Posts Tagged: cancer

Opinion

Tobacco industry spends millions to block Prop. 56

OPINION: Tobacco companies have spent more than $70 million fighting Proposition 56, a life-saving initiative that will protect kids from deadly addiction, improve access to health care for Californians and fight cancer and other tobacco-related diseases. As a volunteer physician for the American Lung Association in California, I strongly support Prop 56.

News

State bets $30 million on new cancer treatment

A scientist works in a biological laboratory. (Photo: Anya Ivanova, via Shutterstock)

A new stem cell company that targets cancer by unleashing an “eat me” trigger has emerged from a $30 million investment by the state of California. Creation of the Palo Alto firm, which is called Forty Seven, Inc., was announced Feb. 24 by its backers and its key researcher, Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University’s stem cell program.

News

Asbestos-like mineral raises concern in arid West, including California

Recent research is focusing new attention on an asbestos-like mineral, blamed for staggering rates of a deadly cancer in Turkey, that also is found in the rocks and soil of 13 Western states, including California. The U.S. Geological Survey has identified 95 sites where the mineral, erionite, exists. Nine of the identified locations are in California.

News

Governor signs end-of-life bill

Debbie Ziegler, mother of Brittany Maynard, speaks to the media in Sacramento after the passage in September of legislation that would allow terminally ill patients to legally end their lives. Gov. Brown signed the bill Monday.(Photo: AP/Carl Costas)

Gov. Jerry Brown, in one of the most emotional moments of his long political career, signed into law a bill allowing people near death to end their lives with lethal drugs supplied by a physician. “The crux of the matter is whether the state of California should continue to make it a crime for a dying person to end his life, no matter how great his pain or suffering,” Brown wrote in his official signing message.

News

Obit: Peter Harbage, health care reform advocate

Millions of Californians receive quality health care thanks to the Affordable Care Act and Medi-Cal. And though most would probably thank President Obama or the Governor for that, Peter Harbage, who passed away Tuesday at age 43, after a courageous fight with cancer, had a lot to do with it too. “Peter is the unsung architect of health care reform in the United States,” says Anthony Wright, Executive Director of Health Access, a health care consumer advocacy group.

Opinion

Flame retardants: Chemical industry uses scare tactics

OPINION: It’s the end of August and, like the rest of California, Sacramento is seeing temperatures rise. But over at the Capitol, legislators are sitting in the middle of a blizzard of alarmist rhetoric from the chemical industry about legislation to disclose the use of toxic flame retardants on furniture.

Opinion

Key drug information not on Covered California site

OPINION: Occasionally, a patient can find the information on the individual insurer website, but the formularies are displayed differently with each plan, making it difficult to compare plans to each other. In addition, there is no way to compare out-of-pocket costs.

Opinion

Nurses decry fracking’s impact

OPINION: New reports come out every day indicating a strong correlation between fracking and increased toxins in air and water as well as seismic activity. It is becoming clear that extreme well stimulation techniques pose threats to public health that go far beyond those associated with traditional oil and gas drilling.

News

A dilemma: Wealthier means healthier

California Health Report: California is a land of health extremes, and to see what that means, you need only travel a few miles from the state Capitol. Placer and Yuba counties border each other about a half hour’s drive north of downtown Sacramento. Both places are largely rural. But the similarities end there.

News

Governor being treated for prostate cancer

Gov. Jerry Brown is receiving radiation treatment for prostate cancer, his office announced Wednesday,

 

The prognosis for Brown, 74, was excellent, his doctor said.

 

Dr. Eric Small, Brown’s oncologist at UCSF, issued the following statement: “Fortunately, this is early stage localized prostate cancer, which is being treated with a short course of conventional

Support for Capitol Weekly is Provided by: