More than 200,000 schoolchildren are paddled, spanked or subjected to other physical punishment each year, and disabled students get a disproportionate share of the treatment, according to a new study.
Most states prohibit corporal punishment in public schools, but 20 do not. The two watchdog groups that collaborated on the report, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, are urging federal and state lawmakers to extend the ban nationwide and enact an immediate moratorium on physical punishment of students with disabilities.
"Corporal punishment is just not an effective method of punishment, especially for disabled children, who may not even understand why they're being hit," said Alice Farmer, who wrote the report.
Health & Wellness
Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin says the health care overhaul bill would set up a "death panel." Federal bureaucrats would play God, ruling on whether ailing seniors are worth enough to society to deserve life-sustaining medical care. Palin and other critics are wrong.
Nothing in the legislation would carry out such a bleak vision. The provision that has caused the uproar would instead authorize Medicare to pay doctors for counseling patients about end-of-life care, if the patient wishes. Here are some questions and answers on the controversy:
Nothing in the legislation would carry out such a bleak vision. The provision that has caused the uproar would instead authorize Medicare to pay doctors for counseling patients about end-of-life care, if the patient wishes. Here are some questions and answers on the controversy:
His mercury fillings were grayAny scientific credibility the FDA might have been clinging to in these last few years has now disintegrated with the agency's recent announcement that after reviewing 200 scientific studies, it has concluded mercury fillings are safe for human health! This ruling, as you'll read below, further demonstrates how the FDA is a rogue federal agency that respects no law and frequently operates in direct violation of the law.
And he chewed on them every day.
But the stuff reached his brain
And it drove him insane
Now he works for the FDA
For years, yoga devotees have been telling us that bending and twisting our limbs into gravity-defying contortions is a great way to develop the perfect body. Now things have gone one step further, with a new wave of teachers claiming that yoga also offers a fast track to a beautiful mind.
Diabetes is not reversible and controlling your blood sugar with drugs or insulin will protect you from organ damage and death.
That is what the medical profession would have you believe, but medication and insulin can actually increase your risk getting a heart attack or dying.
The diabetes epidemic is accelerating along with the obesity epidemic, and what you are not hearing about is another way to treat it.
Type 2 diabetes, or what was once called adult onset diabetes, is increasing worldwide and now affects nearly 100 million people -- and over 20 million Americans.
That is what the medical profession would have you believe, but medication and insulin can actually increase your risk getting a heart attack or dying.
The diabetes epidemic is accelerating along with the obesity epidemic, and what you are not hearing about is another way to treat it.
Type 2 diabetes, or what was once called adult onset diabetes, is increasing worldwide and now affects nearly 100 million people -- and over 20 million Americans.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), a group of individuals hand-picked by members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), recommends which vaccines are administered to American children. Working mainly in secret, ACIP members frequently have financial links to vaccine manufacturers. Dependent on federal CDC funding, administrators of state vaccination programs follow CDC directives by influencing state legislators to mandate new vaccines. Federal vaccine funds can be denied to states that do not "vigorously enforce" mandatory vaccination laws.
New Orleans already is struggling with fewer than half of the inpatient beds for the mentally ill that it had before the 2005 hurricane - even as suicide rates and the number of people with mental health problems have doubled.
That shortage is about to become even more acute with the scheduled closing Sept. 1 of the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital (NOAH), the city's only public hospital still providing inpatient services for the mentally ill.
The closure, designed to trim $14 million from the state's 2010 budget, will leave New Orleans with 133 beds for mental health inpatient care and will make the city jail - with 60 of those beds - the city's largest psychiatric ward.
Researchers say a small number of young law enforcement officers who participated in the World Trade Center rescue and cleanup operation have developed an immune system cancer.
The numbers are tiny, and experts don't know whether there is any link between the illnesses and toxins released during the disaster.
The numbers are tiny, and experts don't know whether there is any link between the illnesses and toxins released during the disaster.
Women with a family history of breast cancer should be "strongly encouraged" to breastfeed, an expert said today, after research shows it can cut the cancer risk.
US-based researchers reviewed the cases of more than 60,000 women who gave birth and who also took part in a major health survey from 1997 to 2005. Just over 600 cases of premenopausal breast cancer were detected in the group of women, with the illness hitting them at an average age of 46.2 years.
When the women had someone in their close family with breast cancer, they were found to have a lower risk of developing the disease if they had ever breastfed than if they had never breastfed.
US-based researchers reviewed the cases of more than 60,000 women who gave birth and who also took part in a major health survey from 1997 to 2005. Just over 600 cases of premenopausal breast cancer were detected in the group of women, with the illness hitting them at an average age of 46.2 years.
When the women had someone in their close family with breast cancer, they were found to have a lower risk of developing the disease if they had ever breastfed than if they had never breastfed.
© Tim Wimborne / Reuters
The British Health Department website says: "Whilst there is doubt about how swine flu affects children, we believe that a safety-first approach of offering antivirals to everyone remains the most sensible and responsible way forward".
