Health & WellnessS


Gear

Social change relies more on the easily influenced than the highly influential


University of Chicago Press Journals
Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:46 UTC
An important new study appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Consumer Research finds that it is rarely the case that highly influential individuals are responsible for bringing about shifts in public opinion.

Instead, using a number of computer simulations of public opinion change, Duncan J. Watts (Columbia University) and Peter Sheridan Dodds (University of Vermont), find that it is the presence of large numbers of "easily influenced" people who bring about major shifts by influencing other easy-to-influence people.

"Our study demonstrates not so much that the conventional wisdom is wrong . . . but that it is insufficiently specified to be meaningful," the researchers write. "Under most conditions that we consider, we find that large cascades of influence are driven not by influentials, but by a critical mass of easily influenced individuals."
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Ambulance

Health insurer tied bonuses to dropping sick policyholders

Lisa Girion
Los Angeles Times
Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:25 UTC
One of the state's largest health insurers set goals and paid bonuses based in part on how many individual policyholders were dropped and how much money was saved.

Woodland Hills-based Health Net Inc. avoided paying $35.5 million in medical expenses by rescinding about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006. During that period, it paid its senior analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses based in part on her meeting or exceeding annual targets for revoking policies, documents disclosed Thursday showed.

©Los Angeles Times
DROPPED: Patsy Bates, 51, a Gardena hairdresser, is seeking $6 million plus damages in a suit against Health Net after her coverage was rescinded while she was in the middle of chemotherapy treatments.
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Syringe

House HHS Spending Bill Would Ban Mercury From Flu Vaccines


FDA Week
Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:35 UTC
House and Senate conferees on the Labor/HHS spending bill agreed last week to a compromise amendment by House Appropriations Committee Chair Dave Obey (D-WI) that would force HHS to phase out mercury-laced flu shots for children younger than 3. The measure would take effect for the 2010-2011 flu season. Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL) had wanted the ban to go into effect by the 2009-2010 flu season but settled for an extra year after the Senate opposed any provision to address mercury in vaccines.
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Attention

US: Plague Suspected In Death Of Man In Arizona

Catharine Paddock
Medical News Today
Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:32 UTC
Eric York, a 37 year old wildlife biologist who worked at the Grand Canyon National Park who was found dead at his home on the South Rim of the Canyon in Arizona on November 2nd, probably died of the plague caught while carrying out an autopsy on a mountain lion that had probably died of the disease a week earlier.

Plague, due to the bacterium Yersinia pestis, was confirmed as the likely cause of death following preliminary laboratory tests at the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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Syringe

Parents of autistic boy seek review of vaccine case

Brian Mackey
Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:30 UTC
SPRINGFIELD -- The parents of an autistic child have asked the Illinois Supreme Court to reinstate their lawsuit against vaccine makers they blame for their son's condition.
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Syringe

Vaccines carry some risk

Juliann Fraser
Yukon News
Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:24 UTC
Vaccinations are not mandatory in Canada, and that may surprise some people.

But it is, in fact, a choice.

And every day, more and more Canadian parents are choosing on behalf of their children not to buy in to their province or territory's publicly funded universal vaccination program, despite the overwhelming public pressure to do so.

There are good reasons for this: autism, ADHD, childhood diabetes, intestinal problems and asthma are a few of them.
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People

Six Chinese reportedly die after eating poison soup


Reuters
Mon, 12 Nov 2007 00:44 UTC
Six Chinese people, including two children, died from food poisoning after eating soup and two more remained seriously ill, local media reported on Monday, the latest example of food safety risks facing domestic consumers.

Four males and four females collapsed on Sunday with severe cramps and vomiting after eating soup balls for lunch in the central province of Hubei, the Changjiang Times reported. Two died on the spot.
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Syringe

TV Delirium in Twenty-First Century America

Annell Fontenot
Thomas Paine's Corner
Sun, 11 Nov 2007 17:58 UTC


©Webshots / radicallyinclined

The average American has an addiction: television. We love to watch gorgeous celebrities, reality show personalities, gourmet chefs and athletes.

Like an obedient dog being given treats we salivate over flickering images. Clips of action, tenderness, conflict and sex fill the screen and rapidly affect our body and mind.

The power of these images is rarely examined by the average individual. However, due to its mind-altering nature we must make a rigorous assessment concerning the power of television.
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Red Flag

Staph Germ Undermines Body's Defenses

Randolf E. Schmid
Associated Pree
Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:50 UTC
WASHINGTON - The aggressive antibiotic-resistant staph infection responsible for thousands of recent illnesses undermines the body's defenses by causing germ-fighting cells to explode, researchers reported Sunday. Experts say the findings may help lead to better treatments.
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People

Children's peer victimization -- a mix of loyalty and preference


Economic & Social Research Council
Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:13 UTC
New research into childhood prejudice suggests that loyalty and disloyalty play a more important role than previously thought in how children treat members of their own and other groups. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), a study into the 'black sheep effect', shows that children treat disloyalty in their own group more harshly than disloyalty within different groups.

Professor Dominic Abrams, of Kent University, who led the research team, says the findings will be valuable when applied to the classroom.

"This research has implications for peer victimisation and bullying as well as for the understanding and management of prejudice and discrimination in schools".
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