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Nursing Shortage Eases With Recession's Help
"The nation"s deep recession is helping to alleviate the decade-long nursing shortage, as workers who had left the field in better times are returning in droves," the Wall Street Journal reports. The paper quotes a study, one of six papers on the nursing workforce published today in the journal Health Affairs, that found "nearly a quarter-million nurses entered the work force in 2007-08, an 18% surge that was the largest two-year increase in at least three decades." Many of them had left nursing, but "re-entered the work force to compensate for a spouse"s lost income or health benefits, the study said." The increase is "particularly remarkable at a time when the U.S. economy has shed more than six million jobs, helping to solidify the profession"s "recession-proof" image." The study found that the surge in new nurses is due to "efforts to expand nursing schools, attract more young people into the field and improve working conditions," along with an increase in the number of foreign-born nurses.
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Home Smoking Rules Tend To Vary By Race
Prohibiting tobacco use at home could reduce adolescent smoking rates, but the practice might be less common in black families than in white ones, a new study found.
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State Regulation Of Massage Therapy Will Improve Public Health, Safety
At its initial meeting today, the State Board of Massage Therapy began drafting preliminary regulations that will protect the health and safety of residents, said Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro A. Cortes.

HSE Warns Businesses Not To Be Misled Over New Law Poster, UK.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is warning businesses across Britain not to be duped into buying unnecessary and overpriced copies of its health and safety law poster. The poster is a fixture of every workplace in Britain and employers have a legal duty to display the poster in a prominent position or provide each worker with a copy of a Law pocket card. Both outline employer and workers responsibilities and where workers can seek advice. There is some evidence of misleading promotions wrongly claiming that the old poster must be replaced immediately and that the new law poster should be displayed on every notice board within the business" premises. This is incorrect and employers could be led to believe that they are not meeting their legal requirements.

Steroid Abuse Leads To Alarming Rise In Hair Loss Victims.

Men are being warned that steroids can lead to premature baldness after a leading hair clinic reported an alarming rise in the number of patients affected by the designer drugs. Optima Hair Specialists - which supplies advanced hair replacement systems - has seen a 60 per cent increase* in enquiries from men who have taken anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) and suffered early hair loss as a result. AAS are believed to stimulate Dihydrotestosterone** (DHT) - a powerful sex hormone that triggers baldness in men***. Peter Murtha, founder of Optima Hair Specialists, said: "It is widely accepted that DHT has an adverse affect on hair follicles and is the main culprit behind male pattern baldness. Recent studies have found that steroid drugs can increase the levels of DHT within the body and therefore accelerate hair loss.

Application Of Innovative Laser Research Could Lead To Earlier Bone Disorder Diagnosis.

A new laser technique that could lead to bone disorders being diagnosed earlier is to be tested in a hospital for the first time. The study, which it"s hoped will pave the way for future clinical trials, will apply a revolutionary approach known as SORS (Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy), to examine specific substances in non see-through surfaces deeper than has previously been possible, without damaging the surface. The research team hope ultimately that the method can be used both to detect and screen for early signs of diseases such as osteoarthritis and osteoporosis.

Sugar Substitute Appears To Prevent Early-Childhood Cavities.

Children given an oral syrup containing the naturally occurring sweetener xylitol may be less likely to develop decay in their baby teeth, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Early childhood caries (cavities), also called baby bottle tooth decay or nursing caries, continue to increase in prevalence, according to background information in the article. "Poor children experience rates twice as high as those of their more affluent peers, and their disease is more likely to be untreated," the authors write.