Blood-clot protection

Blood-clot protection

washington

New advice for pregnant women: If you’re getting a C-section, inflating boots strapped on your legs may lower the risk of a blood clot.

Hospitals already use these compression devices for other major operations, such as hip replacements, and a growing number have begun offering them for at least some of their Caesarean deliveries, too.

The new recommendations promise to raise awareness of what is a silent threat not just for pregnant women but for thousands of other people, too: Blood clots in veins that can masquerade as simple leg pain.

Called a DVT, for deep vein thrombosis, this kind of clot usually starts in the leg or groin. But it can kill if it moves up to the lungs, where it’s called a pulmonary embolism.

Source: Jeffs in coma

houston

Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was hospitalized Monday in a medically induced coma in critical condition after fasting in the weeks since receiving a life sentence for sexually assaulting underage followers he took as spiritual brides, officials said.

The 55-year-old head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was expected to survive, an official familiar with Jeffs’ medical condition told The Associated Press. It was not clear how long Jeffs — who has a history of refusing to eat while incarcerated — would remain in the coma or how long he would be hospitalized, the official said.

5 patients get organs infected with HIV

taipei, taiwan

One of Taiwan’s best regarded hospitals said HIV-infected organs were mistakenly transplanted into five patients after a hospital staffer misheard the donor’s test results by telephone.

The five are now being treated with anti-AIDS drugs, an official at National Taiwan University Hospital in Taipei said Monday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because she is not authorized to deal with the media.

Family: Lockerbie bomber near death

tripoli, libya

The former Libyan intelligence officer convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing is close to death and slipping in and out of consciousness, his family said Monday, a week after the regime that protected him was ousted from power.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was the only person convicted for the bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. He was released from a Scottish prison on humanitarian grounds in 2009, only eight years into a life sentence, after doctors predicted he would die of prostate cancer within three months.

NASA: Space station might be evacuated

cape canaveral, fla.

Astronauts may need to take the unprecedented step of temporarily abandoning the International Space Station if last week’s Russian launch accident prevents new crews from flying there this fall.

Until officials figure out what went wrong with Russia’s essential Soyuz rockets, there will be no way to launch any more astronauts before the current residents have to leave in mid-November.

Jackson won’t attend concert for Michael

los angeles

Janet Jackson said Monday she won’t attend a planned tribute concert for her older brother Michael in Wales because the show coincides with the trial of a doctor charged in the King of Pop’s death.

The singer’s one-sentence statement to The Associated Press cites the court case as her reason for not attending.

Associated Press