NowMyNews

A hospital in the French city of Clermont-Ferrand is to open a wine bar where terminally ill patients will be able to enjoy a "medically-supervised" glass or two with their families. _0"> "Why should we refuse the charms of the soil to those at the end of their lives? Nothing justifies such an prohibition," the Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital Center said in statement. The center's head, Dr. Virginie Guastella, said terminally ill patients had the right to "enjoy themselves". The bar will be the first in France to offer such a facility for patients and their families. Staff will be specially trained before it opens in the hospital's palliative care center in September. "Medically supervised tastings will help brighten what is often a difficult daily life," the hospital said. Although some researchers have long held that an antioxidant found in red wine is good for the heart, some recent research has determined that wine

The parents of preschool children in the U.S. may be buying fewer sugar-sweetened drinks, a new study suggests. Whether that will translate into lower childhood obesity rates remains to be seen, experts said. There was also a shift in milk purchasing, which some said could be concerning. Researchers examined purchases of packaged food and beverages among more than 42,000 households with children ages 2 to 5 years old. They found that between 2000 and 2011, purchased beverage calories dropped by 51 percent and purchased food calories dropped by 21 percent. Milk purchases decreased by 40 calories a day per person, soft drink purchases by 27 calories a day and juice drink purchases by 24 calories a day. In addition, daily purchases of grain-based desserts like cakes and cookies dropped by 24 calories, savory snacks by 17 calories and candy by 13 calories, according to results published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The data came from a consumer panel that asks h

The U.S. Justice Department asked a federal appeals court on Friday to reconsider its July 22 ruling that poses a major setback to the Obamacare health insurance overhaul as it could limit the availability of federal health insurance subsidies for millions of people. In the ruling last month, the appeals court said the subsidies, which help people afford health insurance, may only be paid in states that have their own online health insurance exchanges. There are 36 states that lack their own exchanges, which are a central feature in the Obamacare system. Five million people could be affected, analysts have estimated, if subsidies were to disappear from the federally created marketplaces that have been set up in the states that did not set up their own exchanges. In the court filing, the government, as expected, asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the three-judge panel's decision. If the court agrees to rehear the case, oral a

Participating in a teen relationship abuse prevention program may equip and encourage high school coaches to intervene when they witness abusive behavior among athletes, according to a new study. Researchers previously showed that the program had a positive influence on male high school athletes, who showed reductions in perpetration of dating violence and increased intention to intervene and stop violence among peers. The program, called Coaching Boys Into Men (CBIM), trains coaches to deliver 15-minute scripted discussions once a week during the athletic season. The lessons highlight respect, nonviolence, sexual consent and interrupting abusive behaviors among peers. “The coaches gained as much from delivering the program as the athletes who received it,” said Maria Catrina D. Jaime, the study’s lead author from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pennsylvania. “After the CBIM program, they were more confident addressing abusive behaviors among their athletes and

Sierra Leone has declared a state of emergency and called in troops to quarantine Ebola victims, joining neighboring Liberia in imposing controls as the death toll from the outbreak of the virus hit 729 in West Africa. The World Health Organisation said it would launch a $100 million response plan on Friday during a meeting with the affected nations in Guinea. It is in urgent talks with donors and international agencies to send more medical staff and resources to the region, it said. The WHO on Thursday reported 57 new deaths in the four days to July 27 in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, raising the death toll to 729. It said the number of Ebola cases had topped 1,300. "The scale of the Ebola outbreak, and the persistent threat it poses, requires WHO and Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to take the response to a new level, and this will require increased resources," WHO Director General Margaret Chan said. Sierra Leone's president, Ernest Bai Koroma, anno

West African leaders agreed on Friday to take stronger measures to try to bring the worst outbreak of Ebola under control and prevent it spreading outside the region, including steps to isolate rural communities ravaged by the disease. The World Health Organization and medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres said on Friday the outbreak, which has killed 729 people in four West African countries, was out of control and more resources were urgently needed to deal with it. WHO chief Margaret Chan told a meeting of the presidents of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - the countries worst affected - that the epidemic was outpacing efforts to contain it and warned of catastrophic consequences in lost lives and economic disruption if the situation were allowed to deteriorate. "The presidents recognize the serious nature of the Ebola outbreak in their countries," Chan said after the meeting. "They are determined to take extraordinary measures to stop Ebola in their countrie

Express Scripts Holding Co, the largest U.S. pharmacy benefit manager, on Friday said it will remove 25 products from its 2015 list of preferred drugs, including anemia treatments Epogen and Aranesp, both sold by Amgen Inc. _0"> The company will continue to include Procrit, a similar anemia drug sold by Johnson & Johnson, on its list of preferred drugs, or formulary. "The products we have chosen to exclude from our formulary are those that cost significantly more than other available options but that fail to provide additional health benefit," the company said in an emailed statement. Express Scripts, which like other pharmacy benefit managers administers prescription drug benefits for employers and health plans and runs large mail-order pharmacies, said that patients who fill a prescription for an excluded drug will pay the full retail price. Epogen, and second-generation drug Aranesp, have been hugely profitable for Amgen, although their use has waned in r