Public Health Recommendations

Removing a protein from cells located in the brain’s reward center blocks the anxiety-reducing and rewarding effects of nicotine, according to a new animal study in the July 27 issue of . The findings may help researchers better understand how nicotine affects the brain.

Nicotine works by binding to proteins called nicotinic receptors on the surface of brain cells. In the new study, researchers led by Tresa McGranahan, Stephen Heinemann, PhD, and T. K. Booker, PhD, of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, found that removing a specific type of nicotinic receptor from brain cells that produce dopamine a chemical released in response to reward makes mice less likely to seek out nicotine.

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LONDON (AP) As the surgeons cut into her neck, Marianne Marquis was thinking of the beach.As she heard the doctors’ voices, she was imagining her toes in the sand, the water lapping.Marquis had been hypnotized before surgery to have her thyroid removed. She’s among a growing number of surgical patients at the Belgian hospital, Cliniques Universitaires St. Luc in Brussels, who choose hypnosis and a local anesthetic to avoid the groggy knockout effect of general anesthesia.These patients are sedated but aware, and doctors say their recovery time is faster and their need for painkillers reduced. This method is feasible for only certain types of operations.In her case, Marquis, 53, imagined herself in a field near a beach which her anesthetist began describing by whispering into her ear about 10 minutes before surgery. Read more…

I give the Express Scripts / Medco Health Solutions deal a 60% chance of being approved by the Federal Trade Commission. I think it’s going to be a very tough fight for antitrust approval, but perhaps not for the reasons you think. The Agreement and Plan of Merger filed on Friday gives us a peek at the companies’ strategy for clearing the antitrust hurdles. But note that there is no termination fee if the companies don’t get antitrust clearance.

The combination will create a company with greater negotiating leverage against other participants in the pharmaceutical system. (See

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The mosquito-borne West Nile virus has been found in a sentinel chicken in Northeast Miami-Dade, according to health officials.

So far, there are no reports of human cases, said Dr. Vincent Conte, Deputy Director of Epidemiology Disease Control and Immunization Service for the Department of Health.

The Health Department deploys sentinel chickens as mosquito bait around the county to track mosquito-borne diseases.

An alert has been sent out to area physicians to be on the lookout for patients who may be reporting symptoms of the West Nile Virus.

Symptoms include headache, fever, fatigue, dizziness, weakness and confusion.

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Vacations are theoretical concepts that exist today only on paper. That’s according to Joe Robinson, work-life balance speaker, trainer, and author of “Don’t Miss Your Life.” His statistics are dire:

Some 25 percent of Americans and 31 percent of low-wage earners get no vacation at all anymore, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. This is because, unlike in 138 other countries around the world, youre not entitled to a vacation longer than the current news cycle. You hap

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