Author

Jim Atkinson

Sports |
January 20, 2013

The Race of His Life

When a world-class athlete like Austin’s Lance Armstrong gets cancer, it’s a shock—for him, and for every man who has ever considered himself invincible.

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Health |
January 20, 2013

Sober

More than a decade ago I wrote about the virtues of the drinking life and the comforts of what I called a “bar bar.” Then I hit rock bottom. It’s been eight years now since I took my last drink—and I’m finally ready to tell the rest of the story.

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Health |
January 20, 2013

State of the Heart

Bypass surgery with almost no pain, and you get to go home three days later? Don’t have a coronary: It’s happening right now, in Texas.

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Health |
March 1, 2005

Pick Your Poison

It turns out that the toxin that’s changed a million faces has a social conscience after all. The wonders of Botox, a concentrated form of botulinum toxin, have been touted ad nauseam: By paralyzing facial muscles, it was smoothing out Hollywood’s wrinkles long before the FDA approved it, in 2002.

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Reporter |
September 30, 2004

State of Emergency

As more and more children fall off the health-insurance rolls, chaos reigns at Children's Medical Center Dallas, which used to have the best pediatric ER in Texas, and the quality of care for everyone suffers.

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Feature |
March 1, 2004

The Pedophile Next Door

How do you know when a child molester is cured? Are you willing to take his word for it? David Wayne Jones hopes so. Thirteen years ago he was convicted of preying on little boys at the East Dallas YMCA, but he could soon be out of jail and back

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Health |
December 1, 2003

The Infirmation Age

Many Texans are woefully unprepared for what has become our fastest-growing health care problem: taking care of Mom and Dad.

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Health |
July 31, 2003

Bad Air Days

Historically, Southeast Texas and cancer have gone together like, well, pollution and disease. I wish I could say things were different today.

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Health |
April 1, 2003

Mold Age

Are the toxic fungi that launched a thousand lawsuits really as dangerous as everyone says? Don't believe the hype.

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Health |
December 1, 2002

Wrongful Life?

A Houston couple says a hospital is responsible for their daughter's severe disabilities. Should Texas' highest court agree, the case will change health care as we know it.

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Reporter |
August 31, 2002

Miracle Workers

The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is put under the microscope.

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Health |
July 31, 2002

Burning Questions

What is the safest way to dispose of a diseased cow carcass—and what does it have to do with the Ames strain of anthrax?

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Food & Drink |
April 1, 2002

Perilously Plump

Texans love to say that everything’s bigger here, but when it comes to the waistlines in one in four of our largest cities, that’s nothing to brag about.

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Health |
February 1, 2002

Bioterrified?

If you think your flulike symptoms could be anthrax, don't call your HMO—call your doctor. And other advice the television "experts" should have told you.

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Health |
January 1, 2002

Death and Texas

Why does Potter County have the state's highest mortality rate? Poverty is only one answer.

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Health |
November 1, 2001

My Grief, and Ours

When I lost my father to cancer this summer, the greatest comfort I found was in understanding how to grieve. That came in handy on September 11.

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Health |
June 30, 2001

Battle Plan

A Dallas epidemiologist has made it his mission to learn the truth about Gulf War Syndrome, even if he has to fight the government.

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Health |
May 31, 2001

Killer Bugs

I learned a shocking lesson when I visited San Antonio's "hot lab," where some of the world's deadliest microbes are studied. The germs are winning.

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