Friday, October 19, 2007

Today's Globe: SCHIP override, Watson remarks, Wrentham infection, cold medicine, stress

House Democrats failed yesterday to override President Bush's veto of a bill to expand a children's health insurance program, coming within a dozen votes and promising to continue their push on what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi termed a "banner issue."

James Watson (left, with DNA double-helix model), the 79-year-old scientific icon made famous by his work in DNA, has set off an international furor with comments to a London newspaper about intelligence levels among blacks.

A cleaning crew worked to sanitize a Wrentham elementary school last night after a second-grade girl was diagnosed with an antibiotic-resistant staph infection, but Superintendent Jeffrey Marsden said other children are not at risk.

Cold and cough medicines should not be given to children younger than 6 because they don't help them and aren't safe, pediatricians seeking to curb their use told government health advisers yesterday. Such a prohibition would go beyond last week's move by drug makers to eliminate sales of the nonprescription drugs targeted at children under 2.

A mechanism in the brain may explain why some people keep their cool and others crumble under stress, US researchers said yesterday.

Posted by Elizabeth Cooney at 08:20 AM

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