Public Health

The welfare reform measure that President Clinton signed Thursday might achieve its objective of prodding millions of Americans to get productive jobs, but some public health officials are expressing the fear that it could cause many to simply get sick. And the poor, they said, might not get sick alone.

Californians voted in 1988 to raise the cigarette tax by 25 cents a pack. That revenue goes to state-funded anti-tobacco education and research. The educational campaign in particular has drawn national attention for its blunt television commercials and billboards. More important, state officials and public health experts believe it has been largely responsible for the 42% drop since 1988 in the number of Californians who smoke. That translates to millions of dollars in savings on health care.

Doctors are about to be warned of a strange, rare side effect of certain antibiotics: They sometimes inflame or even rupture patients' tendons. But the fine-print warning about to go on some popular antibiotics isn't enough, a consumer advocate told the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday. Continuing the drugs after tendons become sore can turn simple tendinitis into a rupture--most frequently of the Achilles tendon--that can require surgery to fix, warned Dr.

Lawmakers worked out an agreement Wednesday to provide tens of millions of dollars to upgrade municipal water systems and, for the first time, require that citizens be told what contaminants are in their tap water. After a week of wrangling between House and Senate negotiators, the two sides agreed on a broad overhaul of the federal law that protects drinking water. It authorizes a $7.

The tobacco industry is now being sued by 14 states that want to recover the public health costs associated with disabling and often fatal diseases linked to cigarette smoking, and more are likely to join the battle. The industry is also girding to legally challenge the finding by the Food and Drug Administration that cigarettes and chewing tobacco are the delivery systems for a powerfully addictive drug, nicotine. President Clinton has now approved new regulations growing out of that finding.

In a payout to residents who claimed health and other problems, the Lockheed Martin Corp. has agreed to $60 million in cash settlements for nearly 1,300 neighbors of its former military airplane manufacturing plant, according to a source close to the negotiations. Residents near the plant blamed an array of ailments, including cancer, on chemicals that had seeped into the soil and water during the 63 years the company built aircraft at the site near Burbank Airport.

In a payout to Burbank residents who claimed health and other problems, the Lockheed Martin Corp. has agreed to $60 million in cash settlements to nearly 1,300 neighbors who lived near the company's former military airplane manufacturing plant, according to a source close to the negotiations.

After finding deadly hantavirus for the first time in Ventura County in two deer mice trapped near Wood Ranch, scientists Wednesday said this: Don't panic. The discovery comes as part of a statewide campaign launched three years ago after a hantavirus outbreak in New Mexico. Since then, California health workers have trapped and tested nearly 5,000 animals in a search for those carrying the virus.

Worried by new tests showing elevated levels of bacteria in coastal waters, authorities have indefinitely closed two-thirds of Bolsa Chica State Beach, one of Orange County's most popular beaches. The shutdown, ordered late Thursday by the Orange County Health Care Agency, follows the discovery of dozens of cracks in a 2.5-mile sewer line serving the state beach's 14 restrooms.

Before you indulge your sweet tooth and bite into that cinnamon roll or scone, you might want to add another hour or two to your morning exercise routine and check your cholesterol levels, according to the latest nutritional report released by a consumer group on Wednesday.