Roundup of the Day's Health News

June 20 -- In the medical file today:

Bad Pay, Bad Hearts

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control report that men living in regions with low paying jobs and high unemployment rates are more likely to die from heart disease. Men in Mississippi, West Virginia and Kentucky had the highest heart disease rates, while the lowest rates were in Hawaii, Utah and Colorado. The CDC also reports that African-American men have the highest incidence of heart disease with 841 deaths per hundred-thousand — 26 percent higher than that of white men and two times that of Hispanic men. About 40 percent of heart disease deaths in African-American men occur before age 65, compared to 21 percent in white men. Read more.

Prairie Dogs Struck By Plague

There is an outbreak of bubonic plague in Colorado Springs. The plague was found among prairie dogs near the airport and health officials are investigating if a young man died from the disease, which killed a third of Europe during the middle ages. It can now be treated. Read more.

Boy Scout Ban Is Traumatizing

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In Chicago, the American Medical Association urged the Boy Scouts to reconsider its ban on gay members. According to the AMA, this is a medical issue because isolating boys can cause psychological trauma.

Mad Cow Cure On Horizon

A prominent medical scholar from the Imperial College School of Medicine in London said he thinks it's possible that a treatment for Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, the human form of mad cow disease, could be found within five years. The pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline is developing a drug.

A Burning Issue

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that the poor, the elderly and ethnic minorities face a far greater risk of being harmed in a fire. After evaluating 7,190 house fires in Dallas, researchers at the Injury Prevention Center of Greater Dallas also report that fires starting in bedrooms or a living area are most likely to cause injuries. House fires are responsible for 3,000 deaths and 17,000 injuries a year in the United States.