News on Health and Fitness

It might take Californians a puff or two to get their heads around an apparent contradiction recently enshrined in state law. The same marijuana smoke that doctors can recommend to ease cancer patients' suffering must soon come with a warning saying it causes the disease. State environmental regulators last month voted to place marijuana smoke on its list of hundreds of substances known to cause cancer. The decision could lead to warning signs in medical marijuana ...

As swine flu runs rampant in the Southern Hemisphere winter, world health experts are concerned that some hard-hit countries have been reluctant to take forceful measures to protect public health. Only Friday did Argentina's new health minister, Juan Manzur, raise the country's official death toll to 44. He now estimates that as many as 320,000 people have been stricken with influenza, including about 100,000 with swine flu — a huge jump in ...

New Zealand health officials confirmed the country's first three swine flu-related deaths Saturday — two discovered only after autopsies on the victims. Chief Coroner, Judge Neil MacLean, said preliminary tests on two male victims indicated "a high degree of probability" that swine flu caused the deaths. "(We) can't say 100 percent, but (the probability is) so high that it's unlikely that will change," he told reporters. A 19-year-old man with the virus from the North Island city of Hamilton, who died on June 28 in a hospital, apparently ...