Health

Humans are light-sensitive beings. Whether it comes from the sun, a laser or a fluorescent bulb, light can affect our bodies and minds in ways that scientists are just beginning to understand. If you believe actor Robert Wagner, a little light can banish pain. Wagner is the television pitchman for Light Relief, a hand-held device equipped with 59 light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that flicker with pulses of blue, red and infrared light. The device also has four heat settings.

Sometime in the last few years, as the world's attention was focused on the bird flu that killed more than 250 people in Asia, another bird flu strain infected pigs. It mixed with two kinds of flu that are endemic in swine and a fourth that originally came from people. The resulting concoction spread among pigs, then recently -- no one yet knows where or when -- started infecting humans.

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs broke with his usual code of secrecy Monday to explain his health problems, but the disclosure that a hormone imbalance was causing his noticeable weight loss will probably do little to tamp down concerns. Medical experts said a hormone imbalance in a pancreatic cancer survivor raises red flags about a possible recurrence. Jobs said in 2004 that he had undergone surgery to treat a rare form of the deadly disease.

Some important questions can't be asked without sounding crass and insensitive. But there's no way around asking this one that's on everybody's mind, so here goes: What is Apple Inc.'s plan if Chief Executive Steve Jobs dies? The question of Jobs' health has been a live discussion thread since he announced in August 2004 that he had undergone surgery for pancreatic cancer. When Apple announced a few weeks ago that -- for the first time since his return to the Cupertino, Calif.

Just when you thought you could scratch bird flu off your list of things to worry about in 2009, the deadly H5N1 virus has resurfaced in poultry in Hong Kong for the first time in six years, reinforcing warnings that the threat of a human pandemic isn't over. India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and mainland China also experienced new outbreaks in December. During the same period, four new human cases -- in Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia -- were reported to the World Health Organization.

International officials Saturday declared the swine flu outbreak in Mexico and the U.S. a "public health emergency" as new cases were reported on both sides of the border and fears grew of a possible global epidemic. The Mexican government indicated that the outbreak was more severe than originally acknowledged, announcing that more than 1,300 people are believed to have been infected.

A U.S. magistrate ordered the federal government to provide a doctor for a Pakistani woman charged with trying to kill U.S. employees in an Afghanistan gunfight. A frail-looking Aafia Siddiqui sat in a wheelchair as Magistrate Henry Pitman ordered medical care within a day. Siddiqui's lawyers say her health is worsening from wounds suffered in the encounter last month. Her attorney said she may have lost a kidney and suffered brain damage.

An outbreak of swine flu that may have killed as many as 60 people prompted authorities in Mexico City to close schools Friday throughout the sprawling city of 20 million and order emergency health measures in an attempt to contain the disease. In the United States, officials said they had found one new case in San Diego, bringing the number of U.S. cases to eight. All have recovered fully.

On Wednesday, a top Health Ministry official, Mauricio Hernandez, deputy secretary for prevention, told Mexicans that a small uptick in flu deaths "by no means indicates an epidemic." Scarcely 24 hours later, the government went on late-night television to issue an emergency decree closing all schools, from day care through university, in Mexico City and the state of Mexico, affecting nearly 7 million students.

Once vaccination rates dip below a certain point, outbreaks of childhood diseases can spread quickly. Last year, Hilary Chambers, a San Diego radio host and mother of a baby girl, saw firsthand how fast measles can be passed among children. A 7-year-old boy brought back a case of the disease from Switzerland and infected his two siblings and nine other children at his public charter school and doctors' office.