By CARRIE PEYTON DAHLBERG, Sacramento Bee

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Last September, Vanessa Alvarez had what she thought was a sinus headache she couldn't shake. Then her vision went blurry in one eye.

Within days, the young Elk Grove, Calif., woman was nearly blind from a condition that put pressure on her optic nerve. She and her mother began a quest familiar to anyone who has ever heard the dark slam of the word "incurable."

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - With California's whooping cough outbreak escalating, 75-year-old Gloria Coleman asked her doctor for the adult booster shot, a new vaccine that public health doctors hope will break the cycle of a sometimes-fatal disease.

A nurse told her she didn't qualify; she was too old, Coleman said.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Californians whose medical problems make it almost impossible to buy private health insurance could pay dramatically lower premiums starting in the fall for new, federally subsidized insurance.

Retirement slammed Carole Jacko. Raising two grandchildren, she's too young for Medicare and too strapped to pay $600 a month for health insurance.
So when a trip to the emergency room ended with a diagnosis of diabetes, Jacko found a creative solution.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- For emergency room nurses who have seen too many kids so drunk they are barely able to breathe, a research project gearing up in Sacramento holds out tantalizing hope.Perhaps asking those youngsters about their own needs and motives, even for just a few minutes, could give them tools they'll need to stay safer next time.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Being depressed during pregnancy might be bad for the baby, a study of California patients suggests.Expectant mothers with symptoms of severe depression are more than twice as likely to give birth prematurely as those with no signs of depression, according to the study, published today in the journal Human Reproduction.

Hoping to keep streams and groundwater cleaner, the people who run sewage plants around California want to change the way we get rid of old medicines.The toilet is out. The hazardous-waste site is in. Except where it's not.Then there's the trash.

University of California-Davis equine specialists were among those who watched in shock, either on television or at the track, when Eight Belles pitched nearly head first into the dirt after coming in second in Saturday's Kentucky Derby. The filly, who had broken both ankles, was euthanized.

In the unknowns of emerging nanotechnology, researchers are wondering if the science behind trendy no-smell socks, underwear and hunting gear might create unintended consequences in the environment.