Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
Mother of World’s First Test Tube Baby Dies
The British woman who in July of 1978 gave birth to the world’s first “test tube” baby has died, BBC News reported Wednesday.
Lesley Brown, who died June 6 in Bristol, England, at age 64, made history after daughter Louise was conceived and born with the help of in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment. She later delivered a second daughter, Natalie, also conceived via IVF.
Talking about her experience in 2008, Brown said that she had been willing to try anything to become a mother.
“I’m just so grateful that I’m a mum at all because without IVF I never would have been and I wouldn’t have my grandchildren,” she said.
The procedure — the first IVF treatment to lead to healthy delivery — was conducted by reproductive medicine pioneers Dr. Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards, the BBC said.
Speaking on behalf the team at the Boum Hall Clinic, where Steptoe and Edwards practiced after Louise Brown’s birth, chief executive Mike Macamee said that, “Lesley was a devoted mum and grandmother, and through her bravery and determination many millions of women have been given the chance to become mothers.”
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More Young Adults Have Health Insurance: U.S. Officials
The number of young American adults with medical coverage rose by more than three million since the new health care law was implemented, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
About 75 percent of adults ages 19 to 25 now have health insurance, compared with about 64 percent when the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2010, the Associated Press reported.
The law requires insurers to allow young adults to remain on their parents’ plans until they turn 26, even if they graduate from school or move away from home.
The AP said the provision is a popular part of the law, which is threatened by a constitutional challenge that could be decided by the Supreme Court as early as next week.
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No Proof of WTC Dust/Cancer Link: Experts
A number of experts say there’s no actual evidence to support the recent decision to add 50 kinds of cancer to a multibillion dollar financial assistance program for people with health problems believed to be caused by exposure to toxic dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center’s twin towers.
The decision to include the large number of cancers — including breast, skin, lung and thyroid — could mean that hundreds more people will receive payouts from the health fund, the Associated Press reported.
However, some scientists say there is a lack of proof that exposure to the toxic dust plume caused even one type of cancer.
“To imagine that there is strong evidence about any cancer resulting from 9/11 is naive in the extreme,” Donald Berry, a biostatistics professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, told the AP.
There are concerns that payments to cancer patients could divert money from people with illnesses — such as asthma and laryngitis — that are more definitively connected to the toxic dust.
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Kentucky Doctor is AMA President-Elect
Dr. Ardis Hoven, an internal medicine doctor and infectious disease specialist from Kentucky, is the new president-elect of the American Medical Association.
Hoven will become the third woman to lead the nation’s largest physicians group when she becomes AMA president in 2013, the Associated Press reported.
Hoven is a former president of the Kentucky Medical Association and has served on the AMA’s Board of Trustees.
On Tuesday evening, Denver psychiatrist Jeremy Lazarus ends his year-long term as president-elect and officially becomes AMA president, the AP reported.
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