Today's Globe: Norovirus hits 2 hospitals, autism-vaccine link refuted, stress tied to heart disease, health spending, Jarvik ad questioned, ending medical errors, Charles Louis Easterday

A wave of vomiting and diarrhea has swept through wards at two Boston hospitals in the past month, leaving more than 70 patients and staff members ill from a germ whose spread can be slowed by thorough hand-washing. The outbreaks of norovirus spawned several days of gastrointestinal misery at Brigham and Women's and Massachusetts General hospitals and at a day-care facility run by Children's Hospital Boston, where 33 children and employees fell ill.

Autism cases in California continued to climb after a mercury-rich vaccine preservative that some people blame for the neurological disorder was removed from routine childhood shots, a new study found.

Americans who said they became anxious and stressed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks - some just from watching the collapse of the twin towers on television - reported higher rates of heart disease up to three years later, researchers said.

Seniors and the disabled flocked to the pharmacy counter in 2006 with their new Medicare drug cards, fueling a 6.7 percent increase in health spending, the federal government reported yesterday.

House Democrats are investigating whether consumers are being misled by advertisements for Lipitor that feature the world-renowned inventor of an artificial heart. In the ads, Dr. Robert Jarvik (left) talks about the benefits of Pfizer's cholesterol-lowering drug, the world's best-selling medication. Jarvik has engineering and medical degrees, but two congressmen want details about his expertise on drugs.

Operating rooms suffer from the same flaw that once plagued cockpits: Just as crew members had feared questioning their captains, many surgical team members still fear questioning surgeons, Gerald B. Healy, otolaryngologist in chief at Children's Hospital Boston and president of the American College of Surgeons, writes on the op-ed page. Many medical errors could have been avoided if a nurse, resident, or anesthesiologist had felt free to speak up.

Dr. Charles Louis Easterday (left), who wrote prolifically in medical journals and had a knack for handling high-risk pregnancies, died Dec. 19 of complications of congestive heart failure at Massachusetts General Hospital, where many obstetrics and gynecology doctors were his students. He was 86.