Health & Wellness
Pharmaceutical companies routinely shower medical students with all sorts of freebies -- from notepads and ballpoint pins to clipboards and calendars - that are emblazoned with the names of prescription drugs and devices. That may sound pretty harmless but research just published in the current issue of Archives of Internal Medicine concludes these seemingly trivial items can influence these doctors-in-training's attitudes about the products drug companies are pushing. The freebies can also sway behaviors, making med students more likely to prescribe the promoted medication or device to patients in the future.
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Contamination has become so widespread that major frozen food purveyors admit they can no longer ensure the safety of their products.
Contamination has become so widespread that major frozen food purveyors admit they can no longer ensure the safety of their products.
America's pot-pie threat lurks in an ingredient that today's producers of frozen foods don't list on their packages: salmonella. In just one salmonella outbreak in 2007, the Banquet brand of pies sickened an estimated 15,000 people in 41 states.
The true culprit in such poisonings, however, is not the little deadly bug, but the twin killers of corporate globalization and greed. Giant food corporations, scavenging the globe in a constant search for ever-cheaper ingredients to put in their processed edibles, are resorting to low-wage, high-pollution nations that have practically no food-safety laws, much less any safety enforcement.
Government spending related to smoking and the abuse of alcohol and illegal drugs reached $468 billion in 2005, accounting for more than one-tenth of combined federal, state and local expenditures for all purposes, according to a new study.
Most abuse-related spending went toward direct health care costs for lung disease, cirrhosis and overdoses, for example, or for law enforcement expenses including incarceration, according to the report released Thursday by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, a private group at Columbia University. Just over 2 percent of the total went to prevention, treatment and addiction research. The study is the first to calculate abuse-related spending by all three levels of government.
"This is such a stunning misallocation of resources," said Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman of the center, referring to the lack of preventive measures. "It's a commentary on the stigma attached to addictions and the failure of governments to make investments in the short run that would pay enormous dividends to taxpayers over time."
Most abuse-related spending went toward direct health care costs for lung disease, cirrhosis and overdoses, for example, or for law enforcement expenses including incarceration, according to the report released Thursday by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, a private group at Columbia University. Just over 2 percent of the total went to prevention, treatment and addiction research. The study is the first to calculate abuse-related spending by all three levels of government.
"This is such a stunning misallocation of resources," said Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman of the center, referring to the lack of preventive measures. "It's a commentary on the stigma attached to addictions and the failure of governments to make investments in the short run that would pay enormous dividends to taxpayers over time."
Incidence of Type 1 diabetes in children aged under five in Europe is set to double by 2020 over 2005 levels while cases among the under-15s will rise by 70 percent, according to a study.
The trend, based on diagnosed cases between 1989-2003, will be highest in the former Communist countries of eastern Europe, it warns.
The paper, published online by the British journal The Lancet, says the increase is so dramatic that it cannot be attributed to genes alone.
Instead, "modern lifestyle habits" are the likely culprits, it says.
The trend, based on diagnosed cases between 1989-2003, will be highest in the former Communist countries of eastern Europe, it warns.
The paper, published online by the British journal The Lancet, says the increase is so dramatic that it cannot be attributed to genes alone.
Instead, "modern lifestyle habits" are the likely culprits, it says.
New research suggests diabetes is becoming a global problem, with more than 60% of all cases likely to occur in Asia.
A study in the Journal of the American Medicine Association shows those hit in Asia are younger and less likely to be overweight than those in the West.
The study says numbers worldwide could grow by a third by 2025, with low and middle income countries worst hit.
The disease is expensive to treat and could hit Asian economies hard.
A study in the Journal of the American Medicine Association shows those hit in Asia are younger and less likely to be overweight than those in the West.
The study says numbers worldwide could grow by a third by 2025, with low and middle income countries worst hit.
The disease is expensive to treat and could hit Asian economies hard.
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© SPL
There have been 168 definite or probable cases of vCJD in Britain
There have been 168 definite or probable cases of vCJD in Britain
Far fewer people may have the human form of mad cow disease in the UK than previously feared, Health Protection Agency researchers have said.
There have been 168 definite or probable cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) since 1995.
Previous calculations had suggested thousands of people could be incubating the disease.
But the new research, in the British Medical Journal, found no evidence of vCJD in 63,000 tonsil tissue samples.
The researchers said the results, reported in the British Medical Journal, were "reassuring".
A government advisor said the study suggested that the number of future cases would be low.
There has been much debate over how many people in the population might be harbouring vCJD.
One team had extrapolated from the number of cases so far to predict around 200 further cases might be seen over coming decades.
But another small study of appendix and tonsil tissue had predicted a much higher level of cases - between 520 and 13,000.
A "feral" five-year-old girl who hisses and barks after being forced by her family to live as one of their many pets has been rescued from a home in far eastern Russia.
According to police, the child, who has only been identified as "Natasha", was so neglected that she had barely developed a human vocabulary, communicating instead through animal noises.
Although she lived with her father, grandparents and other relatives, Natasha was essentially treated like one of a large number of dogs and cats that shared a small flat in the isolated city of Chita.
Like the other pets, she lapped at her food from a bowl on the floor and had never learned how to use cutlery.
According to police, the child, who has only been identified as "Natasha", was so neglected that she had barely developed a human vocabulary, communicating instead through animal noises.
Although she lived with her father, grandparents and other relatives, Natasha was essentially treated like one of a large number of dogs and cats that shared a small flat in the isolated city of Chita.
Like the other pets, she lapped at her food from a bowl on the floor and had never learned how to use cutlery.
© Mike Adams, NaturalNews.com
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy
But there's a problem with that claim. The problem is a man named Billy Best, now 31 years old, who was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma at the age of 16. Like Daniel Hauser, Billy Best was told he would die if he didn't submit to chemotherapy. But with remarkable courage and wisdom about his own body's healing capabilities, Billy Best fled the health authorities, ran away from his family and began eating roots, superfoods and medicinal herbs. He regularly drank an alternative cancer liquid formula (made from plants) and before long his cancer was cured.
Billy, of course, is alive and well today... fifteen years after his cancer doctors said he should be dead.
© BBC
Inflammation and blistering may remove fingerprints
Inflammation and blistering may remove fingerprints
One patient was held by US immigration officials for four hours before they allowed him to enter the country.
The case is highlighted in the journal Annals of Oncology.
The patient's doctor, Eng-Huat Tan, from Singapore, advised all travellers to the US being treated with the drug capecitabine to carry a doctor's note.
Dr Tan, based at the National Cancer Centre in Singapore, said several other patients had also reported loss of fingerprints on blog sites, with some also having problems entering the US.
