HSAs: The best health plans you've never heard of?

Health spending accounts (HSAs) can be a flexible and cost effective way for a small business to offer tax-free health and dental coverage to employees. (iStock
Fiona Law examined a raft of traditional group insurance plans while looking to provide health and dental benefits for her staff at Calgary-based CompuTouch.
Her business, which uses technology to support interactive meetings and conferences, has just three full-time employees. She wanted something that was easy to set up and understand, a plan that would cover a wide range of medical expenses and offered the firm certainty of costs.
What she ended up choosing was not a traditional group insurance plan, but a health spending account (HSA).
"This was an alternative way of providing a benefit that was very straightforward and very transparent," she says. "It's a good compromise with a minimum of hassle."
HSAs have been around for many years and are now in place at thousands of small businesses in Canada.
But there are still many entrepreneurs out there who mistakenly think group health insurance is their only option to pay the medical bills that provincial medicare programs don’t cover.
What is an HSA?
A health spending account provides an attractive option for eligible small businesses to pay for all the medical expenses of employees and their families on a tax-free basis to the employee.
Eligible small business owners who provide HSAs can also deduct all their eligible medical and dental expenses from their gross business income, instead of making them a personal expense.
That makes HSAs an extremely cost-effective method of providing or supplementing health and dental benefits.
How do HSAs work?
Health spending accounts can be set up through third-party administrators/trustees or insurers that specialize in administering these plans.
Let's assume a small business owner has agreed to fund an HSA for his five arm's-length employees for up to $2,000 a year for each worker.
The employee (or a family member) visits a health practitioner and pays for an out-of-pocket medical expense (like prescription drugs, eyeglasses, or physiotherapy).
We'll assume they submit their receipts to a third-party administrator.
The administrator ensures the claim is legitimate and that the expense falls within the limit funded by the business. Once it's approved, the administrator sends a cheque to the claimant for the entire amount.
The claimant gets all their eligible medical expenses (plus any tax they may have paid) covered on a tax-free basis. And the business gets a 100 per cent tax deduction.
You can’t use a health spending account to cover your cosmetic surgery, though. Only medical expenses that qualify for the medical expense tax credit can be paid for through an HSA.
What does it cost?
Third-party administrators/trustees make their money by charging the business initial setup fees and sometimes annual fees, as well as transaction fees on claims that range from five to 15 per cent — 10 per cent is typical.
So a $1,000 claim would cost the company $1,000, plus the administration fee of perhaps $100, plus sales and premium taxes that vary from province to province. In Ontario, those taxes will add another $115 to the bill, making the total cost to the company $1,215 for a $1,000 claim.
That amount can in turn be entirely deducted by the business.
Depending on the nature of the business and the income bracket of the entrepreneur, the tax savings could be significant over having no plan in place./cbc.ca/

Cheapest health insurance group quotes

 

CONCORD GROUP INSURANCE

 

 

 

AETNA HEALTH INSURANCE

 

 

Aetna Health InsuranceAetna can provide health insurance at affordable rates.

In these hard economic times, working-class families have to cut corners wherever they can in order to save money. Now more than ever, each and every dollar has to be stretched in order to make ends meet. As the economy continues to slide further and further into a recession, working class families have to make hard choices on where they save money in their monthly budget. Families eat out less, they look into carpools for work and school, and they limit frivolous expenditures as best they can. Some low-income families even consider forgoing health insurance. As health care costs continue to rise, health insurance premiums become more and more expensive every year, making it difficult for poorer families to stay covered. Some health insurance providers are oblivious to the economic crisis, and continue to raise premiums while their customer base gets smaller and smaller. Fortunately, Aetna health insurance is an affordable alternative to business as usual in the overpriced health insurance market.

 

 

 

 

 

Last day to enroll for health insurance

Before the April 15 deadline to submit tax returns, there's another important deadline every year to mark on your calendar: Feb. 15.
Those without health insurance coverage through their employment or a spouse's employment have until Sunday to enroll in Get Covered Illinois.
The state's Affordable Care Act health insurance market has new plans available, according to Betty Coonrod, Affordable Care Act program manager for an eight-county region including McDonough, Adams, Pike, Hancock, Mason, Fulton, Schuyler and Brown.
"It's been about what I've expected," Coonrod said of enrollment. "We've been able to help a lot of people who had plans last year and wanted a new one. Depending on the region, there's anywhere from five to 20 additional plans. That is why most people will switch."
Get Covered Illinois counselor Janet Kent is available for one-on-one help at the McDonough County Health Department, 505 E. Jackson St.
Kent says she's helped 27 McDonough County residents and 23 Hancock County residents enroll in Get Covered Illinois since she started her job on Dec. 8.
According to Get Covered Illinois, more than 800,000 Illinoisans have received health care coverage through the organization.
Residents without coverage who do not choose a health plan by Feb. 15 may have to pay a penalty of $325 or 2 percent of their taxable income, whichever is greater, on their 2015 taxes.
Get Covered Illinois does provide for an extension due to certain circumstances such as job loss, but the majority to those who miss the Feb. 15 deadline must until October for the next enrollment period.
The tax credit for those who do select a plan through Get Covered Illinois is based on income and family size, according to Coonrod.
Those who are preparing to enroll in Get Covered Illinois should have ready their social security number, employer or income information, and tax information from a document such as a W-2 form.
For more information and to enroll in Get Covered Illinois, visit www. getcoveredillinois.gov or call the Get Covered Illinois Help Desk at 866-311-1119 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. all week.
To reach Janet Kent, call the McDonough County Health Department at 309-837-9951, 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday./mcdonoughvoice.com/

Are Organic Foods Safer or Healthier Than Conventional Alternatives?

Data Synthesis: 17 studies in humans and 223 studies of nutrient and contaminant levels in foods met inclusion criteria. Only 3 of the human studies examined clinical outcomes, finding no significant differences between populations by food type for allergic outcomes (eczema, wheeze, atopic sensitization) or symptomatic Campylobacter infection. Two studies reported significantly lower urinary pesticide levels among children consuming organic versus conventional diets, but studies of biomarker and nutrient levels in serum, urine, breast milk, and semen in adults did not identify clinically meaningful differences. All estimates of differences in nutrient and contaminant levels in foods were highly heterogeneous except for the estimate for phosphorus; phosphorus levels were significantly higher than in conventional produce, although this difference is not clinically significant. The risk for contamination with detectable pesticide residues was lower among organic than conventional produce (risk difference, 30% [CI, −37% to −23%]), but differences in risk for exceeding maximum allowed limits were small. Escherichia coli contamination risk did not differ between organic and conventional produce. Bacterial contamination of retail chicken and pork was common but unrelated to farming method. However, the risk for isolating bacteria resistant to 3 or more antibiotics was higher in conventional than in organic chicken and pork (risk difference, 33% [CI, 21% to 45%]).
Data Sources: MEDLINE (January 1966 to May 2011), EMBASE, CAB Direct, Agricola, TOXNET, Cochrane Library (January 1966 to May 2009), and bibliographies of retrieved articles
Conclusion: The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods. Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria./annals.org/

Living in the Land of Limbo: Fiction and Poetry about Family Caregiving

Carol Levine's anthology of stories and poems about the intimate caregiving that takes place within families and among friends and lovers reminds us that the experience of illness reaches beyond clinicians and patients. It can also touch, enrich, and exasperate the lives of those who travel with patients into what Levine calls the land of limbo. This land oddly resembles the place where some Christian theologians believe lost souls wander indefinitely between heaven and hell. For Levine the limbo of familial caregiving is an unmapped territory. In it caregivers perform seemingly endless medical, social, and psychological labors without professional training and with feelings of isolation and uncertainty. Caregiving in this modern limbo, created by contemporary medicine's capacity to extend the lives of those with chronic conditions and terminal illnesses, has become, according to Levine, "a normative experience" (1).
 By compiling this useful selection of well known and less familiar stories and poems, Levine increases the visibility of the experience of familial caregiving among works of literature about medicine. While illness literature is typically classified by disease or disability, Levine focuses instead on the relationships between caregivers and those being cared for. Her collection organizes the literature into five parts: Children of Aging Parents; Husbands and Wives; Parents and Sick Children; Relatives, Lovers, and Friends; and Paid Caregivers who assist families. The literature in each section tends nonetheless to represent particular conditions: dementias, including Alzheimer's disease, cancer, and frailty in the first two sections; childhood cancer, hyperactivity, and mental illness in the third; AIDS in the fourth.
These and the less familiar works offer disparate responses from both caregivers and those they care for. The narrator of Tereze Gluck's "Oceanic Hotel, Nice" thinks "what a bad person I was to not even want to touch his feet. . . it made me shudder" (220). The wife in Ann Harleman's "Thoreau's Laundry" cannot place her husband with Multiple Sclerosis in a nursing home because "his presence, however diminished, was as necessary to her as breathing" (116). The caregiver in "Starter" by Amy Hanridge "didn't want to be the person people feel bad about" (180).  Several stories explore the limits of obligation. As is often the case, the son in Eugenia Collier's "The Caregiver" is sick himself, failing to schedule his own doctor's appointments and dying before his mother. Marjorie Kemper's witty, exuberant "God's Goodness" plays out an unexpected relationship between a dying teenage boy and his Chinese immigrant aide, while his parents remain in the background.
 Carol Levine's brief introduction to the collection explains that she excluded excerpts from memoirs and selected only very recent literature, almost all from the past three decades. A Resources section at the end includes some introductory medical humanities resources and practical resources for caregivers.
/medhum.med.nyu.edu/

Medicine and Art

Medicine and Art discusses the evolution of medicine and the changing role of the physician in
society as depicted through art. The book is organized in rough chronological order, beginning with a copper statue of Imhotep of Egypt and a vessel featuring Hippocrates of Greece. Artworks depicting Ayurvedic, Tibetan, Persian, Chinese, North American Indian, and African medicine are also included, but the main focus of this book is Western medicine as portrayed in European and American paintings. These paintings take the reader through history, from nuns caring for the sick in the 1300s to quacks attracting gullible customers in the 1600s to the use of the stethoscope and the start of vaccination. The final artwork is a 2001 embroidery piece by Louise Riley depicting the link between patient and medical researcher.
The book features 53 images that are organized into 53 bi-fold layouts, with a written description and discussion of the artwork on the left hand page and an image of the artwork on the right hand page. These images are generously sized, taking up much of the page, and the vast majority are in color. Concise paragraphs explain the image by providing both medical and art historical context.
Alan E.H. Emery and Marcia L.H. Emery are the husband and wife team who compiled this book. Alan E.H. Emery is a distinguished British neurologist, medical genetics researcher, and amateur oil painter. Marcia L.H. Emery is a librarian and a psychologist.
This is an engaging overview of the history of Western medicine as depicted through Western art. In the introduction, the authors note that their main focus was art “which reflect[s] the physician’s role in society and the relationship between doctor and patient.” (p. ix) The book is indeed a successful reflection of this goal, but it is also more broad in scope. It provides the reader with general knowledge about key figures and events in medicine, describes some medical treatments, and includes quite a bit about the painters themselves.  
The most important strength of this book is its accessibility. The reader does not need to have prior knowledge of art history, medical history, or medicine to understand the passages or appreciate the artworks chosen. This is an excellent resource for readers who are seeking a concise yet fascinating introduction to the intersection between art history and medicine, which will whet their curiosity and serve as a launching point for further exploration. 
/medhum.med.nyu.edu/

Literature of Illness and Trauma

To help orient yourself to the Medical Humanities and, in turn, to the concept of this course, please watch this interview with the "Father of Medical Humanities." - See more at:/engl2300.weebly.com/





More books:
Gretl Lam on Alan and Marcia Emery's "Medicine and Art"

"This is an excellent resource for readers who are seeking a concise yet fascinating introduction to the intersection between art history and medicine, which will whet their curiosity and serve as a launching point for further exploration."


Carol Schilling on Carol Levine's anthology "Living in the Land of Limbo: Fiction and Poetry about Family Caregiving"

"Carol Levine's anthology of stories and poems about the intimate caregiving that takes place within families and among friends and lovers reminds us that the experience of illness reaches beyond clinicians and patients."

25 Deadliest Diseases In Human History…Not Surprising, Ebola Is One Of Them

As violent as we can be towards one another, throughout history the biggest executioner of the human race has been deadly disease. Whether it was the Black Death in 14th century Europe or Ebola in present day Africa, the loss of human life and cost to society has been astronomical. These are the 25 deadliest diseases in human history

 

 This infection of the small intestine is transmitted primarily by drinking water or eating food containing the feces of an infected person. Worldwide about 5 million people are affected and over 100,000 die from Cholera every year. After the vaccination campaigns of the 20th century, smallpox has become one of two infectious diseases that have been declared as completely eradicated (the other being rinderpest). Throughout history, however, small pox has claimed numerous lives and just in the 20th century, prior to vaccination, the death toll was estimated at nearly 500 million.

 Transmitted by the bite of female mosquitoes, this disease is found in Africa and South America. It typically involves fever, chills, anorexia, nausea, muscle pain (with prominent backache) and headache, but in most cases subsides after several days. Due to warfare and social disruption across Africa, there has seen a resurgence since the 1980s. Usually attacking the lungs, this disease is spread by airborne saliva. The classic symptoms of active tuberculosis infection are a chronic cough with blood-tinged sputum, fever, night sweats, and weight loss. Today some estimates put nearly one third of world down as having some form of tuberculosis. Commonly known as the flu, influenza is usually transmitted through the air like tuberculosis but sometimes through direct contact with contaminated surfaces. Because the virus can be inactivated by soap, however, frequent hand washing reduces the risk of infection.

An old killer still going strong: crystalline silica

Asbestos is one tragedy, silicosis another. It came before and is comparable to the asbestos
disaster by the sheer number of victims. Sadly, lessons were not learned.
In European countries, many workers still bear the legacy of coal mining. In 2009,
figures from the annual report of Belgium’s Occupational Diseases Fund (FMP) indicate
that up to 10 000 workers are receiving compensation for silicosis and silicosis combined
with pulmonary tuberculosis. In Germany, 1 097 new cases of silicosis and 3 cases of silicosis
combined with pulmonary tuberculosis were recognised in 2011.
Like asbestos diseases, silicosis is an irreversible lung disease. It is caused by exposure
to crystalline silica dust, the main form being quartz. Exposure to silica occurs mainly
during milling, sawing, drilling or polishing stone materials that give off respirable quartz
dust. The amount of quartz dust given off during these operations depends on the composition
and nature of the material.

Respirable quartz dust is very fine, barely visible. It consists of tiny insoluble particles
that penetrate deep into the lungs. It is these fine particles that can cause silicosis.
There are several types of silicosis: acute silicosis from massive exposure can cause death
within three years; so-called early forms can appear within five years; delayed forms can occur
after several years’ exposure, sometimes many years after the last exposure. Silicosis is a
progressive and irreversible incapacitating disease. Crystalline silica can also cause chronic
obstructive bronchitis. And that is not the whole story.
In 1996, the IARC put crystalline silica on its list of known human carcinogens, being
of the opinion that it could cause lung cancer.
Industries where workers are exposed to crystalline silica abound. They include:
mining, quarrying, ceramics, glass, cement and pre-cast concrete, natural stone, foundries,
jewellery, dental prostheses and all parts of the construction industry.
Many building trades are concerned: asphalters, concrete workers, screed layers,
bricklayers, plasterers and plasterboard fitters, demolition workers, tilers, pavers, etc.
An EU-wide survey done in the early 1990s (Carex, Carcinogen Exposure) indicated
that crystalline silica was among the most common workplace carcinogens.




The survey estimatedthat over 3.2 million
workers were affected in the Europe of Fifteen, 87% of themin the construction industry. A million workers were exposed to crystalline silica dust inGermany, about half a million in the UK and another half-million in Spain.
Crystalline silica is still not classified as carcinogenic in the European Union. In December
2012, the European Advisory Committee on Safety and Health at Work (ACSH)
adopted an opinion calling for the Carcinogen Directive to be revised (see Chapter 4) to add
EU-wide binding occupational exposure limit values (OELVs) for 20 substances, including
crystalline silica. The OELV for crystalline silica proposed by the Scientific Committee for
Occupational Exposure Limits to chemicals (SCOEL) is 50 mcg/m3
 (micrograms per cubicmetre). That proposal was made in 2003. It corresponds to the recommendation made in
1974 by the U.S. Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Despite the health
21
issues involved, the European Commission has still not put forward a binding limit value
for exposure to silica. In August 2013 – 30 years after NIOSH first recommended it – the
50 mcg/m3
 standard finally featured in a bill put up by the U.S. Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA), whose director claims that applying the standard could
save 700 lives and prevent 1 600 new cases of silicosis each year in the United States.
In Germany, where lung cancer caused by crystalline silica is a recognised occupational
disease, 898 cases were compensated between 1978 and 2010, and 69 new cases in
2011. Also in 2011, Germany compensated 2 000 cases of silicosis.

Wood dust: a low profile killer

Asbestos fibres are not the only source of cancer. Some kinds of wood dust cause a specific
kind of sinus cancer – ethmoid carcinoma. The discovery dates back to 1965, when doctors
in the Oxford area began seeing an abnormally high number of sinus cancer cases.
They observed that the patients were mainly carpenters and cabinetmakers. Puzzled by
this, they consulted the regional cancer registry to find a concentration of nasal cavity
carcinomas – mainly among woodworkers – in a small area of Buckinghamshire where
many furniture factories are located. A large-scale national survey confirmed their findings
(Acheson et al. 1972).


On the Continent, doctors in France, Belgium and Denmark were not long in coming
to the same conclusions. Ethmoid adenocarcinoma became a recognised occupational disease
in England in 1969, in Belgium in 1976, France in 1981, and Germany in 1987.
The British researchers’ investigations into ethmoid adenocarcinoma uncovered
a higher rate of nasal cancers among leather and footwear industry workers. The highest
risk was found among workers in the preparation and finishing shops, where cutting,
polishing and sanding operations exposed them to high concentrations of leather dust.
Hotly-disputed at first, the findings were definitively confirmed in 1988 by a Danish study
(Olsen 1988).
This kind of joining-up of data, if extended to other European countries, could in
future help bring to light as yet unidentified risks and confirm statistical associations. So,
the Nordic occupational cancer study (NOCCA) found that dust from not just some but all
types of wood could cause cancer. Both men and women employed in furniture manufacture
in the Nordic countries have almost double the risk of developing nasal cancer as the rest
of the population, and for exposed men it was 5.5 times higher for a particular type of nasal
cancer (adenocarcinoma).

What is Mesothelioma

Mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer that affects the membrane lining of the lungs and abdomen and is the most serious of all asbestos-related diseases. Asbestos refers to a set of six naturally occurring fibrous minerals that are extremely durable and resistant to fire and most chemical reactions and breakdowns (MCA, 2014). Most products today do not contain asbestos. However, asbestos was used in many building products and insulation materials in homes until about the 1970's (CPSC, 2014) Therefore, asbestos still plays a major role in today’s society and more and more people are being diagnosed with mesothelioma due to asbestos exposure. Studies show that people breathing high levels of asbestos fibers can lead to an increased risk of mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a cancer that usually affects the thin, protective membrane of the chest surrounding the lungs, heart or abdominal cavity (Selby, 2014). In the United States, doctors diagnose between 2,000 and 3,000 new cases a year. Worldwide approximately 14,200 people are diagnosed a year and 43,000 people die from the disease annually (Selby, 2014). Mesothelioma is a difficult cancer to treat and doctors are constantly trying to improve on current approaches. The three standard treatments used are surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Currently, the leading therapeutic approach for mesothelioma is called multimodal treatment, involving a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy (Selby, 2014). While each treatment option has their own benefits by itself, cancer specialists are opting for a more effective approach of combining treatments. Some patients are given chemotherapy and/or radiation therapies after surgery to kill any cancer cells that are left. Since standard treatments often have limited usefulness against mesothelioma, researchers and doctors are studying new types of treatment. The research and treatments being performed in clinical trials and facilities across the world are leading doctors to more effective procedures for current and future mesothelioma patients (American Cancer Society, 2014). There may be tremendous potential with biologic therapy, gene therapy and photodynamic therapy. Even though these treatments are still in the clinical trial phase they could very well be the standard treatment in the future. Biologic therapy, also known as, immunotherapy is a treatment that uses the patient’s immune system to fight cancer (NCI, 2013). When combines with the other anticancer treatments like chemotherapy, biologic therapy can improve survival rates and reduce symptoms for people with mesothelioma. Even though it has not been able to cure the cancer, it can enhance the immune system response to mesothelioma cancer. Researchers have discovered a direct correlation between penetrating lymphocytes and mesothelioma prognosis, indicating that enhanced immune response may improve patient outcome (Selby, 2014). Some types of biologic therapy are referred to as vaccination therapy. One approach is to remove the immune cells from the patient’s blood and treat them in a lab to get them to react to tumor cells, the immune cells are then given back to the patients as blood transfusion, where it is hoped they will cause the body’s immune cell system to attack the cancer (American Cancer Society, 2014). Other approaches of biologic therapy are the studies of drugs such as tremelimumab, ganetespib, and defactinib. The objective for these drugs is to help kill the cancers cells and prevent them from spreading. Tremelimumab is an antibody that blocks Cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen4. CTLA4 is a protein found on the cells of the immune system, which may prevent immune cells from attacking cancer cells by slowing the immune response, allowing the cancer to grow and spread. Tremelimumab blocks the lymphocyte CTLA4 from slowing the immune system which enhances the immune response against mesothelioma (MSKCC, 2014). Ganetespib is a drug that is currently being tested to prevent mesothelioma tumors. Ganetespib inhibits heat shock protein 90, which is a protein in cells that is required in order for a tumor growth to occur. Tests have indicated that ganetespib is extremely active in mesothelioma and doctors seem to think that combined with chemotherapy this treatment could shrink cancers down and improve symptoms for patients (Leicester, 2013). Defactinib is another biological therapy drug being tested in clinicals. The clinical trial that is testing Defactinib is called COMMAND (Giulianotti, 2014). Defactinib is an oral drug that targets cancer stem cells by inhibition the process of the protein focal adhesion kinase, which is needed for cancer stem cells to grow and survive. Defactinib is designed to stop the signals that the cancer cells use to divide and grow (Giulianotti, 2014). Defactinib is less toxic than chemotherapy and has fewer side effecting allowing it to be used for long periods of time to combat tumor stem cells and for maintenance (Povtak, 2013). Defactinib is proving to be a very promising treatment for mesothelioma and has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the treatment of mesothelioma (Povtak, 2013). Researchers are exploring a newer type of treatment involving gene therapy to treat patients with mesothelioma. Gene therapy attempts to add new genes to cancer cells to make them easier to kill (American Cancer Society, 2014). One type of gene therapy targets cancer cells and uses them to die; this is called suicide gene therapy and is one of the most promising forms of gene therapy for treatment of mesothelioma (Selby, 2014). With the help of a virus, doctors introduce a protein-producing gene that converts a non-toxic drug into one that can kill cancer cells (Selby, 2014). Another type of gene therapy uses modified viruses to deliver immune system molecules called cytokines. Cytokines can help the immune system mount an attack against cancer cells (Selby, 2014). Early studies of gene therapy have found that it may shrink or slow the growth of mesothelioma in some people. However, because gene therapy is still in its infancy, the long-term side effects of the treatment remain unknown and more research is needed to determine if this treatment will truly work. A newer therapy being used to treat mesothelioma is Photodynamic therapy, which uses light energy to kill cancer cells. First, a photosensitizer drug is injected into the patient. The main photosensitizer used for pleural mesothelioma treatment is porfimer sodium, usually called Photofrin (Selby, 2014). This drug is absorbed by cells and happens to remain in cancer cells longer. Therefore, after a few days when the photosensitizer has left many of the healthy cells, a special light is applied to the area, usually via laser, to activate the drug. The activated drug produces a highly reactive form of oxygen which affects all nearby cancer cells causing a reaction that kills the cancer cells (Selby, 2014). Photodynamic therapy has demonstrated positive results and is developing into a viable treatment option. Not only is photodynamic therapy less invasive with fewer side effects but it can also be used safely with other treatments to be more effective in increasing life expectancy (Mesothelioma Guide, 2014). Even though there is still no cure for mesothelioma, advances in treatment offer hope for those affected by mesothelioma. Mesothelioma patients are living longer than ever before, benefiting from the advancement in treatment and the personalized care they receive at specialty centers across the country. More accurate diagnostic tools, better chemotherapy drug combinations and improved surgical techniques all play a role in the treatment progress. As research and experiments continue, the newer forms of treatment involving biologic therapy, gene therapy, and photodynamic therapy may become the first line of treatment for mesothelioma in conjunction with the standard treatments. With the developments of the new treatments, many doctors hope to give patients with mesothelioma a better quality of life and increase life expectancy, and to maybe one day actually find a cure./naturalnews.com/