Today's Globe: cancer deaths, 'code blue' at night, MassHealth claim, Ray Wu

Cancer deaths rose by more than 5,000 in the United States in 2005, a somewhat disappointing reversal of a two-year downward trend, the American Cancer Society said in a report issued yesterday.

Many hospitals call it "code blue," a signal given over the intercom when a patient's heart has stopped. When code blue works well, a team speeds to the bedside and revives the patient. The graveyard shift is the worst time to call code blue, a new study finds.

MassHealth, which oversees Medicaid in Massachusetts, must now review its refusal to pay for surgery that Ashley Shaw underwent in 2004 to remove the growth on her neck caused by the powerful AIDS- and HIV-fighting drugs she takes to stay alive, the state Appeals Court said yesterday.

Cornell University geneticist Ray Wu, a pioneer in genetic engineering who developed pest-, drought- and salinity-resistant rice strains that are poised for widespread use throughout the world, died of cardiac arrest Feb. 10 at Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca, N.Y. He was 79.