After Hurricane Sandy flooded parts of New York City there was speculation whether rats would survive, but a city official says the streets look normal. “We haven’t seen an increase in rats above ground caused by Hurricane Sandy,” Sam Miller, assistant commissioner for public...

We know from experience as victims try to recover from disasters, they will take unnecessary risks with candles, cooking and generators, a U.S. official warns. “These risks often result in additional and tragic life safety consequences,” Ernie Mitchell, the U.S. Fire Administrator,...

Canada’s federal health agency called Thursday for homeowners to test for radon gas, which it says is the second-leading cause of lung cancer. Radon is a radioactive gas found naturally throughout the country that’s created by the decay of uranium found in rocks and soil. It is...

The mayor of Newark, N.J., warns those dealing with floodwaters from Hurricane Sandy the water is not safe to walk in or be in contact without protection. “There are many, many hazards in the streets. Many downed power lines. Still many flooded areas,” Mayor Cory Booker told CNN....

After a natural disaster, short-term emotional stress and behavioral reactions are both common and normal, U.S. experts say. Melissa Brymer, director of Terrorism and Disaster Programs at the UCLA/Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, and Richard Heaps, a clinical...

A Canadian research team said they found a flu shot reduced the risk of a major cardiac event such as a heart attack by 50 percent. Study leader Dr. Jacob Udell, a cardiologist at Women’s College Hospital and the University of Toronto, and colleagues analyzed clinical trials dating back...

Childhood bullying can lead to long-term health consequences and may be linked to mental health and behavioral problems, U.S. researchers say. Study co-authors Leana Bouffard, director of the Crime Victims’ Institute at Sam Houston State University, and doctoral student Maria Koeppel...

The elderly are open to having robots help with some tasks, but when it comes to getting dressed, eating and bathing they want humans, U.S. researchers say. Cory-Ann Smarr and Professor Wendy Rogers of the Georgia Institute of Technology and colleagues showed adults ages 65-93 a video of a...

U.S. researchers say they engineered cartilage from adult stem cells to use in tissue repair and possibly treat cartilage injury and osteoarthritis. “Adult stems cells are limited in what they can do, and embryonic stem cells have ethical issues,” senior author Farshid Guilak of...

A sister company of the Boston-area compounding pharmacy linked to the meningitis outbreak that has killed 29 people said it is recalling all medications. Ameridose LLC in Westborough, Mass., is voluntarily recalling all of its unexpired products in circulation — identified by markings...

Despite 90 million U.S. adults reading below the high-school level, few cancer websites are written to meet their reading abilities, researchers found. Dr. Gopal Gupta and colleagues Loyola University Medical Center near Chicago and colleagues identified 62 websites by searching for...

Two servings of oily fish a week is moderately but significantly associated with a reduced risk of stroke, researchers in Britain and the Netherlands said. However, the study, published in the British Medical Journal website, said taking fish oil supplements doesn’t seem to have the same...

At just 3.57 calories a piece, candy corn is a Halloween staple, but it hardly resembles corn and isn’t the least bit healthy, a U.S. food expert says. “Maybe it’s time for a healthier candy corn,” Phil Lempert, a food industry analyst, trend watcher and creator of...

If a home has lost power due to Hurricane Sandy or any other storm, Consumers Energy in Michigan advises people to closely monitor the media. Consumers Energy, the principal subsidiary of CMS Energy, which provides natural gas and electricity in Michigan advises to avoid traveling to or...

Two flu vaccines under voluntary recall in Canada since last week were cleared for use Wednesday by Health Canada. The use of Agriflu and Fluad brands, both manufactured by Novartis, was suspended last week amid concerns first raised in Europe that some vials contained milky floating...

Peers are influential when it comes to alcohol and drug use, and they are just as influential online as they are in person, U.S. researchers suggest. Sarah Stoddard and colleagues at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor conducted an online survey of 3,447 of U.S....

More than one-third of the 12.6 million U.S. cancer survivors have physical or mental problems that put their overall health in jeopardy, researchers say. Lead author Kathryn Weaver, assistant professor at Wake Forest Baptist in Winston-Salem, N.C., said 25 percent of cancer survivors reported...

There are differences in how intensely the “pleasure centers” in mother rats’ brains react to cocaine compared with non-mothers, U.S. researchers say. Postdoctoral research fellow Jennifer Cummings and Jill Becker, a professor of psychology and psychiatry, both at the...

A single junk-food meal — rich in saturated fat — is detrimental to the health of the arteries, researchers in Canada said. Dr. Anil Nigam and colleagues at the University of Montreal-affiliated EPIC Center of the Montreal Heart Institute, compared the effects of a junk-food meal...

A lack of education is linked to poorer health and earlier death, but a U.S. researcher says psychological well-being may compensate for schooling. Study co-author Carol Ryff, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and colleagues measured levels of Interleukin-6 —...

More than 25 volunteers at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles are helping patients obtain absentee ballots so they can vote, hospital officials say. Allison Rotter, volunteer services manager at Cedars-Sinai, says often patients end up in the hospital unexpectedly, or have been ill...

Parents may think children of all ages enjoy scary masks, ghostly decor and haunted houses, but a U.S. expert says some kids may find them too frightening. “Most children can”t distinguish fantasy from reality until they are about age 4, so knocking on a stranger”s door...

During a power outage, an appliance thermometer is invaluable to test the temperature of food in the refrigerator and freezer, U.S. health officials said. Officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in case of a power outage, the appliance thermometers will indicate the...

Providing flu shots to students in the Charleston, W.Va., area while they were at school resulted in a drop in absences in 2010-2011, officials say. Dr. Rahul Gupta, executive director of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department, said during the 2010-2011 flu season Kanawha County’s...

A meta-analysis involving smoking bans in several countries found the smoke-free laws resulted in fewer heart attacks and strokes, U.S. researchers say. Senior study author Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San...

People over 50 mistakenly think they’re too old to be organ donors even though they’re most likely to need transplants, a Canadian group said Thursday. Ontario’s Trillium Gift of Life Network said in a release only 39 percent of the 2.5 million registered organ and tissue...

Smoking costs women at least 10 years of life on average, but quitting at about age 30 may gain back those years, researchers in Britain said. “Both in Britain in the United States, women born around 1940 were the first generation in which many smoked substantial numbers of cigarettes...

Stressed-out parents are more likely to have obese children, U.S. researchers suggest. “Stress in parents may be an important risk factor for child obesity and related behaviors,” Dr. Elizabeth Prout-Parks, a nutrition specialist at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who...

Osteoporosis is a “silent” bone disease because most people — the disease affects 10 million U.S. adults — are unaware of it until a fracture, an expert said. Dr. Khashayar Sakhaee, chief of the mineral metabolism division at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical...

Five percent to 10 percent of breast cancers are thought to be hereditary, but women with these gene abnormalities have higher cancer risk, a U.S. surgeon said. Dr. David Euhus, a surgeon at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, said women with the BRCA genes might have as much...