Personalized Healthcare

Dr. Caroline Abruzese is featured on Fox "Good Day Atlanta"
Posted: 5/1/2010

TRANSFORMATION MD...coming this fall to Comcast On Demand
Posted: 5/5/2010

Click here to view a preview for "TRANSFORMATION MD"

SPRING INTO HEALTH
Posted: 5/1/2010

Personalized Healthcare, Dr. Caroline Abruzese and Inspire Health invite you to join us for an exciting program. There is no charge to attend and ALL are welcome. We will learn tips and tricks for getting in shape, staying in shape, and having fun while doing minimal impact pilates. We will also offer a healthy food demonstration!

Please join us on Thursday May, 13, 2010
1-2:30pm or 5:30-7 pm
For more information or to RSVP: 404-303-8889

800 Mt Vernon Highway NE
Suite 160
Sandy Springs, GA 30328

Health officials call for cleanliness in schools to fight swine flu

Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun

Posted: 08/24/2009 06:54:16 PM PDT

Health officials are calling for extra efforts to keep schools clean this year as part of a Canada-wide strategy to combat a second wave of the human swine flu expected to hit this fall.

Dr. Perry Kendall, B.C.’s chief medical officer, said the back-to-school message is all about flu prevention: frequent hand washing, extra wiping of desks, countertops and doorknobs, sneezing into sleeves and ensuring students with flu symptoms stay home. He said he hopes schools will also install hand sanitizers.

Although the return of children to school increases the likelihood of the spread of the H1N1 virus, health officials are not recommending school closures.

“There would be a limited benefit for a lot of social disruption,” Kendall told a news conference Monday. “Plus we can manage infection controls somewhat better in schools than we can in non-school settings.”

A spokesman for the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents school custodians, said increased cleanliness will be a challenge given that spending cuts over many years have left some schools without daytime janitors.

“We remain concerned about the state of custodial services [because] they’re at bare-bones levels,” Bill Pegler, CUPE’s K-12 coordinator, said in an interview. “Schools aren’t in the same shape that they were 10 years ago.”

For example, he said Surrey elementary schools do not have custodians on-site until after 3 p.m. If a janitor is needed during the day, one is called in from a secondary school.

In North Vancouver, one custodian serves three or four elementary schools, he added.

Connie Denesiuk, president of the B.C. School Trustees Association, agreed it will be tough to meet new standards for cleanliness given the cuts to custodial staff in many districts, and noted that schools are routinely asked to do more with less.

But in this case, there’s no choice. “Is it squeezing school districts? Absolutely. But safety is paramount,” she said. So far in B.C., there have been 773 lab-confirmed cases of H1N1 and one out of three of those infected were aged five to 19. Of those cases, 42 were considered serious and led to the death of four people, all of whom had other health issues. People born before 1957 appear to have some resistance to the virus, Kendall noted.

During the first H1N1 outbreak last spring, six schools were closed temporarily, but the health officer said that was at a time when little was known about the virus. Based on information from countries in the southern hemisphere, it’s expected the next wave — possibly in October — will bring symptoms similar to a moderate seasonal flu.

Schools may have to close in the event that a large number of teachers are stricken, Kendall added.

Back-to-school information about H1N1 is available on a government website: www.gov.bc.ca/H1N1

Tanning beds among worst cancer risks: health agency
"On same level as tobacco, asbestos"

MARLOWE HOOD

Posted: 07/29/2009 06:54:16 PM PDT

World Health Organization agency announced yesterday it has elevated tanning beds to its highest cancer-risk category.