Limited Health Benefits Extended to Same-Sex Partners

President Obama signed an Executive Memorandum (only lasts as long as the Obama Administration) Wednesday extending limited federal benefits to same-sex partners and non-adopted children of civil and foregin service employees. A review is to be conducted to determine what other federal employees can be covered by the memorandum, which states:  

"For civil service employees, domestic partners of federal employees can be added to the long-term care insurance program; supervisors can also be required to allow employees to use their sick leave to take care of domestic partners and non-biological, non-adopted children.  For foreign service employees, a number of benefits were identified, including the use of medical facilities at posts abroad, medical evacuation from posts abroad, and inclusion in family size for housing allocations." Read the release from the White House here.

Cancer Survivor Coping Assistance

The cancer support community has responded to the needs of the ever growing cancer survivor community - now estimated at more than 12 million strong. Cancer Care, which offers free educational web-based, print and telephone materials about coping with a diagnosis and treatment also has MP3 audio files of briefings dealing the with the special coping needs of survivors. The most recent additions: Managing the Stress of Survivorship and The Importance of Nutrition and Physical Activity. 

Prostate Cancer Breakthrough????

First a word of caution - two cases tell us very little beyond something very very interesting and worth much more study. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic report that two prostate cancer patients who had regional disease are now apparently cancer free after use of an experimental drug with conventional hormone treatment and surgery. The two patients had what was considered inoperable cancer. They were given standard hormone treatment to shrink their tumors.Then came one dose of the experimental antibody drug MDX-010 (Ipilimumab.)  The patients' PSA levels dropped dramatically and they opted for surgery. The surgeons were shocked. "I was cutting away scar tissue, while trying to find cancer cells. The pathologist was checking samples as we proceeded and sent word back asking if we had the right patient. He had a hard time finding any cancer. I had never seen anything like this before," one of the surgeons said in a story authored this week in the Mayo's Discovery's Edge magazine.

Higher Risk of Strokes for Hodgkin Survivors 

Hodgkin lymphoma survivors who received radiation therapy face a significantly higher risk of strokes and mini-strokes than those treated with chemotherapy. 

"For young survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma, who are at especially increased risk of stroke and TIA, physicians should consider appropriate risk-reducing strategies, such as treatment of hypertension and lifestyle changes to reduce the risk of stroke and TIA," the authors write in the June 17 online version of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Read the release here.