Deb Balzer (@DebBalzer)
Deb Balzer is a Senior Communications Specialist at Mayo Clinic. She began her career as a TV news producer in Rochester, NY, before joining CONUS Communications, a pioneering national news satellite organization. She also field produced for ABC, CNN, the Rachael Ray Show and Farmers’ Almanac TV. Joining Mayo Clinic in 2015, Deb writes, produces and collaborates on medical stories with Mayo Clinic’s leading experts, providing trusted health and medical information to help patients.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released a draft of voluntary guidelines encouraging food manufacturers, restaurants and food service operations to reduce sodium in prepared[...]
The gene that makes bacteria highly resistant to a last-resort class of antibiotics is in the U.S. A report published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy says the[...]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has changed its reporting of U.S. pregnant women affected by Zika virus to gain a bigger picture of the impact[...]
World leaders in tobacco control and treatment, international and national grantees, and health care professionals are gathered at Mayo Clinic for the Global Tobacco Dependence[...]
A new study shows an estimated 30 percent of outpatient oral antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary. Penicillin and other antibiotics have played a leading role in treating[...]
A recent study found that bedbugs, like some other insects, have distinct color preferences. Researchers discovered bedbugs are drawn to red and black and repelled by[...]
A growing number of law and health care agencies are working to make naloxone (Narcan), available without a prescription. The drug is used to treat an opioid emergency,[...]
The opioid epidemic in the U.S. has lawmakers working on legislation to tackle the growing problem — one the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says has quadrupled,[...]
Zika virus has been reported in Belize, adding to the number of countries where Zika-infected mosquitoes have been found to be spreading the disease. In[...]
The Zika virus pandemic has grown to a global health concern. As world health leaders learn more about the mosquito-borne virus that causes birth defects[...]
An outbreak of infections caused by a bacterium called Elizabethkingia (Eleeza-beeth-kin-gea) anophelis (a-na-fa-leez), first reported in Wisconsin, has now spread to Illinois and Michigan. The Centers for[...]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed that Zika virus causes a severe birth defect called, microcephaly. The CDC report, published in the New[...]