More areas of Georgia are reporting increases in respiratory illnesses as the smoke from wildfires spreads over a wide swath of the state. State health officials reported Wednesday that the areas of Rome and LaGrange had joined metro Atlanta, Dalton, Gainesville and Jasper as seeing a rise in hospital emergency room visits for asthma. Patients…
State health officials said Monday that significant increases in the number of emergency room visits for asthma occurred in the Dalton, Gainesville, Jasper and metro Atlanta areas last week, at a time when smoke from wildfires drifted over those areas. The state Department of Public Health told GHN that it’s not possible to determine with…
GHN Special Report on Child Cancer: Part Three Jointly reported by Georgia Health News and WebMD Childhood cancer has been on the rise. The numbers are small because any childhood cancer is rare. Just one of every 100 new cancer diagnoses in the United States is a childhood case. Still, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) says…
GHN Special Report on Child Cancer: Part Two Jointly reported by Georgia Health News and WebMD When Harris Lott was diagnosed with cancer last summer, the 2-year-old had an asset most children don’t have: Parents who are both doctors. [youtube]https://youtu.be/mCizhUiDZnw[/youtube]McGregor Lott, MD, and Mary Elizabeth Lott, MD, practice in the southeast Georgia town of Waycross,…
GHN Special Report on Child Cancer: Part Four Jointly reported by WebMD and Georgia Health News When four children in Waycross, GA, were diagnosed with sarcoma cancers within a 2-month period last year, people wanted to know if they had a cancer cluster. Chief among them was state Rep. Jason Spencer, a Republican from Woodbine…
GHN Special Report on Child Cancer: Part One Jointly reported by WebMD and Georgia Health News Fourteen-year-old Lexi Crawford was attacked by lower back pain so sharp that she couldn’t even sit up to eat. Her mother had to bring her food while she was lying flat on her back. Doctors in Waycross, GA, the…
Georgia still ranks low among states in rates of premature births, low-birthweight babies, and infant mortality. The rankings in those categories are 43rd, 47th and 45th, respectively, based on the latest data, according to the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia’s 2016 report on maternal and infant health. The recently released report also notes that the…
It’s the $110 million question. How should the Georgia Medicaid program spend the $110 million penalty to be paid by Tenet Healthcare as part of a fraud case settlement? The net amount is the biggest Medicaid fraud recovery in Georgia history, according to the state Attorney General’s office. By law, it must go to Medicaid,…
Development of innovations in drugs and medical devices is largely centered on improving treatment for adults. A collaboration between Georgia Tech and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, though, aims to develop new therapies for pediatrics. And a new $5 million grant from the Imlay Foundation will support that work. The grant will fund research at the…
The national uproar over the soaring cost of EpiPens has ignited fears that lack of access to this lifesaving medication may cause deaths that could have been prevented. But if advocate Karen Harris has her way, no one in Georgia will face this situation. “It’s imperative that this medication is within an arm’s reach away…