the flu shot or flu meds? Maybe, maybe not.

Clinton wrote this …
First it was H1N1 virus itself, then the vaccine became the shot heard ‘round the
world. Everywhere. All the time. Practically. Is the virus real? Is it as bad as people say? The government should to more, faster! The government should stay out of health care!
The most recent news has been about the [...]

Forget the turkey, save yourself this Thanksgiving

Clinton wrote this …
Let’s dispense with the tired clichés and get right to it. Some people just don’t enjoy the holidays. Or, they don’t enjoy the people they have to share the holidays with.
Sometimes the issues boil over at the dinner table, when food becomes the trigger for all kinds of highly charged emotions.
Cynthia Bulik, [...]

Burn survivors share stories, provide healing

Clinton wrote this …
Last Saturday afternoon four people told their stories about being burned as children — two in house fires, one in a plane crash and another, as a 13-year-old, who attempted suicide — to a gathering of more than 200 at the 17th annual Celebration of Life, a reunion for burn survivors and [...]

From spinal cord injury to national champion

Tom wrote this …
OK, here’s a warning for you, folks:  I’m about to go all bicycle geeky on you.
Today the UNC Health Care Rehabilitation Center sponsored a spinal cord injury expo in the lobby of North Carolina Children’s Hospital, here at UNC Hospitals. One point of this event is to demonstrate that people who suffer [...]

To screen, or not to screen? If so, when?

Tom wrote this …
One of the most hotly debated and enduring conflicts in medicine is the war of words between experts who urge people to be screened early and often for cancer, and other experts who say the evidence just isn’t there to justify current screening recommendations, and that screening may even cause more harm [...]

Viagra for women? New drug increases female libido

Tom wrote this …
Once I started telling people that I was writing a news story about a drug for treating low libido in women, the jokes began. (You can add your own joke here, if you like.)
But for thousands of women who suffer from what is formally called hypoactive sexual desire disorder or HSDD, it’s [...]

Science, not science fiction: Two flu drugs studied at UNC

When Scott Pelley of “60 Minutes” asked HHS Secretary Katheleen Sebelius about political punditry critical of the public health response to novel H1N1, she pointedly said, “I tend to like to get my health advice from doctors and scientists.”
She’ll be getting some of her advice about treating flu from UNC. Charlie van der Horst and [...]

Understanding why the body goes into labor is key to controlling infant mortality

Clinton wrote this …
The National Center for Health Statistics released earlier this week a report on infant mortality.
In its analysis, the U.S. ranks 30th in the world. We deliver far more babies pre-term, before 37 weeks gestation, than most countries, and don’t do as well in keeping them alive.
NPR’s Brenda Wilson delivered her usual in-depth and [...]

AIDS in the U.S.; the patient profile has changed, so should testing practices

Clinton wrote this …
There is growing sentiment, and evidence, that attention to HIV and AIDS has shifted so far abroad, to Africa and in developing countries elsewhere, that Americans have overlooked a growing epidemic in our own collective backyard.
But even in the US we’re looking through bleary eyes. This isn’t the 1980s. We need to [...]

Graduating from high school, at the hospital

Ginger wrote this…
On Oct. 23 I attended a graduation ceremony – in the NC Jaycee Burn Center at UNC Hospitals. I watched Ryan Frias, a burn patient, precess down the hospital hall, lined with staff clapping and cheering, to “Pomp and Circumstance.”
Ryan’s story is an inspiring one. He was admitted to UNC almost a year [...]