Americans spend twice as much on health care as their European and Canadian counterparts, yet are more likely to rate their own quality of health as poor, says a new report, "Spending more, feeling worse: medical care expenditures and self-rated health,
In a rather worrying trend it seems that figures recently released show that New Zealand has hit an all time low in the number of organ donors it has.Apparently in 2005 only 29 people signed up to become organ donors.It seems the previou
End-of-life options for seriously ill patients have improved considerably, but still have a ways ago, says a national expert who drew upon the recent experience of his father's death to take stock of the status of end-of-life care in the United States.
The Government is rapidly running out of excuses for not acting to implement a ban on smoking in public places. Despite widespread public support for smokefree policies in the UK the Government is still undecided on the issue. Evidence from
Should drug users and their families be trained in basic resuscitation methods, and be allowed to administer interim emergency naloxone to prevent overdose deaths whilst awaiting emergency medical help? If so why are the drug regulators so resistant to imp
The UK General Dental Council (GDC) says they have banned a dentist from working after she allowed her unqualified boyfriend to carry out dental work on patients in her surgery.The dentists reg
British GPs will be given new powers to charge some overseas visitors for their services, under new proposals announced today.A new consultation paper published today sets out proposals to establish new criteria for determining who will be eligib
There were 621,469 live births in England and Wales in 2003 - an increase of 4.3 per cent on 2002, when there were 596,122.This was the highest number of births since 1999. It is also the largest single year change in the number since 1979.
A previously unknown synthetic "designer" steroid has been identified as tetrahydrogestrinone (THG). Researchers working out of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory in Los Angeles synthesized and characterized the "New Chemical Entity", a
The next time a dog comes bounding up to you for a wet, sloppy kiss and a good belly rub, don't back away. In an ongoing study, a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher has found that interacting and petting anima
Date: Monday, 12-Feb-2007
Scientists across the United States are baffled by a strange illness which appears to kill honeybees by the thousands.The mystery illness is affecting bee colonies across the country with reports of it's impact from 22 states and some commercial beekeepers have lost more than 50 percent of their bees.
The illness called "Colony Collapse Disorder" could create problems for others too as fruit growers and other farmers rely on bees to pollinate their crops.
Researchers from the Agriculture Department, universities and the industry are analyzing clues and one expert says the bees appear to have alarmingly high levels of foreign fungi, bacteria and other organisms as well as weakened immune systems.
The bee population has been affected in recent years from parasitic mites, which have destroyed hives and devastated wild honeybee populations but beekeepers are saying this illness is the worse so far and the situation is serious.
A colony can have roughly 20,000 bees in the winter, and up to 60,000 in the summer.
Apart from being producers of honey, commercial bee colonies are important to agriculture as pollinators, along with some birds, bats and other insects.
According to a recent report by the National Research Council in order to bear fruit, three-quarters of all flowering plants, including most food crops and some that provide fiber, drugs and fuel, rely on pollinators for fertilization.
So far the researchers have discovered some abnormalities in the behaviour of the bees in affected colonies but no definite clues as to what has stricken them.