State health officials say ten north Alabama counties have been added to a statewide trauma system that links emergency response teams to care for severely injured patients. State Health Officer Dr. Donald Williamson was in Huntsville Friday  to announce the expansion. He said the newest additions mean nearly half of Alabama's citizens will have access to hospital trauma care.

BPRW) Pamela Payne Foster, MD challenges the African American community to begin to become more knowledgeable and more empowered to end HIV/AIDS in their communitie

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — About 10 minutes after Maddox Locke was born July 2, an innocent-looking red bump appeared on his smooth skin.
Todd Locke guessed it was just a bruise from his son's rough entry into the world. Maddox's mother, Becky May, had labored for 20 hours at Florence's Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital before agreeing to a C-section surgical delivery.

Shortage of doctors hurts city
STEVE DOYLE Times Staff Writer
Medicare patient faces hard search for primary care

Enid Torres didn't know that Huntsville had a doctor shortage until she tried to find one for her diabetic husband.

The Hazel Green resident said she was rejected by 27 physicians before calling internist Dr. Jeremy Russell, one of the few primary-care doctors in the city still taking Medicare patients such as Torres' husband, Marquez. Primary care includes adult internal medicine and family practice.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — North Alabama health officials said Tuesday that contaminated lettuce was likely the source of an E. coli outbreak that has caused 18 people in north Alabama to fall ill.

Dr. Debra Williams, assistant director of the Huntsville-Madison County Health Department, said statistical analyses and interviews with victims indicate that shredded lettuce served at Little Rosie's Taqueria was likely the cause of the illness.

Williams said 14 of the 15 people who tested positive for E. coli O157:H7 poisoning ate at the popular restaurant on June 28 or 29, The Huntsville Times reported on its Web site Tuesday.

The Associated Press
A Huntsville man who pleaded guilty to felony charges of repeatedly sexually abusing three of his adopted children won't go to jail.

Circuit Judge Karen Hall sentenced Jerry Wayne Love, 51, to 15 years on each of three first-degree sodomy charges Monday. But she followed the prosecutors' recommendation, ordering Love to spend five years on probation and undergo treatment in a sex offender program.

The Associated Press
Public health officials are trying to find the source of 14 cases of E. coli that have been confirmed in north Alabama in the past week, including seven Monday, most apparently linked to a Huntsville restaurant.

Debra Williams, assistant health officer for Madison County, said seven cases were reported over the July 4 holiday and the department received confirmation of at least seven additional cases Monday morning. Three were described as severe enough to threaten kidney damage, and more cases are expected to be confirmed.

By Karen Middleton
karen@athensnews-courier.com

ATHENS — The long-awaited $3 million Athens-Limestone Diagnostic Center and Medical East Urgent Care Clinic opened this week in Athens-Limestone Medical Village.

The large, square brick building is located on the southeast quadrant of the U.S. 72 at Lindsay Lane intersection.

The Diagnostic Center, which houses a new 64-slice CT scanner, digital mammography, MRI, ultrasound, bone density scanner and full-service X-ray and laboratory, opened Monday. The Medical East Urgent Care, which moved from its former location of U.S. 72 East, opened Wednesday.

Karen Ferguson, chief of Emergency and Urgent Care Services, said Medical East treated some 15 patients in the first hour it was opened on Wednesday.

Huntsville, AL - Open Biosystems, Inc., a provider of tools for gene functional analysis, announced the initial release of ORFeome Collaboration Clones. These are sequence-verified human open reading frames (ORFs) drawn from a variety of sources, including principally the Dana Farber Cancer Institute-Center for Cancer Systems Biology.

Other contributors to this worldwide collaboration include the Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC), the IMAGE Consortium, and five other leading genomics organizations. The ultimate goal of the ORFeome Collaboration is to offer a sequence-verified ORF clone for every known human gene.

Associated Press
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Alabama's lone pollen monitor is located in Huntsville, but allergy experts say they can still tell that the state's allergy season is off to a powerful, yellow-tinged start.

Dr. Weily Soong of the Alabama Allergy & Asthma Center said the pollen has touched off bouts of wheezing and itchy eyes across the state.

"We have patients from all over central Alabama and it's been bad," Soong said Tuesday. "It's because it's just been no rain, we had a mild winter and the trees bloomed really early."