Health Care

Liberty University filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court Monday, becoming the latest in a number of groups that are challenging the legality of the health care reform act signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010.

The Lynchburg, Va.-based Christian university appealed to the high court after judges from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals voted to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which has commonly been referred to simply as “ObamaCare.”

The three-member panel of judges from the 4th Circuit voted two-to-one in favor of upholding the health care law on Sept. 8. One judge, James Wynn Jr., called the federal health care mandate a “tax” and said that, due to the Anti-Injunction Act, judges would not be able to rule on the issue until 2014 when the law goes into effect. more >>

A total of 21 people in the United States have now died from the nationwide outbreak of listeria in cantaloupes from a Colorado farm.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported new deaths in Indiana and New York. The CDC also confirmed a death in Wyoming that state officials reported last week.

In addition to the 21 dead, 109 people have been sickened in the outbreak in 23 states from California to the East Coast. more >>

A New York-based abortion rights group filed a legal challenge this week to an Oklahoma law that would set certain parameters on how physicians in the Sooner State prescribe and treat women with abortion-inducing drugs.

“The law jeopardizes women’s health,” said Michelle Movahed, a staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed its challenge in Oklahoma County District Court on behalf of Nova Health Systems, a Tulsa, Okla., abortion provider, and the Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice.

The law, which is scheduled to take effect Nov. 1, was sponsored by Oklahoma state Rep. Randy Grau, and Sen. Greg Treat, both Republicans. It was overwhelmingly approved by both houses of the state legislature before it was signed by Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin. more >>

A new medical study published Wednesday in The Lancet reveals that surgery is fairly common among older people during the latter stages of their lives.

The finding renews the moral and ethical debate as to whether patients at or near the end of their lives should be discouraged from often-costly medical procedures that have little promise of either sparing them from death or improving the quality of what remains of their lives.

The study, produced by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health, looked at operations performed on Medicare patients at least 65 years of age who died in 2008. It found that one in three had surgery in the final year of life, nearly one in five in the last month of life and nearly one in 10 in the very last week of life. more >>

President Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services said Wednesday that Republicans not only want to curb abortion rights, but also to set women’s health back 50 years.

The highly inflammatory remarks by Kathleen Sebelius were delivered at a Chicago lunch hosted by NARAL Pro-Choice America.

“We are in a war,” said Sebelius at the lunch, according to The Associated Press. She accused the GOP of threatening to take away Medicare benefits and slash Medicaid and government-funded services offered by abortion provider Planned Parenthood. more >>

Last week, a California farm known as True Leaf Farms voluntarily announced a recall of 90 cartons of romaine lettuce. However, it looks as though True Leaf Farms actually recalled nearly 2,500 cartons of lettuce.

The chief executive of Church Brothers, Steve Church, verified the change in numbers. The company sells and markets True Leaf Farm’s produce.

Church Brothers said that only 90 cartons went to retail sales, while the rest of the potentially contaminated cartons were sold mostly to restaurants and cafeterias. more >>