An end to gumming it

Worried about the kids’ teeth rotting out of their mouths before they pass puberty? Give them a mint and forget about it.
This could be a viable solution. Stony Brook University announced last week that a new experimental chewable mint has remarkable results in preventing cavities in children. Trademarked as BasicMints, 62 percent of [...]

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One from the heart

Stony Brook University Hospital has invited the media for a dinner and awards ceremony on Valentine’s Day for 35 patients, along with their families and physicians, who in the past year survived heart disease with work done by SBUH’s teams of cardiologists.
With all the sentimentality and silliness associated with St. Valentine’s Day, [...]

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Local plastic surgeon heads to Discovery

Next time you visit plastic surgeon Kaveh Alizadeh’s office in Garden City, you might just want an autograph with that face-lift. The Long Island Plastic Surgical Group physician said today he will be featured as an industry expert on an upcoming special on the Discovery Health Channel, and will speak about managing skin care and [...]

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A real-life Clockwork Orange

When young Alex, in Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of the Anthony Burgess novel, A Clockwork Orange, is brainwashed so that every time he hears his beloved Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony he gets violently ill, you don’t really feel bad for him, seeing as he is a particularly evil murderer.
But, for a real-life, non-evil person, not being able [...]

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Healthy spending

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has a $4.3 billion budget deficit to contend with. The upstate economy is in tatters and the governor has promised residents of New York City’s suburbs that school aid is on the way to help lower exorbitant property taxes. And if he thought he could lower Medicaid payments to help pay for [...]

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Short end of stick for Suffolk seniors

Suffolk County seniors, some local pols are looking out for you. At a press conference today, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer and Reps. Steve Israel and Tim Bishop were joined by Babylon Town Supervisor Steve Bellone calling for parity in Medicare Advantage payments between Nassau and Suffolk.
Suffolk County has received millions less in the Medicare [...]

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Fix it: Health care for all

The Long Island Health Care Survey was released today, a study conducted by Adelphi University, and here’s the gist of it: Though Long Islanders in general are healthier and have better health-care access than most Americans, our local Hispanics, less-educated, low-income and uninsured (big surprise) residents have a harder time finding care … and they’re [...]

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Gianelli knows about the uninsured

This past Wednesday, Nassau Health Care Corp. chief executive Art Gianelli delivered the following speech in Albany on the New York State Partnership for Coverage, which reforms how the state delivers health care by controlling Medicaid spending and by enrolling more uninsured children and families in publicly sponsored health insurance programs.
Here it is:
Good morning Secretary  [...]

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The health commissioner is on the case

The news that a Melville doctor used dirty needles on his patients led to a regional hepatitis and HIV scare, and no doubt caused locals to take a hard look at how their physicians handle injections.
But the state government has stepped in to help ease the population. State Health Commissioner Richard Daines announced measures that [...]

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You have to stand up to see scoliosis

Fonar Corp., the self-proclaimed inventor of magnetic resonance imaging machines you stand up in rather than lie down, said as of today its upright MRI machines provide the best way to really see what is going on in the spine of a scoliosis patient.
The company, at the 93rd meeting of the Radiological Society of North [...]

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North Shore-LIJ is open about infections

Major hospital operator North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System is no longer going to keep its infection rates a secret. The company will provide all of the data on infections via a new section of its Web site.
Michael Dowling, chief executive of the health care company, said the move will only make facilities more committed [...]

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Henry Schein joins Nasdaq-100

Local health care products behemoth Henry Schein announced to day it will tomorrow be added to the Nasdaq-100. That index, according to the Nasdaq’s Web site, is the listing of the top 100 Nasdaq-listed domestic and international non-financial securities based on market capitalization.
The Melville-based company boasts market cap of approximately $5.4 billion.
From the statement:
Henry [...]

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Precision only a robot could have

If you’re planning on having surgery at Stony Brook Hospital, chances are a robot will do the cutting.
The Suffolk hospital last week unveiled the da Vinci SHD Surgical System, a robot that has greater accuracy and can assure smaller incisions, making recovery time shorter. According to a Daily News story, Stony Brook becomes the first [...]

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Schumer’s news factory

The Sen. Charles Schumer press release machine spit out this bit of information today: The Department of Health and Human Services for medical research is awarding $1.3 million in federal grants to five Long Island institutions, including Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Here is the breakdown:
· $659,944 for Brookhaven National Laboratory from the National Institute of [...]

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North Shore LIJ, 24th in children’s hospitals

Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park just scored a spot on U.S. News & World Report’s list of America’s Best Children’s Hospitals. It placed 24th.
The rankings are based on factors like reputation, methodology, death-rate, volume, nursing care, advanced technology and recognition by outside organizations.
Here is the full list:
America’s Best Children’s Hospitals, 2007 [...]

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Overtime? Not for home aides

For home care workers, the dream of overtime pay is essentially dead.
The Supreme Court today ruled that these workers who provide in-home medical care by tending to the sick and elderly, are not entitled to overtime, siding with a 1975 act that exempts home care workers from the government’s Fair Labor Standards Act.
The initial case [...]

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Next week is dog bite week

It’s not just electric safety month, next week is National Dog Bite Prevention Week. I wouldn’t have known that if the Long Island Plastic Surgical Group hadn’t sent me a reminder.
According to their statement, plastic surgeons in the United States performed reconstructive procedures on 30,585 dog bite cases in 2006.
So here’s a few tips the [...]

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A case for checking your statements

Just because it’s automated, doesn’t mean it’s infallible.
LifeWatch Inc., a Long Island provider of personal medical alarms, messed up an old woman’s bill. Martha Levin, who is 95 years old, authorized the company to bill her four times a year, and she set up an auto-pay system so she would never have to write a [...]

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From here to Cambodia

Doctors from Stony Brook University Hospital are going gain extra experience treating some serious diseases in children, but they’ll have to travel to do so.
The hospital said it with cooperate with Angkor Hospital for Children in Siem Reap, Cambodia by sending resident physicians from its pediatrics department to train there. Doctors will treat children afflicted [...]

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An amazing surgery at Schneider

Uncontrollable laughter is no laughing matter.
Ann Lagalla had a brain tumor that caused a rare form of epilepsy, leading to unstoppable fits of laughter. If the condition went untreated, it could have caused mental retardation in the three-year-old girl.
But doctors at Schneider Children’s Hospital, which is part of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health Center, [...]

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North Shore-LIJ to treat traumatized vets

With war being as horrible as it is, our brave veterans are often anguished by memories of violence.
The North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health Center will open the Florence and Robert A. Rosen Health Center on Friday to help these people to overcome the trauma and better their family lives.
From the 1010 wins story:

The center will [...]

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A fungus fighter among us

Nail fungus … nasty, but thank goodness there are ways to treat the nail-yellowing affliction, including one from a local drug company.
Amityville-based Hi-Tech Pharmacal Co. received tentative Food and Drug Administration approval today to market Ciclopirox, a generic drug used to treat nail fungus.
Ciclopirox will compete with mainstream brand Penlax, which is marketed by Dermik [...]

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In-home aides in overtime battle

As it stands, in-home aides who take care of the sick and elderly are not protected by federal minimum wage and overtime laws. But that could change.
The Supreme Court will begin to hear a case today that will decide whether these workers, who often work more than 40 hours a week, should be allowed at [...]

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Insurer’s stance quaked by high court

At this point it’s cliche, an insurance company refusing to pay for a major medical procedure on the grounds of some loophole in the policy.
So here’s another act in this endless theater production.
The Supreme Court’s Appellate Division ruled yesterday that New York-based Group Health Inc. must pay for a teenage boy’s breast reduction surgery, something [...]

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Long Island hospitals safer than the city’s

When it comes to patient safety, two Long Island Hospitals beat the scrubs off of all New York City institutions, a recent study showed.
HealthGrades, a health care watchdog group, in its annual patient safety study, ranked St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn and West Islip’s Good Samaritan Hospital among the country’s safest hospitals.
No New York City [...]

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LI couple sues over dark baby

A Commack couple is suing a New York fertility clinic because their child is much darker than both parents.
Mother Nancy Andrews, who was born the Dominican Republic, and father Thomas a Caucasian, visited New York Medical Services for Reproductive Medicine for in vitro fertilization.
However, after their daughter Jessica was born much darker than Nancy the [...]

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AMAC and Walgreens join forces

American Medical Alert Corp. agreed to monitor the calls generated by major pharmacy Walgreen’s Ready Response Medical Alert systems. The Ready units, which were developed for Walgreens by AMAC, are used by elderly people to monitor them in case of a medical emergency. The units communicate with AMAC’s call center, which in turn notifies emergency [...]

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