Health & WellnessS


Attention

US: Gov't bans traditional cribs, blamed for dozens of infant, toddler deaths in last decade


Associated Press
Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:28 UTC
It's the end of the traditional crib that has cradled millions of babies for generations.

The government outlawed drop-side cribs on Wednesday after the deaths of more than 30 infants and toddlers in the past decade and millions of recalls.

It was a unanimous vote by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban the manufacture, sale and resale of the cribs, which have a side rail that moves up and down, allowing parents to more easily lift their child from the crib.

The new standard requiring cribs to have fixed sides would take effect in June. The move by CPSC would also prohibit hotels and childcare centers from using drop-sides, though those facilities would have a year to purchase new cribs.
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Attention

US: Consumer Group Sues McDonald's Over Happy Meal Toys


National Public Radio
Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:24 UTC
Dear Child In The Back Seat: Your days of whining for the Strawberry Shortcake Happy Meal toy you saw on TV may be numbered. At least in California.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest filed a lawsuit today against McDonald's in state court in California to stop the company from advertising toys with Happy Meals.

It's no sure thing that the consumer group will get its way in court, of course, but the lawsuit ups the pressure on the fast-food chain over the combination of food and toys that appeal to kids. McDonald's defends the meals.
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Family

Girl of four can see for the first time thanks to stem cell treatment in China

Euan Stretch
Mirror
Wed, 15 Dec 2010 10:41 UTC
izabelle evans
© na

As children across the world look forward to opening their presents, young Izabelle Evans has already received a precious gift - her sight.

Izabelle, four, had been blind since birth but she can now see thanks to ground-breaking stem cell treatment in China.

Parents James Evans and Hollie McHugh say they will never forget the way they felt when their daughter saw them for the first time and said "Mummy and Daddy".

Izabelle can now see things 3ft away after the treatment that cost the family £50,000.
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Health

Cancer cells dupe the body's immune system

Andy Coghlan
New Scientist
Wed, 15 Dec 2010 07:45 UTC
Cancers may be wounds that never heal, suggest the first live images of tumours forming. It seems individual cancer cells send out the same distress signals as wounds, tricking immune cells into helping them grow into tumours. The finding suggests that anti-inflammatory drugs could help to combat or prevent cancer. "Lifelong, if you take a small quantity of something that suppresses inflammation, such as aspirin, it could reduce the risk of cancer," says Adam Hurlstone of the University of Manchester, UK.


Comment: The reader may choose to find alternatives to using anti-inflammatory drugs, such as suggested in this article: The Anti-Inflammation Diet.

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Syringe

In medical breakthrough, HIV-positive man 'cured' by stem cell transplant

David Edwards
Raw Story
Tue, 14 Dec 2010 22:32 UTC
Image

An HIV-positive man who received a stem cell transplant for leukemia has been cured of HIV infection, doctors announced recently.

While the case was first reported at the 2008 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston, doctors have now published an updated report in the journal Blood, which affirms extensive testing.

"It is reasonable to conclude that cure of HIV infection has been achieved in this patient," the doctors wrote.

In 2007, Timothy Ray Brown suffered a relapse of leukemia that required a stem cell tranplant. Brown, also known as "Berlin patient," was given stem cells from a donor that lacked the CCR5 receptor, "a condition that is present in less than 1 percent of Caucasians in northern and western Europe," according to London-based AidsMap.
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Sun

Sunscreen Chemicals Absorbed into Body, Found in 85 Percent of Human Milk samples

S. L. Baker
Natural News
Tue, 14 Dec 2010 16:55 UTC
sun screen
© Natural News
Before you apply creams, lotions, cosmetics and sunscreens to your skin, it might be a good idea to find out what's really in them. What's more, you need to know those ingredients aren't necessarily just coating the outside layers of your skin. For example, as NaturalNews previously reported, UCLA scientists have recently discovered nanoparticles in cosmetics and sunscreens can enter and wander throughout the body, potentially disrupting body functions on a sub-cellular level. And now, for the first time, a study just published in the international science journal Chemosphere has shown that a group of chemicals known as UV (for ultraviolet radiation) filters are turning up in humans internally -- and the phenomenon is widespread.

In fact, the investigation, conducted by a Swiss National Research Program called Endocrine Disrupters: Relevance to Humans, Animals and Ecosystems, found UV filters, which are common in cosmetics and sunscreens, were present in 85 percent of human milk samples tested. What does this mean for adults, much less babies taking in this contaminated milk? The alarming truth is, no one knows.
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Target

Senate Bill S510: Not About Food Safety

Ben Hewitt
foodfreedom.wordpress.com
Sat, 11 Dec 2010 12:53 UTC
Image
© foodfreedom.wordpress.com
A few folks have asked what I think of S510: The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act that just passed the Senate. The short answer is, "not much." The slightly longer answer is below.The even longer answer can be found in my forthcoming book, Making Supper Safe, where I explore even another aspect of food safety: The need for bacterial diversity in our food and our bodies.

As S510: Food Safety Modernization Act stumbles toward what it beginning to feel like inevitable passage, with support from progressive food personalities like Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, we would do well to consider the inherently weak assumptions that are propelling it forward.

It is often stated that foodborne illness kills more than 5,000 Americans annually, sends another 325,000 to the hospital, and provides a whopping 76 million of us an unwelcome opportunity to become overly familiar with the view from our toilet. It is less often stated that the 1999 study providing these numbers ends with a line that reads "unknown agents account for approximately 81% of foodborne illnesses and hospitalizations and 64% of deaths." In other words, a significant majority of assumed illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths are just that: Assumed. The numbers are merely extrapolated from estimates of all deaths by gastroenteritis of unknown cause. Indeed, the extrapolation accounts for 3,400 of the total study estimate of 5,194 deaths annually.
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Arrow Down

Pertussis: Investigating An Epidemic

Joanne Faryon
KPBS.org
Tue, 14 Dec 2010 12:20 UTC
Last month I took an unexpected trip to Amsterdam. Ironically, it was not California's Proposition 19 (the ballot initiative that would have legalized marijuana) that led me there, but the state's whooping cough epidemic.

Let me explain.

Before this summer, what I knew about whooping cough, I learned as a new mother when my son was immunized as an infant. I knew he needed three shots before he was six months old to be protected from the illness as a baby. I didn't know how dangerous the disease could be to infants, I just knew immunizing him could spare him from getting sick.

Now, 13 years later, after a state-wide epidemic has killed 10 babies, infected thousands, and lasted far longer than health officials had ever expected, I know more about the dangers and complexities of whooping cough than I should. After all, this is a disease that was nearly wiped out when I was a kid in the 1970's. Whooping cough or pertussis, is a respiratory illness caused by bacteria. It can be deadly to young babies and debilitating to adults. KPBS began reporting on the epidemic in early summer. By late summer when news releases indicated many of the children getting sick were up to date with their immunizations, we decided to look at the data. Who was getting sick? Were they immunized?
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Attention

Adult Flu Shot Vaccine Injury Nightmare: "Drug Store Disability" Could Happen to You

Dan Olmsted
Age of Autism
Tue, 14 Dec 2010 11:57 UTC
On the whole, Lisa Marks Smith would rather have had the flu. Instead, the Cincinnati mom of two college-age sons got a mercury-containing flu shot that nearly killed her, led to paralysis, severe neurological problems, 24 days in the hospital - and a check from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program that attests to the truth of her story.

Smith has come to see first-hand how carelessly flu shots are administered, how dangerous the mercury that remains in most of them can be, how little public health officials actually seem to care when the worst happens, why the worst may not be so rare after all - even how similar the side effects can be to symptoms of autism.

She talked to Age of Autism about her ordeal, which began in 2005, in the hope of sparing others.

******
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Arrow Down

US life expectancy continues to plummet, but not because of inadequate health care


NaturalNews.com
Tue, 14 Dec 2010 11:16 UTC
A new report published in the journal Health Affairs says the U.S. has dropped to 49th place in overall life expectancy among the nations of the world. The report blames the nation's failing health care system and lack of universal health coverage as the culprit. But the true causes of America's poor health include things like its broken food system, overuse of chemical pesticides, and dependence on pharmaceutical drugs -- all of which are poisoning the population and the environment, and lowering lifespans.

In 1999, the World Health Organization (WHO) ranked the U.S. 24th in the world for overall life expectancy. But over the past decade, that ranking has dropped 25 spots, and experts have been scrambling to come up with an answer as to why this is the case.

Authors of a recent study allege that the "uniquely inefficient" health care system in the U.S. is to blame, and in a sense they are right. The U.S. health care system promotes disease rather than health. But on the other hand, the authors miss the point because their sentiment seems to suggest that universal health will solve the problem when, in reality, it will only make it worse.
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