Buffalo travel agency steps in to aid sick

The idea behind the service, which costs $400 a year for individuals and $600 annually for families, is to offer assurances to travelers that they will be able to get access to quality medical care if they become seriously ill or injured while they are at least 150 miles from home and unable to travel by other commercial means. The Global Care program “can offer assurance to travelers that they will be brought somewhere they are most comfortable if a medical emergency should arise,” said Damon Kralovic, medical director of critical-care transport at the Cleveland Clinic. [The Travel Team's Ronald] Luczak said the coverage could appeal to a business traveler who is on assignment in a place like China and worries about the quality of care there should a major illness or injury occur.

Working with University of Rochester scientists, University of Colorado School of Medicine researchers made "a huge step" in treating spinal-cord injuries, according to a paper published in the peer-reviewed online journal PLoS ONE. The rapid improvement in paralyzed rats has "very exciting" possibilities to repair other nervous-system damage from strokes, traumatic brain injury, and Parkinson's, Alzhei mer's and Lou Gehrig's diseases, said CU medical-school researcher Stephen Davies. "We were able to show that we could bring near-complete restor ation of normal movement," Davies said. Previous studies have shown that isolating the same form of rat cells for transplant can bring improvements in rats, but the latest step advances to using human stem cells and an isolate called astrocytes, said lead study author Chris Proschel, assistant professor of genetics at the University of Rochester Medical Center.