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Today's Globe: spine-group move to suburbs, teen blood donors, nanotubes, Vioxx settlement

Email|Link|Comments (0) Posted by Elizabeth Cooney May 21, 2008 07:02 AM

In a boost for Newton-Wellesley Hospital, several prominent spine surgeons have moved their practice to the community hospital from New England Baptist Hospital in Boston.

Complications from donating blood including dizziness, fainting, and falls are rare but happen more often in teens than in older donors, a study found.

Microscopic, high-tech "nanotubes" being manufactured for use consumer products cause the same kind of damage in the body as asbestos does, according to a study in mice that is raising alarms among workplace safety experts and others.

Massachusetts will receive $1.64 million of the $58 million Merck & Co. agreed yesterday to pay to 29 states and the District of Columbia to settle claims that advertisements for the withdrawn painkiller Vioxx hid the drug's increased risks.

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Elizabeth Cooney is a former health reporter for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, where she also was a business reporter and an editor. Earlier in her career, she edited medical books and journals at Little, Brown, and worked for Boston magazine.