(November 2, 2009 - Insidermedicine)

From Philadelphia - According to a report presented at the meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America,  a specific strain of MRSA has been connected with unusually high death rates. Compared with a 10-30% death rate within a month with a typical MRSA infection, this partially resistant vancomycin strain known as USA600 has a 50% one month mortality rate.

From San Diego - Dialysis patients who have low body fat are at a higher risk of mortality, according to a report presented at the meeting of the American Society of Nephrology. Researchers compared the body fat percentage of over 650 dialysis patients with mortality rates over 5 years. They found that dialysis patients who had less than 10% body fat were almost 3 times more likely to die than those whose body fat was between 20-30%.

And finally, from Baltimore - According to a report published in the Journal of Public Health, a significant number of children die from lack of health insurance. Examining roughly 23 million pediatric cases from 1988 to 2005, researchers estimate that almost 17, 000 pediatric deaths may have been prevented had the children had insurance.