Archive: Health

Checking in on the KPCC morning host, who is under hospice care for a brain tumor, and his wife Felicia.

The former LA County coroner will return on an interim basis to keep things running.

At the VA campus off Wilshire Boulevard, damaged birds and veterans are getting over their PTSD.

The actor does not have AIDS and says he has paid "into the millions" including to insiders to keep his status quiet over four years.

In a 6-3 decision with the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court ruled it was clear that Congress intended for healthcare tax credits to be available in all states.

Becklund's service on Sunday at Hollywood Forever included a recommendation — seconded here — to read her piece about dying on the LA Times op-ed page. Sacks' too, in the NYT.

Daum writes that her recovery from a near-death illness has brought a responsibility she didn't expect. Plus: Joe Mathews sees a generation gap in California.

KTLA morning traffic reporter Ginger Chan accidentally calls Rubin fat, thinking her mic is off. Everybody laughs, the video goes global, but he has some reflections on it all.

"It has been 30 years since I have had a depression that has weighed this heavily on me, so I am in new territory," the California secretary of state told the LA Times. There also have been tax liens due to missed tax payments.

Zevweb has a nice feature on how the documentary came to tell the story of the emergency room at County-USC Medical Center on the Eastside.

Deon Joseph, a senior lead officer in the LAPD's Central Area, has had enough. Skid Row, where he has worked for 16 years, has "once again become an outdoor asylum without walls."

Folks in Pasadena don't really want their director of public health bashing gays, Catholics, Muslims and evolution. But in the state of Georgia? No problem!

Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding, the county's high-profile director of public health, this morning announced his retirement from the post. Fielding says in a statement that he will go back to his position at UCLA, where his name is on the Fielding School of Public Health.

Saturday obits include Hollywood voice artist Hal Douglas and production manager Abby Singer, whose name has become affixed to the penultimate shot of the day on Hollywood sets.

The ex-Dodger and Angel — and dozens of other major league baseball players — owe their careers to the Los Angeles surgeon who died yesterday. John discussed his friend on NPR's "All Things Considered."

Dana Goodyear's latest piece for the New Yorker from Los Angeles is about Valley Fever, which is caused by a toxic fungus found in the California soil.

Roger Smith will be the managing editor of the California HealthCare Foundation’s Center for Health Reporting at USC Annenberg.

Los Angeles Times staff writer Anna Gorman posted her job change on Twitter.

"If there was something I could work on, I’d work on it till I could get it back," Linda Ronstadt says. "If there was a drug I could take to get it back, I would take the drug. I’d take napalm."

Linda Ronstadt told the AARP website she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease eight months ago, after beginning to show symptoms eight years ago. "No one can sing with Parkinson’s disease,” Ronstadt said. “No matter how hard you try.”

It has been nineteen months since Xeni Jardin, the LA-based journalist who is one of the core editors at Boing Boing, disclosed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Nice piece today in the LA Weekly on where she is these days.

With today's news about Angelina Jolie, Los Angeles Times reporter Anna Gorman revisits on the Times website her 2007 surgery.

The actress and director chose the preventive procedures after learning that she carries a defective gene, BRCA1, and that her doctors estimated an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer. The procedures began in February and were completed with breast reconstruction in April.

The Board of Supervisors gave the go-ahead Tuesday for expansion of the new medical center that opened in 2008. Details such as when and exactly where remain to be decided.

The county of Los Angeles has put together a video explaining how the Affordable Care Act is already changing medical care for the two million uninsured in the county, and how county departments are preparing for the full impact once the new act takes effect. Watch inside.

USC law professor Elyn R. Saks, author of the memoir, “The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness,” writes in Sunday's New York Times from her perspective that "the seeds of creative thinking may sometimes be found in mental illness." Her experience as a sufferer of schizophrenia is that while she needs medication and professional care, she also needs to work. "My mind, I have come to say, is both my worst enemy and my best friend."

Amy Wallace, an editor at Los Angeles magazine, is going to get ready for her birthday party by living a life that many fantasize about: working out every day just like it was a job. She wants to walk into the party "a taut, 140-pound warrior-goddess."

Vishal Makhija was put onto a special medical plane at LAX today for a flight home to Mumbai, almost nine months after he was seriously injured by a hit-and-run driver in Boyle Heights. Los Angeles County is paying the $19,200 cost — and considers it a bargain.

Scientists who did not know they were studying the brain of retired football star Junior Seau concluded that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative disease typically caused by multiple hits to the head.

"The call I feared finally came late on a Friday...'I’m a nurse at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital,' she said. 'Don’t panic, but we have your son.'"

The Los Angeles Times went to the red ink on Sunday's front page for the opening story in a series on prescription drug overdose deaths.

As many know, Los Angeles writer, journalist and more Xeni Jardin is being treated for breast cancer. After an especially unpleasant session today with the blood takers at Cedars-Sinai, she posted an image and message that I suspect many people who have been patients will endorse.

County Public Health's "Show Us Your Package" competition to design an official condom wrapper has a winner. It's Adam Lyons, 32, of Hollywood.

Mitchell H. Katz, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, calls the Supreme Court ruling that upheld the Obama health care law a victory for the county's uninsured.

Here's what happens at the Malibu party at Streisand's home to raise money for the new Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Martin Short emcees. Lisa Ling introduces Bill Clinton. Streisand sings, and so on. Guest list and more

Starting July 1, Los Angeles County's public health department has to start enforcing new state standards for tattoo studios and artists. The Safe Body Art Act, as it's called, passed in October. Now the county's Body Art Unit figures to be swamped.

The Pasadena Police Department and San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District flew over El Monte and Duarte on Tuesday and identified 21 dirty, abandoned or improperly drained swimming pools that could provide breeding environments for Asian tiger mosquitoes. San Gabriel Valley Tribune photographer Walt Mancini rode along.

The Los Angeles woman who everyone in the media seems to be talking about this week is Jamie Lynne Grumet, a 26-year-old mother of two and also a lactation consultant and breastfeeding advocate. She blogs about breastfeeding, mothering and "attachment parenting" at I am Not the Babysitter, but the site seems to be down. Not surprising, given the emotional frenzies sparked by her still breastfeeding her soon-to-be four-year-old son, and Time putting them on the cover in such a provocative pose.

World Peace says he was "over-excited" when he smashed the head of James Harden of the Oklahama City Thunder. Officials of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health are forgiving of their very public partner.

The news late last week from the LA County coroner must have hit some of Andrew Breitbart's more conspiracy-minded fans hard, kind of like the dissonance felt by the followers of that old clergyman who keeps proclaiming — then surviving — the end of the world. He died at 43 of heart disease and hardening of the arteries, the coroner concluded. Andrew did like his steak.

The reason that Kobe Bryant is having such a good season for the Lakers may be the 34-year-old's experimental Regenokine treatment on his arthritic right knee in Germany. Grantland digs...

Frank Bruni is the latest prominent food critic to reveal that he has been diagnosed with the painful disease called gout.

Honestly, I'm not sure that's better news for the residents of Malibu.

The senator, elected a year ago from the Antelope Valley, was diagnosed 20 years ago with limited scleroderma.

California Watch, the Bay Area-based non-profit, only started up in 2009, but it employs the largest investigative team of any journalism operation in the state and keeps spinning out noteworthy investigations.

As the centerpiece of an end-of-year ritual it really works, says a writer.

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation apologized on Friday for deciding to cut most of its financing to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening.

The Southern TV chef known for her Krispy Kreme doughnut bread pudding and similar recipes went on "Today" to explain that she was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes three years ago.

Rourke, familiar to many journalists as the head of Caltech's communications office from 1986 to 2009, died at home in Pasadena after battling pulmonary fibrosis.

NBC bills it as an interview with the Santa Cruz paramedic who was beaten at Dodger Stadium on opening day of the past season, possibly because he was a Giants fan.

Anyone who has spent much time around new media and blogs in the past ten years, especially in Los Angeles, has read or heard Xeni Jardin.

Bill Fulton, a well-known writer on California affairs and the nitty gritty of urban planning before and since he became an elected official in Ventura, is moving away largely because he is losing his eyesight to retinitis pigmentosa.

Evidence is mounting for the bad health effects of breathing the air in traffic jams and living near freeways, even as the exhaust from cars and trucks gets cleaner.

Monday is the 20th anniversary of the shocking afternoon press conference, on live national TV from the Forum in Inglewood, when Magic Johnson announced that he had been infected with the AIDS virus and would be retiring from the Lakers, effective immediately.

USC Annenberg's Center for Health Reporting has partnered with eight ethnic media outlets to gauge the impact of the impending closures of more than 300 Adult Day Health Care centers.

Everyone — including Rand — knew its study saying crime went up when marijuana clinics closed smelled funny, but now Rand has gone the rest of the way.

Rancic, the longtime host of various E! Entertainment shows and recently the co-host of the Style Network reality series "Giuliana and Bill," went on NBC's Today this morning to talk about her treatment for breast cancer.

A new study from the Center for Health Reporting at USC says flatly that when the Big One hits Southern California, "hospitals won't be ready."

Mother Jones has a story questioning statements about bisphenol A, or BPA, by leading breast cancer fundraiser Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Several adult film studios suspended production Monday after the Free Speech Coaltion, an industry group, reported that a performer may have tested positive for HIV.

The current wave of departures from the Los Angeles Times newsroom isn't nearly over.

Guarded good news out of San Francisco on Bryan Stow, the victim of that brutal assault at Dodger Stadium on this season's opening day.

Ziskin died at home tonight after a long and public battle with breast cancer.

Journalists love being tapped by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.

The Northern California paramedic severely injured in a beating at Dodger Stadium in March was flown from Burbnank today.

The San Francisco Giants fan who was severely beaten outside Dodger Stadium was placed back in a medically induced coma after suffering seizures Saturday.

In a sign of how bad it may be, Japanese officials finally accept help from American nuclear experts.

This might help prevent locals from going a little crazy over the arrival of airborne radiation particles from Japan.

Experts said that small amounts of radioactive isotope that escaped from the crippled Japanese nuclear power stations would blow across the Pacific in the upper atmosphere.

Release from the office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says "no immediate threat to the United States" from radiation in Japan.

The tennis star had treatment last week at Cedars-Sinai, and on Monday was treated on an emergency basis for a related hematoma.

Channel 2 reporter Serene Branson will tell anchor Pat Harvey tonight at 11 that her on-air incident at Sunday's Grammys has been blamed on a migraine that mimicked stroke symptoms.

The NYT quotes a stroke specialist who suspects, in the footage of Serene Branson that aired live on the Channel 2 news here Sunday night, that we saw rare and medically valuable video of an ischemic stroke as it is happening.

CBS has put in a copyright claim to get YouTube to take down all the videos it can find of Channel 2 reporter Serene Branson's on-air medical event last night.

County Health says that 170 people who attended that party at the Playboy Mansion on Feb. 3 have since been reported as feeling symptoms afterward.

Many conventioneers go to the Playboy Mansion hoping for a special experience, but attendees at the DOMAINFest conference really did catch something special.

Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michael Milken and a bunch of Hollywood types came out to the home of Peter Chernin Thursday night for a discussion of discuss global health issues.

LA Observed contributor Deanne Stillman was outside the University Medical Center in Tucson on Sunday for the outpouring of public support for the six victims killed in Saturday's shooting and for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who remains in intensive care with doctors optimistic about her chances for recovery.

The county's Department of Mental Health released a public service announcement yesterday that stars the Lakers' Ron Artest urging people to seek help.

Trish Ploehn was removed Monday as director of Los Angeles County's Department of Children and Family Services, after months of turmoil and increasingly critical reports.

For Al Martinez' front-page column in today's Daily News, he nibbles on the medical marijuana cookie he brought home for his daughter's cancer nausea.

The LAT columnist spent 11 harrowing days in the hospital with typhus, which she apparently picked up in her Pasadena backyard.

ProPublica reporter Robin Fields, a former L.A. Times investigative reporter, landed a major project this morning on the morass that the federal kidney dialysis program has become.

The California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting at USC Annenberg has been around for a year now as a new model for health news.

An SEIU union investigation concludes that the chief executive of Central City Community Health Center has secretly used the charity's money to pay expenses of his own for-profit businesses.

The county Board of Supervisors today gave unanimous final approval to rules that will let health department inspectors inspect and assign letter grades to food trucks.

More children have died in each of the last two years from abuse or neglect after being under the eye of Los Angeles County's Department of Children and Family Services despite assurances by county officials that the problem was getting better, the LAT finds

Wicked Pictures and Vivid Entertainment stopped production after a performer identified by one industry source as a male who does gay and straight films tested positive for HIV.

California Watch has been at it for a year now, and says its 11 full-time reporters are "by far the largest investigative team operating in the state."

Tami Dennis, health and science editor at the Los Angeles Times, is getting new Tribune-wide responsibilities and the title of vice president of health content for Tribune Company.

Los Angeles Magzine editor Mary Melton's child has autism. So do an increasing percentage of Angelenos, as the magazine's September cover package explores.

Residents of upscale La Canada Flintridge live the longest of those in any Los Angeles County community: 87.8 years on average, according to a new report on life expectancy. Life expectancy is 15 years less in Westmont, an unincorporated area near South Los Angeles.

Some 19% of men in Los Angeles County smoke cigarettes compared to 10% of women, according to new estimates by the county Department of Public Health. African Americans smoke at a 25% rate compared to 15% for whites, 12% for Latinos and 11% for Asians, the study says. College educated and higher income? Lower smoking rates.

Myron Levin and Joanna Lin's nonprofit FairWarning.org plans to plans to investigate issues involving safety, health and corporate conduct.

HealthyCal debuts today, billing itself as "a new independent, non-profit web site focused on the health of Californians and their communities."

Philanthropist Eli Broad and county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas jointly signed a Martin Luther King Day piece at the Huffington Post that calls poverty the biggest civil rights issue and advocates for a single-payer system of health care.

Blogger Paul Serchia doesn't pull any punches about his diseases, but he's readable and often funny

California scientists have discovered clusters of autism, largely in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas, where children are twice as likely to have the disorder. But wait.

Click on the cartoon to view it bigger. More by Steve Greenberg....

French rock legend Johnny Hallyday has emerged from a medically induced coma he had been in since last week, according to his press relations office. He's been treated at Cedars-Sinai...

More by Steve Greenberg...

Marketplace has a story on the newly launched L.A.-based print magazine for nurses and the people who love them. The website includes a blog by Rebekah Child, a USC and...

West Hollywood City Councilmember Jeff Prang announced the death of his former deputy this morning. Karen Ocamb has more....

Last night on KCRW's Which Way, L.A.?, Warren Olney noted that Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, declined to take questions directly from...

The Lakers' special coach and former great for the Lakers and UCLA made the media rounds Monday announcing that he is being treated for a rare form of leukemia. The...

The students at USC's Neon Tommy looked into the Los Angeles County deaths attributed to the H1N1 flu and mapped the cases — 57 since April, when it was known...

Amy Wallace, the editor-at-large for Los Angeles magazine, wrote recently at Wired about the controversy over the safety of vaccines. She frames it as more akin to hysteria on the...

The most-viewed article in the UK's Guardian the past 24 hours has been a weekend piece from Los Angeles asking if California will become America's first failed state. For what...

The AP reports out of Thailand that "For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a...

© Steve Greenberg. May not be reused without permission of the artist News item: the county Board of Supervisors moved forward with a plan to ask the University of California...

With local media obsessing a bit this week on the 50th anniversary of the partial meltdown of an experimental nuclear reactor above Chatsworth, here's the first comprehensive news story on...

Info released today by county public health officials indicates there have been 22 positive HIV tests of porn performers since a scare shut down the adult video biz for a...

A SoCal newspaper editor passed along this fable, saying it came from a friend at the Denver Post. But I don't actually know who wrote it. (Update below.) One could...

Los Angeles journalist Daniel Hernandez, in Mexico the past year or so writing a book, has left the federal district for Puebla to get a break from the "toxic urbanism...

Move sets up additional help for public health officials if needed. LAT, DN * Update to earlier story: Coroner no longer thinks those two L.A. County deaths are related to...

Symptoms resemble swine flu closely enough that more testing is being done, the Times reports at L.A. Now. Bellflower Medical Center reported the death of a 33-year Long Beach man...

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel warning tonight advising against non-essential travel to Mexico, citing the swine flu outbreak there....

Investigators are looking at two Los Angeles County clusters of influenza, but chances are they're the usual seasonal flus, county public health officials are saying on a televised press conference...

L.A. Times writer Thomas Curwen's and photographer Allen J. Schaben's series on Ana Rodarte, 3½ years in the making, has award contender all over it: "Ana Rodarte had given...

The Whittier Daily News says that the police were called last night to get attorney Gloria Allred to leave the home before two of Nadya Suleman's babies arrived. La Habra...

Greetings from the new home of octomom Nadya Suleman, her babies and half the TV news crews in Southern California. "It's pandemonium out here," emails longtime reader Thomas Naccarato,...

A tentative agreement between the county and UC would reopen the emergency room and other inpatient services at Martin Luther King-Harbor Medical Center near Watts by 2012. The hospital would...

Since I mentioned her last week on the blog, and on Friday in my KCRW commentary, let's note for the record that Joann Killeen and her partner have stepped aside...

Steve Mikulan gets off a couple of good lines in his L.A. Daily post that "as a press representative for Union Pacific Railroad, Joann Killeen has plenty of experience with...

Tamiflu, the most commonly used influenza antiviral drug and the key to the government's emergency stockpile, no longer works on the flu strain that is emerging as the most dominant...

Six boys and two girls were born to a mother at the Kaiser Permanente hospital in Bellflower — only the second live octuplets on record in the U.S. The babies,...

A woman who lives in the Country Club Park area of Mid-City has come down with the first human case of bubonic plague in Los Angeles County since 1984. Health...