
UVa. grants fund medicine of tomorrow
The University of Virginia Health System has selected five ambitious proposals that could create transformative advances in medicine as the inaugural recipients of its new clinical research grants.

The University of Virginia Health System has selected five ambitious proposals that could create transformative advances in medicine as the inaugural recipients of its new clinical research grants.

The environmental justice movement was born in September 1982 when a group of poor residents of rural Warren County, North Carolina laid down in front of trucks transporting waste containing toxic PCBs to a nearby landfill.

Local James Madison University professor, artist and author Judith Townsend Rocchiccioli has released her first novel, Chaos at Crescent Medical Center, a medical thriller.

It may be time to upgrade your pans, given that the U.S. government has called for a complete phase-out of polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE, otherwise known as Teflon) and related products by 2015, due to health concerns. When Teflon is exposed to high heat it can degrade, which causes it to release its constituent chemical, PFOA, as a gas. This phenomenon can kill pet birds, and can’t be good for humans either.

Dr. C. Laura Gonzalez, a board certified specialist in pulmonary diseases, has joined the Augusta Health Pulmonology and Critical Care Medicine office in Fishersville. The practice is located in the Medical Office Building on the Augusta Health campus. The office phone number is 540.245.7190.

Recent personal experiences have been pushing me into territory that I, as a lifelong liberal, had never thought possible. Government power, particularly at the local level, is out of control, and seriously needs to be reined in, and now.

The war over toxic chemicals and human health is spilling over into places we live and work: our buildings. The American Chemical Council has launched an expensive and focused attack on the U.S. Green Building Council to protect the status quo of a small set of bad-actor manufacturers of toxic and obsolete chemicals. But innovative companies across the building industries and human health advocates are fighting back.

During the third and fourth quarters of 2012, 36 Augusta Health employees earned national certifications in their areas of expertise, and two finished college degrees. Certifications require demonstration of extensive knowledge in a subject area, usually by examination, and degrees require a commitment of years of study and commitment.

Even for those of us without allergies, poor indoor air quality is an often overlooked health issue. Recent research has shown that the air inside some buildings can be more polluted than the outdoor air in the most industrialized of cities. And since many of us spend some 90 percent of our time indoors, cleaning the air where we live and work might be one of the most important things we can do for our health.

The coaches strolling the sidelines at this weekend’s Fishburne Military School Scotto’s Military Challenge will be wearing sneakers as part of the Coaches vs. Cancer Challenge to bring awareness to cancer research.
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