A California company is voluntarily recalling 60 packages of walnuts sold only in southern California because they may be contaminated with salmonella.The product being recalled is: El Guapo Nuez Entera / Shelled Walnuts sold in 1-ounce packages, UPC 4498933144, date code 5527. The code date is embossed on the front of the package under the El Guapo banner.The company, Mojave Food Corporation, said it is recalling the product because they were informed by the walnut supplier of the salmonella concern.Consumers are asked to destroy the product, and contact the Mojave customer service number at 1-800-995-8906, ext. 114, for a replacement or reimbursement.Salmonella infections are caused by bacteria and if necessary can be treated with antibiotics, although some strains have become resistant to these drugs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. [Read the full article]

The infant, after having open heart surgery at about 2 weeks, was diagnosed with Complete DiGeorge Syndrome, a rare disease that leaves him with no immune system.There is good news: There is a doctor -- one doctor at one hospital in the United States -- that could perform a transplant surgery that could save his life.However, Seth's parents, Tim and Becky Petreikis of Dyer, Indiana, hit a devastating roadblock when they found out the roughly $350,000 to $500,000 procedure isn't covered by Medicaid in their home state.Dr. M. Louise Market, the physician who pioneered the surgery at Duke Hospital in North Carolina, told HLN's Richelle Carey in a television interview that Seth's condition results from absence of the gland called the thymus, which normally sits on top the heart. Market explains that the Thymus is where T cells, a type of white-blood cell that helps protect from infection, develop. [Read the full article]

Dr. John Xerogeanes, chief of the Emory Sports Medicine Center in Atlanta, Georgia, is almost entirely booked for December because of high school and college athletes who delayed surgery until now. He'll be repairing dozens of torn ACLs -- anterior cruciate ligaments -- and dislocated shoulders from now up to New Year's, mostly because kids want to put those things off until finals are over and they are on winter break."The last two weeks in December are usually kids that got hurt during the end of the semester or last month or six weeks and say, 'Look, I just want to just do it when I'm home for Christmas or so I have time for my mom to take care of me, or so I don't have to worry about studying,' " he said.The bad news for anyone who gets one of these injuries now is that the operating room has already been claimed, he said. Xerogeanes' office has a waiting list."It's a bad time to injure yourself and think you can get fixed immediately," he said. [Read the full article]

Diet drugs have had a rough year in 2010. In October, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nixed not one but two new weight-loss drugs, lorcaserin and Qnexa, because of possible links to cancer (lorcaserin) and heart problems (Qnexa).But this week an FDA advisory committee gave the thumbs up to a third drug, Contrave, meaning there could be a new tool on the horizon for battling obesity.And really, doctors could use one. Previous attempts to find safe diet drugs that work by controlling appetite have met with some success, but most have been doomed by side effects.Fen-phen, heavily marketed in the 1990s, caused heart valve problems while rimonabant became linked with suicidal thinking and depression, leading an FDA advisory committee to recommend against approving it in 2007."That was the drug we were waiting for," says Jacob Warman, MD, chief of endocrinology at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York. [Read the full article]