Following Cancer Diagnosis, Depression Sufferers More Vulnerable

A meta-analysis of a number of studies indicates that those who suffer depressive symptoms after they are diagnosed with cancer are about 25 percent more likely to die of their disease than those who do not. However, other studies have found that emotional well-being doesn't matter so much, which prompted its author, University of Pennsylvania psychologist James Coyne, to suggest patients be allowed to deal with their diagnosis in their own fashion, rather than be prodded by loved ones to "think positive" in the hopes such thinking would make the cancer yield, writes Melissa Healy in the L.A. Times Health blog, Booster Shots.

Four years after staff at an Abercrombie & Fitch store refused to let a teenage girl help her autistic sister try on clothes in a mall store changing room, state officials fined the company $115,264 for discrimination. The retailer apparently refused to apologize, and at one point questioned the disability.