Almost 1,000 People Died From Katrina: Study. Hurricane Katrina caused the deaths of some 986 deaths in Louisiana either directly or indirectly, making it the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in 80 years, new research timed to the storm’s third anniversary finds. Study authors - who were from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - said in a news release that the leading cause of death was drowning (40 percent), followed by injury and trauma, then heart conditions. Almost half of the victims were 75 or older. Eighty percent of the deaths occurred on the day of the storm — Aug. 29, 2005. “What we learned from Hurricane Katrina is that disaster preparedness efforts must focus on evacuating and caring for vulnerable populations — particularly the elderly — including those in hospitals, nursing homes and private residences,” said lead study author Joan Brunkard of the CDC. The study was published on the Web site of the Ameirican Medical Association.

Obama, McCain take different approaches to health care reform.  
Vital Signs: Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have laid out very different plans for how they’d fix the health care system, according to the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution’s estimates. Which one covers the most people, and when will the candidates actually provide details? Read more at Vital Signs.

Salmonella outbreak over, FDA says. U.S. health officials declared Thursday that the nationwide salmonella outbreak has ended and lifted a consumer advisory against eating raw jalapeno and serrano peppers grown in Mexico, reports HealthDay news. “Based on the available information and reports, it appears that this outbreak is over,” Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division of foodborne, bacterial and mycotic diseases, said during a teleconference. The CDC’s announcement was based on the falling number of new cases since early July, Tauxe said. “By early August, the number of cases was down to the number of cases we would expect to see anyway in the absence of a major outbreak. There are some cases of this infection that occur every year,” he added.