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11.19.2009 9:01 pm

Following the evidence on cancer screenings

Women worried about breast cancer have just one concern: What can they do to reduce the risk of dying from the disease?
One answer is to get regular mammograms. Over the past 15 years, that advice has saved thousands of lives.…

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11.17.2009 9:01 pm

Hunger, a Third World problem, affects a sixth of the U.S.

A volunteer at a St. Charles County food pantry looks over empty shelves.

A volunteer at a St. Charles County food pantry looks over empty shelves.

The number of Americans without enough to eat has reached the highest level since the federal government began keeping track 14 years ago.
About 49 million people — including…

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11.16.2009 9:00 pm

Reversing the silent epidemic of premature births

A baby in St. Louis Children's Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

A baby in St. Louis Childrens Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

The little girl lay silent and asleep.
She wore a white stocking cap. A pair of plastic tubes sprouted from her chest, deep crimson from the blood that filled them.
They led…

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11.15.2009 9:00 pm

New survey shows weaknesses in U.S. primary care

Post-Dispatch file photo.

Post-Dispatch file photo.

If you’re planning to get sick outside of regular business hours, you’d be well advised to do it in the Netherlands.
Almost every Dutch primary care doctor — 97 percent, to be precise — has a nurse or physician…

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11.09.2009 9:01 pm

Understanding reform doesn’t come from handicapping it

Horse race or health reform?

Here’s something you won’t learn from reading headlines or obsessively watching text crawl across the bottom of the TV screen: Health care reform isn’t a horse race.
It doesn’t turn on what the latest key member of Congress said this morning…

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11.06.2009 9:03 pm

Costly new drugs: A crisis for one family, a quandry for U.S.

Dan Callahan

Dan Callahan

It began with a little black spot on Dan Callahan’s lower lip. He didn’t think it was anything to worry about. His doctor thought it was cancer.
The doctor was right.
It was neurotropic melanoma, a very rare — and very…

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11.04.2009 9:01 pm

History holds lessons for public health insurance option

Protesters demand health reform at a rally outside Blue Cross headquarters in Los Angles

Protesters demand health reform at a rally outside Blue Cross headquarters in Los Angles last month.

Nothing about health care reform has inspired more overheated rhetoric than the so-called public option.
Opponents say it would unleash a government juggernaut against which no…

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11.02.2009 9:01 pm

Seeking a less catastrophic way to cool global warming

Phorusrhacos longissimus roamed part of what is now Argentina during the Middle Miocene.

Who wants a drumstick? The six-foot-tall phorusrhacos longissimus roamed what is now Argentina during the Middle Miocene.

People often talk as if warming temperatures are the only evidence of human-induced global climate change. But the amount of carbon dioxide in the…

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11.02.2009 9:01 pm

Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. The legal system does.

In Sunday’s third installment of a Post-Dispatch series on loopholes in Missouri’s drunk driving laws, we learned that the state law that mandates a one year-suspension of driving privileges for drivers who refuse to take a breathalyzer test often is a joke.

In…

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11.01.2009 9:00 pm

Sharing responsibility for health care costs

House Democrats unveiled a sweeping health care reform bill last Thursday built on shared responsibility.
Individuals would have to buy health insurance for themselves and their families.
Taxpayers would subsidize coverage for those unable to afford it on their own.
Employers would have…

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10.30.2009 9:01 pm

The way it is: Budget cuts move Missouri south.

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

Last week, Gov. Jay Nixon whacked another $203.7 million from the state’s budget. He’d already cut $385 million in July, and vetoed another $105 million when he signed the $23 billion budget in June.

The governor really had no choice.…

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10.30.2009 9:00 pm

EPA ruling might mean a cleaner Mississippi River

Water skiing on the Mississippi River

Water skiing on the Mississippi River

It takes more than 200 pages of dense, legalistic language to detail the intricacies of the federal Clean Water Act. But the bottom line is simple: Federal and state governments must protect lakes, streams and…

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10.27.2009 9:01 pm

Time to end Doe Run’s serial contamination cycle.

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

The Doe Run Company has been operating a giant lead smelter in Herculaneum for decades. For just as long, elevated lead levels have been found in people, properties and roads around it.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Missouri Department…

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10.23.2009 9:00 pm

Vote Yes on Proposition N.

About 60 percent of Americans - 175 million people - now live in communities that restrict smoking in public places.

On Nov. 3, voters in St. Louis County can add the county’s nearly 1 million residents to the list by voting…

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10.21.2009 9:00 pm

Borrowing tactics from both sides on health reform

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, was in a fine fury Tuesday morning. Speaking on the Senate floor, he blasted Democratic lawmakers for a plan to permanently adjust the Medicare formula used to set payment…

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10.20.2009 9:01 pm

Improving health systems means better care for less money

If there were a way to save $207.4 million, avoid 30,000 unnecessary hospitalizations and more than 2,000 premature deaths, we’d jump at it, right?
That’s what Missouri would gain if its health system performed as well as the systems in Vermont,…

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10.20.2009 9:00 pm

A tale of two Rods: Illinois-style politics in Jefferson City

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

Last April 8, the Missouri House passed a measure that would have given voters the right to change the state’s non-partisan judicial selection process and put politics back in the system.

On Sunday, The Kansas City Star looked at that 85-72 vote…

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10.16.2009 9:01 pm

Markets, competition and health reform

Flanked by doctors, President Barack Obama speaks after last week's historic Senate health reform vote.

President Barack Obama speaks after last week's historic Senate health reform vote.

Forget all the angry shouting about socialized medicine and government take-overs. Health care reform is really all about markets, competition and choice.
That’s probably not what you’ve heard. But as…

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10.15.2009 6:33 pm

Taking a closer look at the ‘real uninsured.’

To hear some people tell it, the number of people without health insurance in the United States is vastly overstated.
There are the illegal immigrants, the argument goes, and then there are those who can afford to buy insurance but don’t…

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10.13.2009 9:03 pm

DWI? Ho-hum.

The more you learn about how drunk driving laws are enforced — or more often, not enforced — in the St. Louis area, the more obvious it becomes why drunk driving remains so prevalent.

Unless a drunk driver runs into someone or…

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