BBCMon, 28 Jan 2008 15:50 UTC
The human death toll from bird flu in Indonesia has risen to 100 - almost half of the total worldwide fatalities.
Two Indonesians from the outskirts of Jakarta succumbed to the H5N1 strain of the disease over the weekend, said Joko Suyono of the National Bird Flu Centre.
Indonesia is the nation worst affected by bird flu and has struggled to contain the virus.
Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.
Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.
A boy who has been partially deaf for nine years was suddenly cured - when a cotton wool bud popped out of his ear.
Enjoy these first two paragraphs, that's all you get of the entire NS article, by NS Press Department decree!
It would be wrong to call dairy farming a shit job. But workers on dairy farms do have to deal with vast quantities of manure. In fact, they inevitably end up breathing in a lot of dust consisting largely of dried manure, along with all the bacteria that grew in it. That sounds unhealthy, and in some ways it is, but it does have one benefit: dairy farmers are as much as five times less likely to develop lung cancer.
Bruce E. Levine
AlterNetMon, 28 Jan 2008 08:00 UTC
Big pharma has some new customers. Not complying with authority is now, in many cases, labeled a disease.
For a generation now, disruptive young Americans who rebel against authority figures have been increasingly diagnosed with mental illnesses and medicated with psychiatric (psychotropic) drugs.
Disruptive young people who are medicated with Ritalin, Adderall and other amphetamines routinely report that these drugs make them "care less" about their boredom, resentments and other negative emotions, thus making them more compliant and manageable. And so-called atypical antipsychotics such as Risperdal and Zyprexa -- powerful tranquilizing drugs -- are increasingly prescribed to disruptive young Americans, even though in most cases they are not displaying any psychotic symptoms.
Many talk show hosts think I'm kidding when I mention oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). After I assure them that ODD is in fact an official mental illness -- an increasingly popular diagnosis for children and teenagers -- they often guess that ODD is simply a new term for juvenile delinquency. But that is not the case.
Is it right that people are trying to make money off taking care of our most vulnerable population?
In late 2007, the investment firm The Carlyle Group purchased one of the country's largest nursing home chains despite the concerns of regulators, lawmakers and workers' groups that the acquisition would lead to staffing cuts and cause a decline in quality of care for residents. The $6.3 billion purchase of Toledo, Ohio-based Manor Care Inc. closed after a Michigan judge lifted a restraining order that temporarily halted the sale.
"The problem is, in the nursing home industry, making money means cutting care," says Julie Eisenhardt, a spokeswoman for Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents employees at about 15 Manor Care homes and which spearheaded a campaign to raise awareness about the buyout.
In 2006, Manor Care, which operates more than 500 nursing, rehabilitation and assisted living facilities in 32 states, posted $167 million in profits and $3.6 billion in revenues. Manor Care shareholders were slated to get $67 for each share as part of the deal.
To understand a psychiatric disorder we need to know why the pathology causes the behavioural disturbance, the neural structures implicated in the pathology and the cause of the dysfunction in the neural structures. With regard to psychopathy, we have clear indications regarding why the pathology gives rise to the emotional and behavioural disturbance and important insights into the neural systems implicated in this pathology. What remains unclear is why these neural systems are dysfunctional.
New York - Could it be that the "natural" mental decline that afflicts many older people is related to how much lead they absorbed decades before?
That's the provocative idea emerging from some recent studies, part of a broader area of new research that suggests some pollutants can cause harm that shows up only years after someone is exposed.
A paper published January 17 in a prestigious medical journal demonstrated in the starkest of terms how pharmaceutical companies tend to publish research that's favorable to their products and leave unfavorable results tucked away in their files. It's a problem that everyone outside the industry already recognizes, but the results of this most recent study should really set off alarms.
