5 Palestinians, 2 more Israelis die from swine flu pushing death toll to 49

Latest

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Health care bill passes in the House, moves on to Senate

CNN.com

President Obama on Sunday praised the "historic" House vote to pass a bill overhauling the nation's ailing health care system, and said now it is time for the Senate to "take the baton" and complete its work.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Three More Israeli Deaths From H1N1

JTA

Three more Israelis died from the swine flu, as the country’s health system began its inoculation campaign against the virus.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Study: Holocaust survivors at higher risk for cancer

JTA

Jewish Holocaust survivors are at a higher risk for cancer, a study found.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Lieberman says he’ll filibuster public option vote

CNN.com

Independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Tuesday he would join a Republican filibuster to block the final vote on any health care bill that has a government-run public health insurance option.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

White House Won’t Hit Lieberman Hard For Health Care Opposition

HuffingtonPost.com

The Obama administration said on Wednesday that they "disagree" with the substance of Sen. Joseph Lieberman's critique of a public option for insurance coverage. But in the daily press briefing with reporters, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs treaded carefully when it came to pushing back against the Connecticut Independent's threat to potentially filibuster health care reform.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Lifting the Fog of Chemo Brain

by Jessica Ogilvie, Contributing Writer

When Idelle Davidson was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005, the furthest thing from her mind was safeguarding her memory. Radiation and chemotherapy took her energy, and most of her time. But months later, she began to forget things and become more and more disoriented — losing her car at the mall, forgetting friends’ phone numbers. She became concerned something was wrong.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Doctor Turns Cancer Victory Into Oncology Career

By Judy Gruen

At the beginning of his senior year in high school, Amir Steinberg attended Yom Kippur services with his family in Houston and listened to what has since become known in their family as “the bitachon sermon,” referring to the Hebrew word for trust or faith.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Kids Kicking Cancer Comes to L.A.

by Jacob Silverman, Contributing Writer

In a Santa Monica karate dojo, Adam takes aim at an orange-and-red foam pad that his teacher, sensei Bruce, has dressed up with electrical tape to look like a grimacing face. Adam, 7, emits a raucous “kiai!” and strikes the pad, sending it careening into the mirrored wall.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Jews Should Oppose Universal Health Care

David Klinghoffer, BeliefNet.com

In the always lively Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, Rabbi Elliot Dorff writes in a cover essay that "support for universal health care is an imperative in Jewish law." Is it now? On health care reform, Rabbi Dorff has his classical sources all lined up -- most having to do with obligations on the community to rescue its needy, the captive, and those otherwise endangered. The communal court system can compel a person to give charity in support of the poor. Proper medical services are a necessity in a Jewish community. And so on. Whether through socialized medicine or government health insurance, something must be done: the fact of there being 40 million uninsured Americans is "intolerable."

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Israel’s swine flu death toll hits 21

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

A 26-year-old man with no other medical conditions is the 21st Israeli victim of the swine flu.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Why We Must Support Universal Health Care

by Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff

Whether or not we are believers in the Obama plan, or any of the particular plans for universal health care currently winding their way through Congress, support for universal health care is an imperative in Jewish law. Although what is available in medicine and its cost have changed radically, particularly over the past century, the fundamental right to receive good care — and to be compensated for giving it — goes very far back in our heritage, though perhaps, ironically, not all the way to the Torah or even the Mishnah.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Swedish daily hits back at critics of IDF organ harvest story

By Assaf Uni and Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondents

A Swedish newspaper provoked outrage in Israel and drew condemnation from Sweden's ambassador on Wednesday after it ran a story on transplant organ theft, a report an Israeli official branded anti-Semitic "hate porn".

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Tikkun Gives a Jewish Treatment to the Korean Spa

By Orit Arfa

Tikkun Holistic Spa is probably one of the few Korean spas in the Los Angeles area where the receptionist greets clients without a Korean accent. Founder Niki Schwarz wanted to make sure non-Koreans who walk through the door (after taking an elevator to the basement) encounter no struggle in their quest for the perfect day of rest.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Gaucher Drug Temporarily Rationed

by Rebecca Steinberger, Contributing Writer

Bruce Lloyd Kates is worried. Production of a drug he uses to control symptoms of his Gaucher disease, a rare genetic condition that disproportionately affects Ashkenazim, was halted mid-June after a viral contamination was discovered at the drug’s manufacturer’s plant.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Local Jewish Camps Face Down Swine Flu

by Laura Stampler, Contributing Writer and Julie Gruenbaum Fax, Senior Writer

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Health Care Is Broken, But How Do You Fix It?

By Rachel Heller

As the march toward health care reform takes place nationally, the debate over what form it should take is heating up on the local level, as well. Many California doctors believe the best plan to cover the uninsured is laid out in a bill slowly gathering momentum in the California State Senate: a government-financed health system backers call “Medicare for all.”

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Still Want Your Kid to Be a Doctor?

By Rachel Heller

Five years as a yoga instructor gave Priel Schmalbach an intuitive sense of others’ well-being and a desire to heal the medical ailments that lay beyond yoga’s reach. So the Miami native enrolled in UC Irvine’s School of Medicine as an MD/PhD student, pursuing a career as a family practitioner.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

The Case of Sam Goldstein and the Swine Flu Vaccine

By Jacob Berkman

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Baby Boys Are Troublesome, Israeli Study Finds

By Karin Kloosterman

It may sound like an old wives’ tale, but Israeli medical researchers have discovered that the age-old stories about boys being more trouble are true — at least when they are in the womb.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Equip Tween Girls, They’ll Defy Sexualized Images

By Judy Gruen

In September 2004, Dove did something radical for a player in the beauty industry: it launched an ad campaign that didn’t feature the typical size 0 model. Instead, it featured real women who clearly defied the starlet-skinny chic that had come to represent the media “ideal” of the female form.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Mouth, Skin Sores Could Be Sign of Something More

By Adam Wills

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Doctor Calms Radiation Fears With Nature Photos

By Rachel Heller

The walls of Dr. Bernard Lewinsky’s office resemble the pages of a National Geographic calendar: sweeping lake vistas and verdant forests brush up against sculptured rock formations and sun-mottled Yosemite hills. Looking at his photographs, patients remember vacations, times when they felt relaxed and at peace. It takes their minds off their cancer.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Free Camp Offers Help for Kids Facing Parent’s Cancer

By Lilly Fowler

Corinne Lightweaver has spent nearly seven years fighting cancer; first diagnosed with lymphoma in 2003, doctors then discovered she had breast cancer in 2007. The stress and anxiety associated with her life-threatening illness had taken a toll on the entire family, including her wife, Stacey Peyer, and their daughter, who at 7 has had a parent with cancer for most of her young life.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Pancreatic Cancer Studies Hopeful, But Funding Lags

By Nancy Sokoler Steiner

It’s the fourth deadliest cancer, which will claim an estimated 34,000 lives this year. There are no surefire methods for prevention or early detection. And it resists treatments found to be effective in other cancers.