Health & WellnessS


Cow

2 beef processors are cited for humane violations

Washington - A government inspection of slaughterhouses found significant problems with the treatment of cattle and two of the nation's largest beef processors - both of which provide meat for the National School Lunch Program - were slapped with humane handling violations.

Health

Families tell lawmakers of heparin deaths

WASHINGTON - A man who said he lost his wife and a son to reactions from tainted heparin made with ingredients from China urged U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday to protect patients from other unsafe drugs.

Leroy Hubley said his wife, Bonnie, and son, Randy, had undergone kidney dialysis at an Ohio clinic and were given heparin that was later recalled by Baxter International Inc. Both had reactions to the blood thinner and died within one month of each other.

Congressman John Dingell
©REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Congressman John Dingell (D-MI) holds up a newspaper story on the drug heparin on Capitol Hill in Washington April 22, 2008.

"Now I am left to deal not only with the pain of losing my wife and son, but anger that an unsafe drug was permitted to be sold in this country," Hubley, who frequently choked back tears and wiped his eyes, told a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee hearing.


Info

Nepal on flu alert, tests poultry on India border

KATHMANDU - Nepal has issued a bird flu alert and is testing poultry along the border with India, where the virus rages despite the culling of tens of thousands of chickens since 2006, officials said.

Nepal, which has not reported any bird flu cases, banned the import of poultry from India in January.

But it shares an open border with the Indian state of West Bengal which has reported repeated outbreaks of bird flu.

"We are always alert, especially in the border areas which have been declared as high risk zones," Baikuntha Parajuli, chief of Nepal's animal health directorate said on Tuesday.

Info

Japan confirms H5N1 bird flu strain in swans

Japan on Tuesday confirmed four swans found last week were infected with the H5N1 strain of bird flu.

It was the first case of bird flu in Japan since March 2007 when the highly virulent H5N1 strain was found in a wild bird in Kumamoto prefecture on Japan's southern Kyushu island.

The swans, three of which had died, were found on the shores of Lake Towada in northern Akita prefecture on April 21, the prefectural government said.

Bulb

Moral philosopher questions memory manipulation

Is medicated memory manipulation ethically sound? And perhaps more importantly, who should be charged with the decision to deliver such a treatment: patient or physician? Elisa Hurley, a philosophy professor, is seeking answers to these questions in her research currently underway at The University of Western Ontario.

In the Academy Award-winning film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a fictional, non-surgical procedure called 'targeted memory erasure' is used to delete painful memories the afflicted wish to forget - permanently.

People

TAU Researchers Examine "Great Expectations" in the Workplace

A study finds that managers who expect more from their employees get more from them, too.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have found that employee performance in the workplace, like students' grades at school, is greatly influenced by managers' expectations of that performance.

An analysis of results from twenty-five years' worth of experimental research conducted at banks, schools, the Israel Defense Forces -- and even summer camp -- shows unequivocal results: when a leader expects subordinates to perform well, they do.

People

India's Mumbai tries paying girls to go to school

Girls attending state-run schools in India's financial capital of Mumbai are ending the school year a little richer than they began it.

For each day a girl showed up in classes, city authorities are paying her 1 rupee -- about 2 U.S. cents. Boys continue to take nothing home besides their homework.

The scheme has two aims. One is to improve unimpressive school-attendance rates. The other is part of a broader central government goal of empowering girls and women.

Evil Rays

400-volt shocks applied to brain for 'well-being'

According to a leading doctor, thousands of Irish psychiatric patients experiencing psychological distress have had electric shocks of up to 400 volts administered to their brains, frequently against their will.

This controversial treatment, known as electro-convulsive therapy (ECT), works by artificially inducing epileptic fits.

Those who endorse it believe that the seizure triggers a surge of "well-being" which soothes the symptoms of the psychological distress being targeted, such as depression, schizophrenia, mania, obsessive convulsive disorders and anorexia.

Evil Rays

Heart attacks? Cancer? No, the West's greatest health problem is anxiety



Patricia Pearson
©Clay Stang
'I try to separate my worries from myself and look at my anxiety as if it was the flu,' says Pearson

The writer Patricia Pearson talks about the fears that devoured her life.

Patricia Pearson, author of A Brief History of Anxiety... Yours and Mine, worries a lot. "I fret about everything and nothing. After 9/11, a friend died and that combination had the effect of turning me into a hypochondriac. I would lie awake at night listening to a gurgling sound in my abdomen convinced I had cancer." On another occasion, she ordered 12 containers of freeze-dried vegetables after an American report warned of a possible flu epidemic and advised stockpiling food.

As well as inflicting a bizarre set of phobias, anxiety has brought Pearson's life to a complete halt three times: dropping out of university, resigning from a job, and winding up addicted to anti-depressants.

No Entry

Eating tomatoes is the best way to avoid sunburn and wrinkles



Tomatoes
© AP
Scientists believe the antioxidant that makes tomatoes red can protect the skin against burning

Eating pizza topped with tomato paste can help prevent sunburn and premature wrinkles, new research suggests. A study found that volunteers who ate helpings of ordinary tomato paste over a 12-week period developed skin that was less likely to burn in the sun.

Researchers at the University of Manchester found that the test subjects were 33 per cent more protected against sunlight than another group who were not given tomato paste. The effect of eating tomatoes was equivalent to slapping on a factor 1.3 sunscreen. Changes were also seen within the skin of the volunteers that counteract the appearance of ageing.