Dr. Steven Schwartz had been waiting 14 years to make the phone call. As an eye doctor at the University of California, Los Angeles, Schwartz sees his share of patients with serious diseases that slowly rob them of their sight. Yet when a 12-year-old girl went to him complaining of vision problems, he had the difficult job of diagnosing her with Stargardt's, one of the more common forms of macular degeneration, in which the photoreceptor cells start to deteriorate. He ...

Remember the childhood thrill of twirling in circles until the world spun wildly and you couldn't stand on your feet? That's how many of my former patients described their disorienting bouts with dizziness--especially the elderly ones. As many as 38% of older Americans struggle to keep their world stationary, trying to avoid dangerous falls and potentially life-threatening injuries. Dizziness is so common among seniors that patients and their doctors tend to write it off as an inevitable consequence of aging. ...

His twisted features toneless as grey clay, a middle-aged Brooklyn man last week doubled up with such pain in his abdomen that his tousled head banged his knees. For a multitude of similar sufferers from cancer of abdominal organs the only anodyne is morphine. The pain-contorted Brooklyn man was a patient of Anesthetist Marius Bohdan Greene. Taking him into an aseptic operating room, he gently rolled the patient on his side, rolled up the bed shirt, injected into the spine a ...

The incident was over in a matter of minutes. But two weeks after the beating of a black motorist by Los Angeles policemen was videotaped by an eyewitness, it had led to arrests, probes by local, county and federal organizations and a Justice Department review of law-enforcement violence across the nation. It began with wailing police cars chasing a motorist through the night, cornering his car in a Los Angeles suburb and surrounding the driver as he stepped into the ...

Wonder or quack drug?It relieves the pain and swelling of arthritis, heals burns, soothes toothaches, eases headaches and muscle strains, and clears up viral, fungal and bacterial infections. It helps retarded children, prevents paralysis from spinal-cord injuries, and even grows hair on bald pates. And it is safe to use. At least so claim the dedicated defenders of dimethyl sulfoxide , which was enthusiastically promoted as a "wonder drug" in the early 1960s but then fell from grace after the Food and Drug Administration halted its testing ...

Nikolay Davydenko avenged last year's Tennis Masters Cup final defeat by Novak Djokovic to upset the world No. 3 in the semifinals of the Shanghai Masters on Saturday. The Russian sixth seed triumphed 4-6 6-4 7-6 (7-1) in a three-hour epic to earn a showdown with world No. 2 Rafael Nadal, who had an easier passage into the final when Feliciano Lopez became the tournament's ninth injury victim. Davydenko, beaten by Djokovic when the Chinese city held the season-ending finale ...

Authorities in Northern Ireland said Friday they were investigating an explosion in east Belfast that injured one woman. Some politicians blamed the explosion on terrorists. Police said they responded to the scene in the Kingsdale Park area of Belfast, where a 38-year-old woman was injured and a vehicle was damaged. She was taken to a hospital with minor injuries and has since been discharged, the police service of Northern Ireland said. She was not identified. The region was ...

Felipe Massa will not be returning to Formula One this season, his Ferrari team have officially announced. The Brazilian has been out of action since a freak crash in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix left him with life-threatening head injuries. The speed of his recovery from a fractured skull has prompted speculation he could take the wheel of the Ferrari for the season-ending race in Abu Dhabi on November 1. Indeed Massa will get back on the track in ...

US Airways Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles were reunited in the cockpit Thursday for the first time since Sullenberger safely landed a disabled passenger plane in the Hudson River in January. "It was great to fly with Jeff again. Being back in the cockpit felt very familiar. It was like coming home," Sullenberger said of the flight from New York's LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte, North Carolina. "Even though several months had past since I've flown, it ...

Felipe Massa is back in the fast lane after his life-threatening crash at the Hungarian Grand Prix just nine weeks ago which placed his Formula One future in doubt. The Brazilian has taken to the wheel of a kart in his home city of Sao Paulo, managing 60 laps of the Granja Viana circuit and is to continue the activity over the next few days. Massa suffered horrific head injuries in qualifying in Budapest after a spring from Rubens Barrichello's ...