A 13-year-old British athlete is being hailed a “miracle” by doctors after he collapsed and died for 15 minutes and survived.

James Doherty went into cardiac arrest while playing tennis at Hazelwood Tennis Academy in Enfield, Middlesex, on Sept. 8, the Daily Mail reports.

The teenager was given CPR until paramedics arrived and defibrillated his heart. He was rushed to the hospital where he was stabilized and almost 24 hours after his collapse he finally came around, according to the report.

“The doctor who treated him said he was unique and it was extraordinarily miraculous that he survived,” his mother Sarah told the Mail.

James was eventually diagnosed with long QT syndrome, which is a disorder of the heart’s electrical activity, according to the National Institutes of Health. As a result, a person may develop sudden and dangerous heart rhythm in response to exercise and stress, the NIH said on its Web site.

Although more than half of people who have an untreated, inherited form of the syndrome die within 10 years, many people with LQTS can survive with lifestyle changes that include:

— Avoiding strenuous physical activity or startling noises;

— Taking heart medicines called beta blockers, which are very effective at preventing sudden cardiac arrest;

— Having an implantable device, such as a pacemaker to help control abnormal heart rhythms

James was eventually fitted with a defibrillator to control his heart rhythm and is now recovering at home.

Unfortunately, his dreams of becoming a professional tennis player will not come true. He has to give up the sport because it is too strenuous.

Click here to read more and see photos from the Daily Mail.

Tonsillitis is a common childhood ailment that in most cases can be treated with over-the-counter medicines. But, the condition turned deadly for a British toddler after a doctor told his parents to “wait for the medication to work,” the Daily Mail reported.

Joseph Seevaraj, 3, was found dead by his mother and father at their home in Hove in East Sussex, England, on Jan. 20 of this year.

The little boy had been severely ill the night before, with vomiting and diarrhea. His parents called their physician, but the doctor told them to wait for the antibiotics to work, which had been prescribed days earlier, according to the report.

At a hearing Thursday, the coroner described the “gross errors” made in his treatment.

“He needed basic medical attention,” she told the panel. “I am satisfied there is a clear connection between this gross failure and his death.”

The coroner ruled Joseph had died from septicemia, a potentially life-threatening infection, which occurred as a result of tonsillitis, the Mail reported.

The court was also told that if Joseph had been taken to hospital he would not have died.

Click here to read more on this story from the Daily Mail.

Drinking red wine not only reduces your risk for cardiovascular disease, but it may also reduce your risk for lung cancer – especially if you are a current or ex-smoker, Reuters reported Thursday.

People who do or have smoked and drink at least one glass of wine each day are 60 percent less likely to develop lung cancer than those who have smoked and don’t drink red wine, said Dr. Chun Chao, of the Kaiser Permanente Southern California in Pasadena.

Chao said it’s the resveratrol and flavonoids in red wine that are protective — something white wine does not have.

The reduction seen with red wine “lends support to a causal association for red wine and suggests that compounds that are present at high concentrations in red wine but not in white wine, beer or liquors may be protective against lung carcinogenesis,” Chao wrote in her study.

However, previous studies examining the correlation between alcohol consumption and lung cancer haven’t always had the same results, Chao and her team noted in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

Research has not adjusted socioeconomic statuses, which cannot only influence alcohol use, but lung cancer risk.

Click here for more on this story from Reuters.

Click here for more on this study (subscription required).

Eight patients are suing Greenwich Hospital in tony Greenwich, Conn., accusing officials there of allowing a drug-addicted doctor to perform surgeries.

Dr. Ian Rubins, a plastic surgeon who specialized in reconstructive surgery for breast-cancer patients, was found dead in January of a heroin overdose.

Patients’ lawyers are seeking class action status for the lawsuit, which claims hospital officials were aware that Rubins had a drug problem since 1997.

Former patient and breast cancer survivor Robin Lyons said her surgery was done so poorly that her breast swelled up to her collar bone, the Stamford Advocate reported Thursday.

Lyons, 54, said she had to undergo another mastectomy and three additional surgeries to correct the damage.

A message was left seeking comment from the hospital.

The lawsuit says that Rubin showed up for an operation visibly under the influence in April 2006. He surrendered his medical license last November amid allegations he injected himself with a pain killer meant for a patient. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

Click here for more on this story from the Stamford Advocate.

They may be good for the environment, but some energy-saving light bulbs may be damaging, a U.K. health agency has found.

The light bulbs in question have a visible coil and emit ultraviolet radiation that could turn the skin red if positioned too close to the body, new research has found.

People whose jobs involves close work with their hands under a light bulb, such as jewelers, could also be affected, the Health Protection Agency said.

People should not have a light bulb closer than 11 inches to the body for more than an hour a day or should switch to an encapsulated style of energy-saving light bulb, the agency said.

“We are not saying these could cause cancer,” said the agency’s CEO Justin McCracken. “This is precautionary advice and people should not be thinking of removing these energy-saving light bulbs from their homes.”

Click here for a photo of the bulbs and to read more on this story from Sky News.

Judith Johnson went to the Beebe Medical Center in Lewes, Delaware for what she thought was a bad case of indigestion.

An hour after being admitted, the hospital told Johnson’s husband his wife was dead, Wilmington’s News Journal reported Tuesday.

When someone at the morgue noticed Johnson’s “corpse” was still breathing, Louis Johnson learned his wife was very much alive.

The Johnsons are now suing the hospital and medical staff for compensatory and punitive damages.

“She is brain injured, but can walk and talk,” the Johnson’s attorney, Dr. Leon Aussprung told The News Journal.

Judith Johnson, 61, of Georgetown, Del., was actually having a heart attack when she arrived at the hospital in May 2007. Less than 45 minutes after she arrived, she went into cardiac arrest.

She was given “multiple medicines and synchronized shocks,” according to emergency room records, which also indicate she was not given supplemental oxygen. The records also say she “never regained a pulse,” and was declared dead at 8:34 p.m.

Johnson now suffers from liver damage, chest pain, memory loss, speech problems, and a change in personality, seizures, and permanent neurological injury as a result of the care she received at Beebe Medical Center, according to the lawsuit.

Beebe medical officials did not directly comment on the lawsuit.

“The situation that you described, while rare, is not unheard of,” said Wallace Hudson, Beebe’s vice president of corporate affairs. “It is called spontaneous return of circulation, otherwise known as ‘Lazarus syndrome. Medical literature points out that since 1982, there have been at least 25 reported cases of survival after failed resuscitation.”

Click here to read more from The News Journal.

The added stress of a global economic downturn could lead to a rise in mental health problems, the World Health Organization said Friday.

As some Americans struggle to cope with having their houses repossessed, the market meltdown could deepen despair, the United Nations agency said.

‘There is a clear evidence that suicide is linked to financial disasters.’— Benedetto Saraceno

“We should not be surprised or underestimate the turbulence and likely consequences of the current financial crisis,” WHO director general Margaret Chan told a meeting of mental health experts in Geneva.

“As it is, we are seeing a huge gap in taking care of people in great need.”

People living in low- and middle-income countries where many people with mental disorders receive no treatment or care are at particular risk, the agency said in marking World Mental Health Day.

Mental, neurological and substance abuse disorders

Governments worldwide need to make mental health a vital part of primary health care to get mental health services to the tens of millions in need, the agency urged.

“It should not come as a surprise that we continue to see more stresses, suicides and mental disorders,” Chan warned.

“There is a clear evidence that suicide is linked to financial disasters,” agreed Benedetto Saraceno, director of WHO’s mental health and substance abuse department, noting suicide is a condition that is preventable.

“I am not talking about the millionaire jumping out of the window but about poor people.”

The WHO’s mental health Gap Action Programme aims to increase care such as psychosocial assistance and medications for mental, neurological and substance abuse disorders.

In the majority of countries, less than two per cent of health funds are spent on mental health, the agency said.

Mental health disorders such as depression affect one in four people at some point in their life, Saraceno said in a release.

People with mental health disorders are stigmatized, neglected and abused, but their human rights should be protected and they should not be denied opportunities to contribute to social and economic life, he added.

With files from Reuters

The boards managing Newfoundland and Labrador’s hospitals say they had no choice but to get tough with nurses, following a union decision to scale back what work its members would do.

The Newfoundland and Labrador Nurses’ Union on Thursday claimed that its members are being intimidated with disciplinary action, amid the union’s call for its members to stop doing what it calls “non-nursing” work.

But John Peddle, president of the Health Boards Association, said Friday the union itself put its own members in a precarious position.

“What the memo from the Nurses’ Union does is basically encouraging the nurses to violate the collective agreement,” Peddle told CBC News.

“We as employers have an obligation to advise individual employees before they say, ‘Don’t show up and do a particular duty [at] midnight’ … they could be putting themselves in a situation where they could be open to disciplinary action by the employer,” Peddle said in an interview.

On Thursday, the Nurses’ Union ramped up a campaign against the Newfoundland and Labrador government and its health boards by refusing to carry out a further series of tasks, including running routine samples to labs, booking routine appointments and calling in other nurses to fill vacant shifts.

In September, the nurses agreed to stop doing housekeeping and other chores.

The Nurses’ Union has insisted that the duties identified so far are never supposed to be part of a nurse’s workload, but have become so because of chronic shortages among support staff.

Speaking with reporters on Thursday afternoon, Nurses’ Union president Debbie Forward said recent directives from managers crossed the line.

“Employers can threaten us, they can intimidate us, which is what they’re doing right now in our workplaces,” Forward said.

“Nurses are feeling very threatened and intimidated, and you know what? They’re very angry.”

The Nurses’ Union and the government have been locked in a bargaining impasse for months heading toward a new contract.

The government has said it wants nurses and other public-sector workers to accept the same four-year deal negotiated with the Canadian Union of Public Employees this summer. CUPE members accepted a wage package of just over 20 per cent over four years.

The Nurses’ Union’s opening position, however, is much more ambitious. In addition to benefits claims, the union is seeking 12 per cent per year over two years, plus an overhaul of opening and top salary scales.

A potentially deadly strain of streptococcal infections that contributed to the deaths of 10 people in northwestern Ontario doesn’t pose a widespread threat, the province’s chief medical officer of health says.

“It doesn’t seem to be showing and spreading throughout the community [in Thunder Bay], but spreading within a very specific subgroup of the community,” Dr. David Williams said.

A coalition of AIDS advocacy groups are calling on Canada’s next federal government to restore funding they say the Conservatives diverted from support programs for people living with AIDS and HIV.

In 2004-2005, an all-party agreement promised to increase federal AIDS funding from $42.2 million to $84.4 million a year by 2009. The funding was to go toward research, community support for those living with HIV and AIDS and programs for people most at risk for HIV infection.

Instead, the funding is about 15 per cent short of that target, said a news release issued Thursday by the Canadian AIDS Society and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, a coalition of several hundred community-based organizations.

About $11.8 million of the $84.4 million will not be released as intended, said the AIDS Society. Some of the funding has been redirected to the development of an HIV vaccine and away from treatment, support, and prevention — a move that advocates say has had a crippling effect on Canada’s fight against AIDS.

Throughout the federal election campaign, the coalition of advocacy groups asked the five major political parties about their support for funding AIDS programs and their stance on including treatment and harm-reduction initiatives, such as safe injection sites and needle exchanges, in the national drug strategy.

According to the organizations, unsafe drug use is a key factor driving the spread of HIV and hepatitis C virus in Canada. The country has about 60,000 people infected with HIV, with a few thousand news cases diagnosed every year.

The Bloc, the New Democrats, the Liberals and the Green party — either through their party platforms or in their response to the questionnaires sent out by the two organizations — have backed harm-reduction programs and stable federal AIDS funding, but there has been no response to the questionnaire from the Conservatives, said Monique Doolittle-Romas, executive director of the AIDS Society.

The advocacy groups accused the Conservatives of favouring punishment over harm reduction and treatment in the National Anti-Drug Strategy they launched last year despite evidence that the latter approaches have proven effective in Canada and elsewhere.

Prior to the election, Health Minister Tony Clement called Vancouver’s supervised injection site “a slippery slope.”

With files from the Canadain Press