NEW YORK (AP) -- A city Health Department study finds that more than a fourth of adult New Yorkers are infected with the virus that causes genital herpes. The study, released Monday, says about 26 percent of New York City adults have genital herpes, compared to about 19 percent nationwide. The department says genital herpes can double a person's risk for contracting HIV. Herpes can cause painful sores, but most people have no recognizable symptoms. Among New Yorkers, the herpes rate is higher among women, black people and gay men.  More...

(wapo) An epidemic of obesity is compromising the lives of millions of American children, with burgeoning problems that reveal how much more vulnerable young bodies are to the toxic effects of fat. In ways only beginning to be understood, being overweight at a young age appears to be far more destructive to well-being than adding excess pounds later in life. Virtually every major organ is at risk. The greater damage is probably irreversible. Doctors are seeing confirmation of this daily: boys and girls in elementary school suffering from high blood pressure, high cholesterol and painful joint conditions; a soaring incidence of type 2 diabetes, once a rarity in pediatricians' offices; even a spike in child gallstones, also once a singularly adult affliction.  More...

(nyt)Some public health experts are questioning why menthol, the most widely used cigarette flavoring and the most popular cigarette choice of African-American smokers, is receiving special protection as Congress tries to regulate tobacco for the first time. The legislation, which would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to oversee tobacco products, would try to reduce smoking’s allure to young people by banning most flavored cigarettes, including clove and cinnamon. But those new strictures would exempt menthol — even though menthol masks the harsh taste of cigarettes for beginners and may make it harder for the addicted to kick the smoking habit. For years, public health authorities have worried that menthol might be a factor in high cancer rates in African-Americans. The reason menthol is seen as politically off limits, despite those concerns, is that mentholated brands are so crucial to the American cigarette industry.  More...

(wapo) Derrick Farley, a 29-year-old Army sergeant stationed at Fort Bragg, N. C. , has seen many people die. He served in Iraq for three year-long tours of duty with only six-month breaks between them. He remembers driving trucks along the dirt roads of Tikrit, ever alert for telltale signs of a sniper or the sudden blast of a hidden roadside bomb.  More...

(msnbc) Scientists say they have pinpointed a genetic link that makes people more likely to get hooked on tobacco, causing them to smoke more cigarettes, making it harder to quit, and leading more often to deadly lung cancer. The discovery by three separate teams of scientists makes the strongest case so far for the biological underpinnings of the addiction of smoking and sheds light on how genetics and cigarettes join forces to cause cancer, experts said. The findings also lay the groundwork for more tailored quit-smoking treatments. "This is kind of a double whammy gene,'' said Christopher Amos, a professor of epidemiology at the M. D.  More...

(cdc/ap) At least one in four teenage girls nationwide has a sexually transmitted disease, or more than 3 million teens, according to the first study of its kind in this age group. A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls — nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. That rate compared with 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-American teens, the study from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. About half of the girls acknowledged ever having sex; among them, the rate was 40 percent. While some teens define sex as only intercourse, other types of intimate behavior including oral sex can spread some infections.  More...

(lat) One of California's largest for-profit insurers stopped a controversial practice of canceling sick policyholders Friday after a judge ordered Health Net Inc. to pay more than $9 million to a breast cancer patient it dropped in the middle of chemotherapy. The ruling by a private arbitration judge was the first of its kind and the most powerful rebuke to the state's major insurers whose cancellation practices are under fire from the courts, state regulators and elected officials. Calling Woodland Hills-based Health Net's actions "egregious," Judge Sam Cianchetti, a retired Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, ruled that the company broke state laws and acted in bad faith. The punitive damage award is the first of its kind and has prompted the giant medical insurer to scrap practices that have recently come under fire.  More...

(lat) Illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries are 50% less likely than U. S. -born Latinos to use hospital emergency rooms in California. The cost of providing healthcare and other government services to illegal immigrants looms large in the national debate over immigration. In LA County, much of the focus of that debate has been on hospital emergency rooms.  More...

(bloomberg) Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Death rates for black children with diabetes were twice as high as for white children during a 25- year period, possibly because of gaps in medical care and information, U. S. officials said. Black youths living in poor areas may have limited access to medical services and lack quality disease education and health care, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today.  More...

(apa) One-third of Americans are living with extreme stress and nearly half of Americans (48 percent) believe that their stress has increased over the past five years. Stress is taking a toll on people — contributing to health problems, poor relationships and lost productivity at work, according to a new national survey released today by the American Psychological Association (APA). Money and work continue as the leading causes of stress for three quarters of Americans, a dramatic increase over the 59 percent reporting the same sources of stress in 2006. The survey also found that the housing crisis is having an effect on many, with half of Americans (51 percent) citing rent or mortgage costs as sources of stress this year. Nearly half of all Americans report that stress has a negative impact on both their personal and professional lives.  More...

For those who want to get a message to their representatives in Washington urging them to overturn President Bush's veto on the State Children's Health Insurance Program -- a program that provides health insurance for millions of kids -- VIEW SOURCE and follow the steps. . . . .  More...

(nyt) Since contracting polio at age 2, Yan Ling Ho has lived with pain for most of her 52 years. After she immigrated here from Hong Kong last year, the soreness in her back and joints proved too debilitating for her to work. That also meant she did not have health insurance. Not wanting to burden her daughter, who was already paying her living expenses, Ms. Ho delayed doctors’ visits and battled her misery with over-the-counter medications.  More...