Health

SEATTLE – When Bill and Melinda Gates were casting around for a cause in the 1990s, the topic that first snagged their interest was birth control. Expanding the use of contraceptives and inventing new ones seemed like a sure bet to help the world’s poor and slow population growth. But the world’s richest couple soon had second thoughts for their nascent foundation. Within a few years, they decided to shift the focus to saving children’s lives in the developing world through vaccines and cures for deadly diseases.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold most of President Barack Obama’s health care law will come home to roost for most taxpayers in about 2  1/2 years, when they’ll have to start providing proof on their tax returns that they have health insurance. That scenario puts the Internal Revenue Service at the center of the debate, renewing questions about whether the agency is capable of policing the health care decisions of millions of people in the United States while also collecting the taxes needed to run the federal government.

HELENA – The state Supreme Court says obesity qualifies as an impairment in some cases under the Montana Human Rights Act, potentially allowing obese people to seek greater protection against discrimination. The divided court handed down the ruling Friday in a case between Eric Feit and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, finding that if a person’s weight is outside the normal range and affects one or more body systems, it may constitute a physical or mental impairment – even if it’s not a symptom of some underlying disease or health condition.

WASHINGTON – An AIDS-free generation: It seems an audacious goal, considering how the HIV epidemic still is raging around the world. Yet more than 20,000 international HIV researchers and activists will gather in the nation’s capital later this month with a sense of optimism not seen in many years – hope that it finally may be possible to dramatically stem the spread of the AIDS virus.

A wily parasite well known for influencing the behavior of its animal hosts appears to play a troubling role in humans, increasing the risk of suicide among women who are infected, new research shows. Chances are you or someone you know has been infiltrated by the parasite, called Toxoplasma gondii. Researchers estimate that T. gondii is carried by 10 to 20 percent of Americans, who can get it by changing litter used by infected cats or eating undercooked meat from an animal carrying the bug.

DEAR DOCTOR K: Several months ago, a car rear-ended me and I ended up with whiplash. My neck still hurts. What can I do? DEAR READER: The force of a rear-end collision momentarily jerks your neck into an unnatural position. This can badly strain your neck muscles and can stretch or tear the ligaments in your neck. The bones of the spine in your neck, particularly the facet joints where one bone meets another, can be damaged. The nerves that leave your neck through holes in the spinal bones also may be affected.

A Colorado judge has ruled that a farmer spraying against mosquitoes needs to prevent the pesticide from drifting into a neighboring organic farm, likening the action to a form of trespassing.

Eli Lilly and Co. said Friday that it has received an extra six months of marketing exclusivity on the antidepressant Cymbalta, its biggest selling drug.

Vancouver City Council member Jeanne Harris has filed a $500,000 insurance claim with the city of Ridgefield, saying that Ridgefield Mayor Ron Onslow hit her with a stress-relief ball, leading to the potential loss of sight in her left eye.

The state Health Department says West Nile virus has been detected for the first time this year in Washington.

ON THE OREGON-IDAHO BORDER — Hurtling down I-84 with a bag of medical marijuana and no legal right to possess it, the 23-year-old Idaho man with the crooked grin drove out of Oregon, making a break for home.

TOKYO – Nuclear power returned to Japan’s energy mix for the first time in two months Thursday, hours before a parliamentary panel blamed the government’s cozy relations with the industry for the meltdowns that prompted the mass shutdown of the nation’s reactors. Though the report echoes other investigations into last year’s disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, it could fuel complaints that Japan is trying to restart nuclear reactors without doing enough to avoid a repeat. Thursday’s resumption of operations at a reactor in Ohi, in western Japan, already had been hotly contested.

Idaho State University recently named Rex Force the associate dean of clinical research at ISU's Division of Health Sciences and the head of ISU's new Idaho Center for Health Research, according to a press release .

A Juneau man is in a Seattle hospital where he is being treated for flesh-eating bacteria.