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After 19 years working as a cook at Atlantic City's Showboat Casino, Dave Rose is counting the weeks until he and about 2,000 fellow workers lose their jobs when the casino is shuttered at the end of the summer. The Showboat will be the second major casino to close in this struggling New Jersey shore city this year, a trend that has some tourism officials talking about revamping the aging gambling Mecca to broaden its appeal beyond bachelor parties and bus loads of retirees, with more family-friendly attractions. "They've been saying that for ten years," said Rose, who holds out little hope of that strategy working and fears he will have a hard time finding a job that matches the $18.18 per hour he earns at the Showboat. "There aren't too many good-paying jobs out there," he said. The unemployment rate in the city stood at 10.3 percent in May, among the highest of any major U.S. metropolitan area and well above the national rate, which was at 6.3 pe

Stray vials of the deadly smallpox virus from the 1950s have been discovered at a federal lab near Washington, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday, the second lapse discovered in a month involving a deadly pathogen at a government facility. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that workers discovered the vials in a cardboard box on July 1 while clearing out an old lab on the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The six glass vials contained freeze-dried smallpox virus and were sealed with melted glass. The vials appeared intact and there is no evidence that lab workers or the general public are at risk, said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner. The mishandling of smallpox follows the CDC's recent mishap in which the agency believed it may have transferred live anthrax samples to a CDC lab that was not equipped to handle them, potentially exposing dozens of employees to the pathogen. The CDC is testing the vials to see if the smallpox is viab

Fifty new cases of Ebola and 25 deaths have been reported in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea since July 3, as the deadly virus spreads in families, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. In a statement, the United Nations agency said that the latest figures from health ministries in the three countries showed a total of 844 cases including 518 deaths in the epidemic that began in February. Guinea's ministry reported two deaths since July 3, but no new cases in the past week, the WHO said, calling the situation in the affected region of West Africa a "mixed picture". Sierra Leone accounted for 34 of the new cases and 14 deaths, while Liberia reported 16 new cases and 9 deaths. "These numbers indicate that active viral transmission continues in the community," it said. WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib, speaking to a Geneva news briefing earlier on Tuesday, said: "This means that the two main modes of transmission are home care, people who ca

More than 550 police officers from Memphis, Tennessee, called in sick on Tuesday, a quarter of the department, in an escalating protest over cuts in health benefits that could eventually cost some officers their jobs, the city's mayor said. The so-called "blue flu" wave started June 30 and has grown daily in an apparent protest to a new Memphis budget that raises the health premiums active city workers pay and cuts retiree health benefits, officials said. "I understand the disappointment these officers feel," Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr said in a statement. "However, disappointment is not an excuse to abuse the sick leave policy and refuse to perform the duties they are paid to carry out to ensure public safety." More than 550 of the department's 2,200 officers called in sick Tuesday. Memphis has canceled vacations and other scheduled time off for officers to take up the slack and the Shelby County sheriff has helped fill in gaps, officials s

Foster Farms and its London insurers are facing off over the definition of "product recall" as the poultry producer seeks payment of $14.2 million in claims arising from a government-mandated shutdown of one of its plants, court documents show. The company in June sued a group of Lloyd's of London [LOL.UL] underwriters, arguing the closure and resulting product losses constituted a recall under the terms of the company's insurance. Foster Farms, one of the largest U.S. chicken producers, filed an amended complaint last Thursday in U.S. district court in Fresno, California, saying three insurance underwriters at Lloyd's acted improperly when they rejected its claims associated with January production stoppages mandated by federal regulators. In essence, the insurers said the Foster Farms policy covered economic losses when the company pulled back its products from customers, not when the company destroyed products that it had not yet shipped to customers, docu

San Francisco lawmakers approved a law late on Tuesday allowing the forced treatment of mentally ill patients under certain conditions, drawing swift criticism from patient advocacy groups who say the measure tramples civil rights. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which passes legislation for the California city and county, adopted by a vote of 9-2 a measure known as Laura's Law. If given final approval it would allow court-ordered outpatient treatment for people with chronic and severe mental illness deemed a risk to themselves or others or who have been jailed or hospitalized more than once in the prior three years, among other conditions. San Francisco legislator Mark Farrell, who proposed the legislation to the board, said the program would help vulnerable sick people "and provide the families the support they deserve". Modeled after a similar involuntary treatment law passed in New York in 1999, California lawmakers passed Laura's Law in 2002 after 1

China must separate the conflicting promotion and prevention roles of its state tobacco monopoly to reduce smoking-related deaths, which number as much as 1 million a year, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday. With more than 300 million smokers, China is the world's largest producer and consumer of tobacco. The government has pledged to curb smoking but its efforts have had little success. The country's State Tobacco Monopoly Administration controls the world's single largest manufacturer of tobacco products, China National Tobacco Corporation, but also wields power over policymaking on tobacco control and enforcement. Anti-smoking campaigners say this dynamic has long undermined their efforts to curb the habit. WHO's director-general, Dr Margaret Chan, said she had advised China's tobacco monopoly to separate the government agency functions from the state tobacco firm, and expected the Chinese government would take her advice.

Bowel cancer patients with high levels of vitamin D in their blood are more likely to survive the disease, according to research published on Wednesday. _0"> Scientists who studied almost 1,600 patients after surgery for bowel cancer found those with the highest levels of vitamin D have half the risk of dying of the disease compared with those with the lowest levels. The study is the first to correlate the long-term survival prospects of bowel cancer patients after diagnosis with total blood levels of vitamin D. Vitamin D, sometimes known as the "sunshine vitamin", is made in the body when the skin is exposed to sunlight and is found in foods such as fish liver oil, eggs and fatty fish such as salmon, herring and mackerel. It is known to boost the uptake of calcium and bone formation. Some observational studies have also suggested a link between low levels of vitamin D and greater risks of many acute and chronic diseases. Malcolm Dunlop of the Medical Research

The world's largest chicken breeder has discovered that a key breed of rooster has a genetic issue that is reducing its fertility, adding to problems constraining U.S. poultry production and raising prices at a time when beef and pork prices are already at record highs. The breed, Aviagen Group's standard Ross male, is sire through its offspring to as much as 25 percent of the nation's chickens raised for slaughter, said Aviagen spokeswoman Marla Robinson. Sanderson Farms, the third-largest U.S. poultry producer and one of Aviagen's largest customers, said it and Aviagen systematically ruled out other possible causes for a decline in fertility before determining a genetic issue was at the root of the problem. The issue is hitting an industry that is already suffering from a short supply of breeder birds. The U.S. Agriculture Department last month reduced its U.S. chicken production forecast for 2014, predicting only a 1 percent increase in poundage from 2013, wel

Celgene Corp said a drug being tested to treat a type of arthritis that affects the spine failed to meet the main goal in a late-stage trial, sending the company's shares down 3 percent premarket. _0"> The drug, Otezla, failed to show improvement of at least 20 percent at week 16 when tested on patients with ankylosing spondylitis, or arthritis of the spine, compared to those on a placebo, the company said. [ID:nBw6S6bVra] The company said an analysis of the data showed "meaningful efficacy" in a large subset of patients with early-stage disease at week 24. Celgene said it would continue the study unchanged based on a recommendation by an independent data monitoring committee. The drugmaker also said it planned to start another late-stage trial for further data analysis. Otezla is already approved by U.S. health regulators for treatment of adults with active psoriatic arthritis and is being studied for use in psoriasis and other indications including Behcet

Seniors who have a stroke or heart attack are more likely to end up living closer to their adult children afterward, according to a new study. Adult children often serve as informal caregivers when their parents become disabled after an illness, researchers note. But living far apart can make caregiving more difficult. “This study shows a major health problem of an older person - like a stroke - leads to a significant increase in the family relocation for closer residential proximity between (family members who don’t live together),” HwaJung Choi told Reuters Health in an email. She led the study at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “This suggests that the growing older population with disability in the U.S. and elsewhere can have a significant effect on residential choices of both older adults and their middle-aged children,” Choi said. Cardiovascular disease is among the leading causes of disability, the researchers write. For their report, they analyzed informati

Most doctors do not recommend flu shots to their pregnant patients, who are more likely to develop serious complications if they do get the flu, according to a new report. In the review of past studies, researchers also found that pregnant women had concerns about the safety of the flu vaccine and tended to underestimate the risk that the virus posed to themselves and their fetus.   “The research is clear that healthcare providers are not providing advice to pregnant women about the importance and benefits of getting vaccinated,” Marie Tarrant told Reuters Health in an email. She worked on the study at Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong.   “In addition, they are not making influenza vaccine available to their pregnant clients,” she said. “By their silence, they are sending a message that influenza vaccine is actually not that important.” One study found pregnant women were five times as likely to be hospitalized with the flu as other women, Tarran

That obesity can cut life short by causing strokes and other illnesses comes as no surprise, but a study reported on Tuesday quantifies the toll: The most extreme cases cut a person's lifespan more than cigarettes. The analysis, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, is the largest-ever study of the effect of extreme obesity on mortality. It found that people who are extremely obese -- for someone of average height, carrying an extra 100 lb (45 kg) or more -- die 6.5 to 13.7 years earlier than peers with a healthy weight. The study, based on data from 20 large studies of people in the United States, Sweden and Australia, comes as rates of obesity have soared. Worldwide, nearly 30 percent of people, or 2.1 billion, are either obese or overweight. "Overweight" is defined as having a body mass index, or weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters, of 25.0 to 29.9. At the low end, that is 150 lb (68 kg) for someone 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 meters) tall.

A California college town known for its liberal activism has voted to make medicinal marijuana dispensaries give away free a small amount of their pot to the poor. Berkeley City Council members voted unanimously late on Tuesday to instruct local outlets to provide marijuana equal to 2 percent of their sales to patients on low incomes. "It's an equity issue," Council member Darryl Moore told Reuters. "We want to ensure that those who are in need have access to the medication necessary to treat their condition." Under the law, which takes effect next month, the marijuana given away free must be of the same quality as that given to paying customers. The rule defines low income as medical marijuana patients who make at most half the area's median annual income, or $32,000 or less for an individual or $46,000 for a family of four. The council also amended its medical marijuana law to increase the number of pot dispensaries to four from three, and will cons

Black and Asian adults may be at risk for developing diabetes at a lower weight than whites, according to a new study. Based on the findings, researchers suggest the definition of obesity should be different for different populations, in order to trigger diabetes interventions in a timely manner. Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of weight in relation to height used to assess health risks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines overweight as a BMI of 25 to 29.9 and obesity as a BMI of 30 and above. However, those cutoffs are primarily applicable to white people, which has been noted by the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Naveed Sattar told Reuters Health. “But few people really recognize this,” he said. Institutions like the WHO and CDC have yet to adopt ethnicity-specific BMI cutoffs for overweight and obesity. Sattar worked on the study at the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow in the UK. He and his

A new case report from France offers a reminder of why people who use medical devices like asthma inhalers should take warnings on the product label seriously. A 74-year-old asthmatic man was burning leaves when he heard an explosion and felt something pierce the right side of his chest. At the hospital, doctors found an entry wound between his ribs, but no exit wound. Imaging revealed what appeared to be a nebulizer canister wedged between his liver and diaphragm. Doctors believe the man’s inhaler fell from his pocket into the fire and exploded. Dr. Stanislas Ledochowski of the Hospitalier Universitaire Lyons Sud, who examined the man, told Reuters Health, “Fortunately, it is to be considered as an exceptional event, and since it was the only described case in the medical literature, we thought describing such an occurrence could be of medical interest.” Inhalers, a portable form of nebulizer, turn liquid medication into a fine mist, which is the fastest way for people with

(Story has been refiled to correct the extent of FDA e-cigarette research in paragraph 2) One team of researchers assessing the risks of electronic cigarettes is counting the puffs taken by volunteer "vapers." Another will comb Facebook for posts on how people are tinkering with e-cigarettes to make the devices deliver extra nicotine. A third is building a virtual convenience store for 13-to-17-year-olds, measuring how e-cigarette displays and price promotions influence whether minors buy the increasingly popular devices. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is spending $270 million on these and 45 other research projects to determine the risks of e-cigarettes before millions more Americans become hooked on the devices. "They want data and they want it yesterday," said Dr Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin of Yale University, who is leading four projects. "Yesterday," however, is years away. Final results may not be available before 2018, researchers leading

Congressional Republicans asked the Obama administration on Wednesday to provide documents related to last month's anthrax scare at a U.S. lab facility, where more than 80 people were initially feared to be exposed to the deadly pathogen. _0"> In a series of letters, top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked for the results of several Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lab inspections and audits of potential weaknesses in biosecurity protocols dating back to October 2007. "How many suspected exposures to select agents and/or toxins have been reported at CDC since October 2007? How many actual exposures have been reported," said the July 9 letter to CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden signed by three Republican panel members including Chairman Fred Upton of Michigan. The lawmakers, who also requested information from the inspector general of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said they were gathering information for

A Seattle-based company that makes marijuana-infused drinks and candies has become the first business in Washington approved to make edible pot products for the state's newly opened stores, officials said Wednesday. Db3 Inc, which will trade under the brand name Zoots, received its license on Tuesday, meaning it can begin growing marijuana and using it to make recreational edibles in an approved commercial kitchen. State officials said two other companies were awarded processing licenses, but did not yet have approved kitchens.  "This is a landmark day, not only for Db3 as a company, but also for the consumers facing a potential shortage of edible products at retail outlets," the firm's president, Michael Devlin, said in a statement. It was not immediately clear when pot edibles would hit shelves. The state Liquor Control Board, which regulates the fledgling marijuana sector, is due to consider a proposal next week on packaging and labeling standards for edibles

An experimental drug from Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc significantly reduced skin lesions and itching in adult patients with atopic dermatitis, a chronic form of eczema that is poorly controlled by standard drugs, the companies said on Wednesday. The findings were seen in a Phase IIb, or mid-stage, trial of the injectable drug dupilumab, which is also being tested by the drugmakers against two other allergic conditions: asthma and nasal polyps. Dupilumab was named "clinical advance of the year" in 2013 by industry publication Scrip Intelligence, and some analysts expect it to capture annual sales up to $2 billion if approved. Atopic dermatitis causes patches of dry, red and highly itchy skin on any part of the body. Patients, many of whom also have asthma and hay fever, have compared the sensation to having unending poison ivy. Currently, patients get limited relief from topical steroid creams and oral steroid medicines that are not approved in the United St

A New York-based health insurance company has agreed to reimburse members up to $31 million for previously denied mental health and substance abuse claims, the state attorney general said on Wednesday. As part of a lawsuit settlement, EmblemHealth also will pay a $1.2 million fine for scrutinizing its members' mental health and substance abuse claims more than medical or surgical claims, in violation of local and federal laws, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement. "Insurers must comply with the laws – and they must treat people with mental health and substance abuse conditions as they do those with medical conditions," Schneiderman said. Under the settlement, EmblemHealth will conduct an independent review of several thousand claims that were denied between 2011 and 2013 on the grounds they were medically unnecessary. The company also will pay restitution to any of the 15,000 members who were wrongly denied benefits, Schneiderman said. EmblemHealth

A Colorado man diagnosed with pneumonic plague, a rare form of the disease that is also the most life-threatening, is the state's first confirmed human case of the illness in a decade, officials said on Wednesday. The man was found to have the disease after the family dog died unexpectedly, and a necropsy concluded the animal was afflicted with pneumonic plague, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said in a statement. The unidentified man and his dog were believed to have contracted the disease in an eastern Colorado county. There was no word on the man's condition. The bacteria that causes plague occurs naturally in the western United States, particularly in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and California, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The plague is transmitted by fleas to rodents, usually prairie dogs. When an infected animal dies, the disease is spread when the fleas find another host. Pneumonic plague is the same

In one of the largest tests of a novel way to deliver and pay for healthcare, insurer CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield announced on Thursday that 1.1 million people receiving care through its "patient-centered medical homes" last year were hospitalized less often and stayed for fewer days compared to patients in traditional fee-for-service care. Medical homes, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's healthcare reform, have been heralded as one of the best hopes for reducing the cost of U.S. healthcare, the highest in the world, and improving its quality, which lags that of many other wealthy countries. Medical homes are basically groups of primary-care providers who pledge to coordinate care, adhere to guidelines meant to improve patients' health, and avoid unnecessary tests, among other steps. According to CareFirst, its medical home program, in its fourth year, also delivered high-quality care, measured by yardsticks such as whether doctors gave recommended can

One man died, more than 500,000 people were urged to evacuate and hundreds of flights were canceled in Japan as a strong typhoon brought torrential rain and high winds to its southwestern islands and could bring heavy rain to Tokyo later this week. Typhoon Neoguri weakened from its original status as a super typhoon but remained intense, with gusts of more than 250 km per hour (155 mph). It was powering through the Okinawa island chain where emergency rain and high-seas warnings were in effect. The storm was at its most powerful when passing Okinawa, some 1,600 km (1,000 miles) southwest of Tokyo on Tuesday, but the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) warned of heavy rains and potential flooding in Kyushu, the westernmost of Japan's main islands, as well as heavy rain in the rest of the nation as the storm turns east later in the week. "People must take the utmost caution," Keiji Furuya, state minister in charge of disaster management, told a news conference. One man

Swathes of the Amazon may have been grassland until a natural shift to a wetter climate about 2,000 years ago let the rainforests form, according to a study that challenges common belief that the world’s biggest tropical forest is far older. The arrival of European diseases after Columbus crossed the Atlantic in 1492 may also have hastened the growth of forests by killing indigenous people farming the region, the scientists wrote in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "The dominant ecosystem was more like a savannah than the rainforest we see today," John Carson, lead author at the University of Reading in England, said of the findings about the southern Amazon. The scientists said that a shift toward wetter conditions, perhaps caused by natural shifts in the Earth’s orbit around the sun, led to growth of more trees starting about 2,000 years ago. The scientists studied man-made earthworks, uncovered by recent logging in B

Booming demand for food in China's southern and eastern cities is worsening water shortages in arid northern provinces, adding to the country's environmental problems, new research shows. "Consumption in highly developed coastal provinces is largely relying on water resources in the water-scarce northern provinces, such as Xinjiang, Hebei and Inner Mongolia, thus significantly contributing to the water scarcity in these regions," an international group of researchers wrote in the latest edition of the journal Environmental Science and Technology. "Rich coastal provinces gain economic profits from international exports at the expense of ecosystem quality in the less developed regions," the researchers from the University of Maryland and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis concluded ("Virtual Scarce Water in China" June 2014). Rain and snowfall is concentrated in south and south-western China, as well as along the east coast

U.N. climate negotiations have made greater progress towards agreeing a 2015 deal to bind all nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions than the lead-up to the previous attempt in 2009, former U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told Reuters. Envoys from almost 200 nations are aiming to agree this year on the main elements of a text to be signed by their leaders in Paris in late 2015 to tackle the emissions from 2020 that U.N.-backed scientists say are causing more severe droughts, flooding and a rise in sea levels. "The process is definitely further advanced a year before Paris than it was a year before Copenhagen (in 2009)," de Boer said in an interview in London on Tuesday. The Dutch diplomat was the public face of the negotiations from 2006 but stepped down shortly after the Copenhagen talks almost broke down despite the attendance of more than 130 world leaders late into the final night. Late on Monday, the U.N. published several documents on its website meant to help gui

California regulators violated the law by approving expanded use of pesticides that have been shown to hurt honeybees needed for pollinating key American crops, according to a lawsuit filed against the state by environmental groups on Tuesday. The lawsuit seeks an injunction prohibiting the state Department of Pesticide Regulation from approving any new neonicotinoid products or new uses of those products unless it completes a required re-evaulations of the pesticides. The environmental and food safety non-profit groups also seek to overturn the department's recent approval of expanded use of Venom Insecticide, manufactured by Valent USA, a unit of Sumitomo Chemical Co Ltd, and Dinotefuran 20SG, made by Mitsui Chemicals Agro. The Center for Food Safety, Beyond Pesticides and the Pesticide Action Network North America, filed the lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court. The Department of Pesticide Regulation, Valent USA and Mitsui Chemicals Agro did not respond to requests f

Thunderstorms and high winds swept through the U.S. Northeast on Tuesday following tornado warnings, killing three people in New York state and a boy who was crushed to death by a fallen tree in Maryland, weather and emergency officials said. One of the hardest-hit spots was a community outside the hamlet of Peterboro in Madison County, New York, 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Syracuse, where a severe storm with high winds struck at about 7 p.m. The full extent of damage there was not immediately clear. But the National Weather Service office in Binghamton, New York, said local emergency management authorities had confirmed three deaths "from three collapsed homes." The storm uprooted trees and tore down power lines across several counties in central New York, part of a broader expanse of extreme weather that stretched from the Ohio Valley and parts of New England through the mid-Atlantic region, police and weather officials said. CNN reported nearly 500,000 homes and

The United States and China on Tuesday signed eight partnership pacts to cut greenhouse gases that will bring the world's two biggest carbon emitters closer together on climate policy, but fundamental differences between the two sides remain. Consensus between the United States and China will be a crucial part of any new global climate pact to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, but they have long struggled to come to an agreement on how the costs of cutting greenhouse gases should be distributed among rich and poor nations. Speaking in Beijing during the latest round of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday that the two sides remained committed to "close dialogue" on climate change negotiations. "The significance of these two nations coming together can't be understated.  We are working hard to find a solution together that can have an impact on the rest of the world." The deals, which involv