High Risk

Residents who live near 205 pollution-spewing industrial plants in 37 states may face more than a 1-in-1,000 chance of getting cancer from the emissions - far above the risk level regarded as acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency, according to preliminary government data released by Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.). However, EPA Administrator William K. Reilly warned that estimates for any particular plant or location might be severely flawed because the data were not intended to assess public-health risks at individual sites.

An eight-month federal study of the danger posed by pollution in Chester has concluded that the health risks caused by environmental hazards are unacceptably high for virtually all residents. The Environmental Protection Agency study, which agency officials called the first of its kind in the United States, set about in early April to assess as many environmental risk factors to the population as possible. It was commissioned because of a clustering of environmentally hazardous industries in Chester and because of concerns that Chester's residents were the victims of "environmental racism.

My grandmother celebrated her 97th birthday this March. That's a pretty good accomplishment, but there are plenty of people who live until their 90s or even older. How many, though, have undergone and survived double-bypass heart surgery at age 95? Needless to say, she's a very strong woman. And she was fortunate to have doctors who believed in her strength and who weren't forced to assume that this high-risk operation wasn't worth doing or wasn't economically feasible merely because of her age. It's easy to talk about Medicare cuts or rationed health care when it's in the abstract.

Pennsylvania's Insurance Department announced Wednesday that it had submitted a plan to achieve one of the provisions of the new national health-overhaul legislation: creation of a special insurance program for people who can't buy insurance because they're already sick. People with preexisting conditions such as heart disease, cancer, or major mental illness would be able to buy into the proposed high-risk insurance pool for about what healthy people would pay, up to $5,616 a year. The problem is that those payments, plus $160 million in federal funding through 2013, can provide insurance for only about 5,100 people in a state where 800,000 are uninsured.

The United Nations World Health Organization has begun testing possible HIV vaccines, but partly because the first trials are in Thailand, the program is controversial. The need for a vaccine is especially pressing since the AIDS epidemic is exploding in many of the world's poorest nations. Yet many people say that testing vaccines in poor nations is unethical. They are wrong. Many of us still think of acquired immune deficiency syndrome as somehow peculiarly an American disease.

The AIDS scare is back. This time it threatens to undo a decade of scientific investigation, public education, and social understanding. Recent reports of physicians with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), of potential transfer of virus to patients, and legislative fiat by the U.S. Senate to prevent and make criminal such transmission, have brought AIDS back into the public forum. These reports, however, serve less to educate than to obfuscate and tend more to promote fear than to inform.

He's just 2 1/2 inches long, with little fingers and a heartbeat that flickers on the ultrasound screen. He flip-flops around in his mother's womb, such a tiny being that she can't feel his movement. Yet, Virginia Connolly, 35, eagerly tracks her son's every turn. With the black and white pictures of the ultrasound screen, she quips, he'll have a photo album started even before birth. Through a procedure available in Chester County only at the Chester County Hospital, and performed by a team from the Pennsylvania Hospital, Connolly was reassured early in her pregnancy that her son would be born without genetic abnormalities.

Eating fish is good for your heart, but taking fish-oil capsules does not help people at high risk of heart problems who are already taking medicines to prevent them, a large study in Italy found. The work makes clearer who does and does not benefit from taking supplements of the good oils found in fish such as salmon, tuna, and sardines. Previous studies have suggested that fish-oil capsules could lower heart risks in people with heart failure or who have already suffered a heart attack.

LONDON - Mammograms aimed at finding breast cancer might actually raise the chances of developing it in young women whose genes put them at higher risk for the disease, a study by leading European cancer agencies suggests. The added radiation from mammograms and other types of tests with chest radiation might be especially harmful to them, and an MRI is probably a safer method of screening women under 30 who are at high risk because of gene mutations, the authors conclude. The study cannot prove a link between the radiation and breast cancer, but it is one of the biggest ever to look at the issue.

In a recommendation that could affect millions, the Public Health Service recommended yesterday that all people in high-risk groups undergo periodic blood tests to check for infection by the AIDS virus. While there remains no cure for AIDS, agency officials said, research over the past year shows that virtually all people in high-risk groups who repeatedly test positive to the blood test can infect others. Thus, they said, people with verified positive results can be counseled on how to avoid spreading the deadly disease to others, particularly sexual partners.

Eating fish is good for your heart, but taking fish-oil capsules does not help people at high risk of heart problems who are already taking medicines to prevent them, a large study in Italy found. The work makes clearer who does and does not benefit from taking supplements of the good oils found in fish such as salmon, tuna, and sardines. Previous studies have suggested that fish-oil capsules could lower heart risks in people with heart failure or who have already suffered a heart attack.

More than 500 people from the region joined thousands of protesters in Washington Sunday, calling for strong action on climate change and a stop to the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would transport oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Opponents say it would worsen climate change by encouraging further development of the Tar Sands oil resource. They spent several hours in the bitter cold and a strong wind cheering, waving signs, listening to speakers and marching around the White House, although President Obama was in Florida for a golf game.

Discovery Laboratories Inc., of Warrington, Bucks County, said Friday that W. Thomas Amick, 70, had resigned as chief executive officer and chairman of the board. John Cooper, 54, who was executive vice president and chief financial officer, will now serve as president, CFO and join the board of directors. After years of work, Discovery Labs got FDA approval in 2012 for Surfaxin, a medication to help prevent respiratory distress syndrome in premature infants who are at high risk of developing RDS. The company will begin selling that in the second quarter of 2013.

BACK IN AUGUST, when we sitting around in shorts and sipping cold beers, the two biggest sporting concerns were whether the Phillies were going to make a playoff push and, for fantasy owners, who should be the first running back drafted after Arian Foster, LeSean McCoy or Darren McFadden? Turns out neither the Phils, McCoy nor McFadden deserved our optimism. Oh well. It's fantasy awards time again and we'd like to hear from you. Fill out the ballot on this page or online and either mail, email or fax in your picks.

DHAKA, Bangladesh - Fire raced through a garment factory that supplies major retailers in the West, killing at least 112 people, many of whom were trapped by the flames because the eight-story building lacked emergency exits, an official said Sunday. The blaze broke out late Saturday at a factory operated just outside Bangladesh's capital of Dhaka by Tazreen Fashions Ltd., a subsidiary of the Tuba Group, which makes products for Wal-Mart and other companies in the United States and Europe.

LONDON - Mammograms aimed at finding breast cancer might actually raise the chances of developing it in young women whose genes put them at higher risk for the disease, a study by leading European cancer agencies suggests. The added radiation from mammograms and other types of tests with chest radiation might be especially harmful to them, and an MRI is probably a safer method of screening women under 30 who are at high risk because of gene mutations, the authors conclude. The study cannot prove a link between the radiation and breast cancer, but it is one of the biggest ever to look at the issue.

ATLANTA - U.S. health officials said Thursday that doctors should consider giving an AIDS prevention pill to women and heterosexual men who are at high risk for getting the virus. The government previously advised doctors to give the once-a-day pill Truvada to high-risk gay and bisexual men only. However, more than a quarter of new HIV cases each year are heterosexuals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "That's not a portion of the epidemic we want to ignore," said Dawn Smith, the CDC physician who was lead author of the new guidance.

Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren refers to himself as a "glass half-full kind of guy. " Looking at it that way, the Flyers have a good chance to land massive defenseman Shea Weber. After all, no team has ever matched the type of contract the Flyers have offered the restricted free agent - 14 years for $110 million. Nashville has until 11:30 p.m. Wednesday to match the deal, and if it does, Weber remains the Predators' cornerstone. But for those who tend to look at the glass as being half-empty, here's a sobering thought: Since the lockout in 2005, just one of the six restricted free agents who was given an offer sheet didn't return to his original team.

AZIZ KHAN GHARI, Pakistan - Less than four months ago the world was cheered to learn that India had gone a full year with no new cases of polio - a landmark that left only Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria on the World Health Organization's list of countries where the disease is endemic. But the battle is far from over, judging by the WHO's latest expressions of alarm. It says that in Nigeria and Afghanistan the number is creeping up, while budget shortfalls are jeopardizing the effort to hold polio at bay in 24 other high-risk countries.

"Hysteria" is an English romantic comedy about the invention of the vibrator. So who better to view an advance screening than our own romance columnists, Steve & Mia? The movie, based on an idea from Daily News Tattle columnist Howard Gensler, opens Friday. Here's what Steve & Mia had to say:   Steve: When I was single and dating, I often wondered about the myth of the female orgasm. Mia: For the women you dated, it was a myth. Steve: I'm serious. You heard what Dr. Robert Dalrymple (played by Jonathan Pryce)