Birth control requirement in health law up for appeal

In the most prominent challenge of its kind, Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. is asking a federal appeals court Thursday for an exemption from part of the federal health care law that requires it to offer employees health coverage that includes access to the morning-after pill. The Oklahoma City-based arts-and-crafts chain argues that businesses — not just the currently exempted religious groups — sho...

'Mystery' illness in Alabama mostly cold and flu, tests show

A cluster of mysterious respiratory illnesses that alarmed southeast Alabama turned out to be nothing more sinister than ordinary cold and seasonal flu, health officials said Thursday.Lab tests by state and federal officials ruled out avian influenza and a novel coronavirus, now known as MERS, that has killed 22 people in the Middle East.“There is no evidence of any new or unexpected virus circula

H7N9 bird flu spreads much like ordinary flu

The H7N9 bird flu can spread from one mammal to another – meaning it could also spread person to person, an international team of researchers reported Thursday.Researchers haven’t been exactly sure how H7N9 is spreading. They know it can infect people – it’s infected more than 130 people and killed more than 30 of them – but they have suspected most of the victims had some sort of contact with inf

People with higher IQs filter out useless info faster, study finds

What distinguishes somebody with high intelligence quotient (IQ) scores, besides the annoying habit of finding a way to inject that fact into almost any conversation?According to a new study from researchers at the University of Rochester, it could be their ability to ignore sensory information, specifically irrelevant information we take in with our eyes.The study, released Thursday by the journa

WHO warns countries not to hoard secrets of coronavirus

By Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay ReutersThe World Health Organization (WHO) warned countries with possible cases of the SARS-like novel coronavirus on Thursday that they must share information and not allow commercial labs to profit from the virus, which has killed 22 people worldwide. Saudi Arabia, where the first case occurred, has said the development of diagnostic tests for the disease ...

Bring back PE: Exercise should be 'core' class, report says

Children need a full hour of exercise in schools every day, and not just in physical education classes, the Institute of Medicine recommended on Thursday.Schools that have dumped education classes need to put them back on the schedule, the report recommends. They also need to help kids get up and moving in the classroom, at recess and after school, a committee of experts appointed by the Ins...

WHO: 22 deaths from new SARS-like virus

The World Health Organization says there are now 22 deaths worldwide out of 44 lab-confirmed cases of the new coronavirus. WHO officials have reported another fatal case of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS, in central Saudi Arabia, but say it is not related to the cluster of cases reported from the country's east. The U.N. health agency said in a statement Thursday, c...

Miracle birth: Baby, mom live after mom’s heart stops

New drugs aim to increase female desire

Teen birth rate drops, especially among Hispanics

Across the nation fewer and fewer teens are giving birth, especially Hispanic girls, according to a new government report.Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that from 2007 to 2011, the overall rate of teen births plummeted a full 30 percent. The biggest decline was among Hispanic teens, whose birth rate dropped 34 percent. Among non-Hispanic black teens there was

Portable emergency room heads to Okla.

Born to save her sister’s life, Marissa Ayala graduates from college

Tornado birth: Mom endures labor as twister destroys hospital

When a devastating tornado touched down in Moore, Okla., on Monday afternoon, Shayla Taylor was on the upper floor of the local hospital, in active labor with her second child.As the floor shook “like an earthquake” beneath her and ceiling tiles and insulation fell overhead, the 25-year-old huddled with four nurses, braving both the peak contractions of childbirth and the wrath of the worst twiste

Doctors print up a splint for baby's blocked throat

The Youngstown, Ohio, baby turned blue again and again as his little airways collapsed and kept air from reaching his lungs. But doctors used a 3-D bioprinter to custom-make a splint that is holding his airway open and helping him breathe.Now 19-month-old Kaiba Gionfriddo is “into everything”, says his mother, April Gionfriddo."Quite a few doctors said he had a good chance of not leaving the hosp.

Dirty dogs: Homes with pooches loaded with bacteria

A dog may not only fill a home with joy, it fills a home with a whole lot of bacteria, new research suggests. But that doesn't mean you have to kick your pooch out of the bed.Research from North Carolina State University published Wednesday in the journal PLoS ONE found homes with dogs have both a greater number of bacteria and more types of bacteria than homes without dogs. The findings were par.

Post-tornado peril: Victims could face deadly fungal infections

Doctors treating victims hurt badly in Monday’s devastating Moore, Okla., tornado should be alert for a rare but deadly complication of wind-whipped debris: fungal infections like those that killed five people after the Joplin, Mo., twister in 2011.That’s the word from government experts in fungal infections, who documented 13 serious cases of necrotizing cutaneous mucormycosis -- terrible soft ti

New insomnia drug is effective, FDA finds

By Matthew PerroneAssociated PressA federal panel of medical experts said that an experimental insomnia drug from Merck & Co. Inc. appears safe and effective, despite evidence from company trials that the pill can cause daytime sleepiness and difficulty driving. A majority of Food and Drug Administration panelists voted Wednesday that Merck's sleeping aid, suvorexant, helped patients get t...

Study: Latino kids seeing more fast food ads

Fungus found in your nose, in the goop between your toes

Government researchers have just done the first genetic survey of all the fungi that live on our skin. Their findings? They’re in your ears, they’re in your nose and, yes, they are in the goop between your toes.Humans are covered with hundreds of different types of fungus, the team at the National Institutes of Health found. What’s surprising is that one family covers most of our bodies, but our .

Rethinking family disaster plans: 10 lessons from Tornado Alley

On the morning after a tornado destroyed parts of Moore, Okla., it was tough dropping off my daughter at school. Storms also hit here in Rogers, Ark. on Monday, but they were mild compared to Oklahoma. Still, wedrove past fallen tree limbs and leaves everywhere. I tried not to cry listening to the radio report about the children in the Plaza Towers Elementary School, and the mother who picked up h

New, stripped-down flu vaccine might work better, study finds

Researchers have developed a “stripped down” synthetic flu vaccine that they believe will not only work better than current vaccines, but might last longer, too -- saving people from having to get a fresh flu shot every year.They say it’s the first step toward a new generation of influenza vaccines, designed entirely in the lab, using nanoparticles instead of the decades-old approach that uses chi

Stripped-down nanoparticles make next-generation flu vaccine

Researchers have developed a “stripped down” synthetic flu vaccine that they believe will not only work better than current vaccines, but might last longer, too -- saving people from having to get a fresh flu shot every year.They say it’s the first step toward a new generation of influenza vaccines, designed entirely in the lab, using nanoparticles instead of the decades-old approach that uses chi

Life-saving face transplant performed on man after work accident

Editors note: A graphic image of the patient post surgery is at the bottom of the page.A 33-year-old Polish man received a life-saving total face transplant just three weeks after being disfigured in a workplace accident, in what his doctors said Wednesday is the fastest timeframe to date for such an operation.Face transplants are extraordinarily complicated and relatively rare procedures that in

Accidental drowning biggest risk for kids

'Tornado Mom' Stephanie Decker to Okla. victims: 'You will rebuild and get through this'

Survivors of Monday’s devastating tornado in Oklahoma are coming to grips with their post-storm realities, and there’s one person who knows all too well what they are feeling. Stephanie Decker understands the emotions of fear, shock and loss after the disaster -- and also the gratitude for what remains and the hope for what’s to come.Decker, a 38-year-old mom of two from Henryville, Ind., survived

First life-saving face transplant performed in Poland

Doctors in Poland say they have performed an urgent total face transplant on a 33-year-old man whose face was torn off in an accident which also crushed his jaws. Doctors at the Oncology Center in Gliwice said the 27-hour operation was performed May 15, just weeks after the accident. The head of the team of doctors, Adam Maciejewski, said it was the world's first life-saving face transplant c...

For Oklahoma doctors and first responders, an emotional 24 hours

Mysterious respiratory illness strikes 7 in Alabama; 2 dead

Two people have died and five others have been hospitalized in a mysterious cluster of respiratory illnesses in southeast Alabama, state health officials said. The victims, all adults, had symptoms including fever, cough and shortness of breath, but the cause of the illnesses is unknown, said Dr. Mary McIntyre, the acting state epidemiologist for the Alabama Department of Public Health. The hospit

U.N.: H7N9 flu outbreak has cost $6.5 billion so far

GENEVA - The H7N9 virus appears to have been brought under control in China largely due to restrictions at bird markets, but caused some $6.5 billion in losses to the economy, U.N. experts said on Tuesday. Health authorities worldwide must be on the lookout to detect the virus, the experts said, which could still develop the ability to spread easily among humans and cause a deadly influenza p...

Tornado survivors: A 48-hour window of opportunity

Search teams, including some with trained dogs, are scouring the rubble left behind by the monster tornado that flattened miles of homes, schools and businesses in Oklahoma City and its suburbs Monday. More than 100 people had been found alive by rescuers as of Tuesday afternoon.While it's uncertain exactly how many people are still missing, rescuers are up against the clock to find survivors, exp