Archive for March, 2013

Gainesville Sun, March 24, 2013
By Kristine Crane

Michael Perry thought he had food poisoning last summer. He doesn’t remember what he’d eaten, but he remembers cramps so bad that in the middle of the night he went to the emergency room in Keystone Heights.

Perry said he has an “old school” philosophy about his health: “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”

Perry felt broken that night.

But it wasn’t from anything he’d eaten.

It was something he didn’t know much about: colon cancer. At 56, Perry knew he […]

Gainesville Sun, March 24, 2013
By Kristine Crane

African-Americans in the 11 counties comprising North Central Florida have higher rates of cancer mortality than other African-Americans throughout the rest of the state, according to the North Central Florida Cancer Control Collaborative Report released in January.

“Disparities between the races are well-documented,” said Jeff Feller, CEO of the WellFlorida Council, which produced the report. “We’re woefully worse off in our black population in almost every form of cancer.”

The overall age-adjusted death rate (which removes the confounding influence of […]

Washington Post, March 10, 2013
By Michael A. Fletcher

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — This prosperous community is the picture of the good and ever longer life — just what policymakers have in mind when they say that raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare is a fair way to rein in the nation’s troublesome debt.

The county’s plentiful and well-tended golf courses teem with youthful-looking retirees. The same is true on the county’s 41 miles of Atlantic Ocean beaches, abundant tennis courts and extensive […]