The Flu Is Invading L.A., But Health Chief Says There's Still Time to Fight Back
The influenza virus is spreading in Los Angeles with a vengeance this week. The illness "is on the rise in Los Angeles County," Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, interim chief of the L.A. County Department of...
View ArticleSmoking Costs You $1.5 Million Over a Lifetime
Smoking costs you a pretty penny. And we're not just talking about those $5 packs at the 7-Eleven. Personal finance site WalletHub recently crunched the numbers on what it costs you to be a lifelong...
View ArticleAs Disneyland Measles Outbreak Grows, Should Angelenos Be Worried?
The California Department of Public Health now says that the state has seen 59 cases of the measles since late December, with 42 linked to the well-publicized outbreak linked to Disneyland. Orange and...
View ArticleAngelenos Are Some of the Least Healthy Bastards in America
Southern California has earned its reputation as a fitness-crazed region that has helped to spark workout religions that have swept the world. But not all is as it seems. While Hollywood projects an...
View ArticleGet Your Flu “Shots” at These L.A. Juice Bars
As flu season drags on, chances are you’ve either had the flu and still have a lingering cough or you are desperately trying to avoid getting sick as those around you wheeze and sniffle. Maybe it's...
View ArticleLaw Would Force Measles Shots on Children of "Personal Belief" Anti-Vaxxers
Sorry Jenny McCarthy followers, but your personal beliefs are no good here when it comes to vaccination for measles and other dangerous diseases. That's the message this week from South Bay state Sen....
View ArticlePatient Being Monitored for Ebola Comes to Los Angeles
A traveler to an Ebola-stricken nation who was being monitored in Santa Barbara County as a precaution was sent to the Los Angeles area over the weekend after the patient developed a fever, a health...
View ArticleCalifornia Is a Doctor's Dream
The cold and flu season is almost behind us, but here's a nice bit of news, just in case: California is one of "2015’s Best States for Doctors," says personal finance site WalletHub. That's kind of a...
View ArticleDr. Talks About First-of-a-Kind Surgery to Extract Woman's "Evil Twin"
It was the first surgery of its kind in the history of medical science. A tumor that might or might not be the remains of an undeveloped sibling attached to a patient since before birth was recently...
View ArticleValor Is a Miniature Horse Who Rides Elevators and Soothes Troubled Minds
One of the 54 fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People Issue 2015. It sounds like something dreamed up by a television producer in the 1950s: Valor, the Tiny Sheriff Horse. Along with her...
View ArticleFor This Leukemia Patient, the Lightning in a Bottle Festival Is a Place to Heal
Forget about plenty of sleep and an apple a day. Deep, pounding bass from legendary house DJ John Digweed was our idea of medicine. My close friend has leukemia, but after several rounds of...
View ArticleAnother Day, Another Deadly Disease Aims for L.A.
Another scary, deadly disease is spreading across the world, and this time it's much closer to L.A. than Ebola was when it started in West Africa. MERS (for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) has killed...
View ArticleSurprise! California Is America's Workout State
Although we're not the healthiest people in America, Californians are, indeed, workout-crazed. We certainly like to talk about it, anyway. According to a new analysis of 311,360 tweets containing the...
View ArticleSouth L.A.'s Food Desert May Be Getting Some Organic, Homegrown Relief
After suffering a spate of grocery store closings in the past few years, South Los Angeles might see a huge reversal of that trend. On June 16, Community Services Unlimited (CSU) — the South L.A....
View ArticleNearly Half of You Are Overweight
Ah, California — the land of yoga, Pilates, and Muscle Beach. Of all the stereotypes applied to the Golden State — we're turning into Mexico, we're all socialist pot smokers, the state will either fall...
View ArticleHere Are the Five Democrats Who Voted Against California's Tough New...
For anti-vaxxers, the end is nigh. After much fanfare, protest and debate on vaccinations (or at least a lot of boring speeches) the California State Assembly passed SB 277, which would eliminate the...
View ArticleIs There a Kinder, Gentler Way to Get Anti-Vaxxers to See the Light?
Some of the first people to notice the anti-vaccination phenomenon in California were Santa Monica physicians like pediatrician Alice Kuo, whose UCLA clinic on 16th Street sits midway between the...
View ArticleHow to Convince Anti-Vaxxers They're Wrong? Scare Them With Gory Details
Local anti-vaxxers are often educated white women from comparatively well-off parts of Los Angeles' Westside and West Valley. And they're notoriously resistant to the science behind vaccinations,...
View ArticleDoes Vaping Lead to Smoking?
For a few years now the e-cigarette industry and nonsmoking advocates have been locked in a battle about the effects of vaping. The state of California itself weighed in with a series of public service...
View ArticleL.A. Moves to Ban Smokeless Tobacco at Dodger Stadium & City Ball Parks
Smokeless tobacco, which includes snuff and chewing tobacco, has a long tradition on the baseball field. But cities like San Francisco and Boston, citing health concerns that include cancer, have...
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