Los Angeles - Foreclosures are increasing West Nile virus dangers because of stagnant swimming pools behind abandoned homes.
The foul pools are breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which can pass West Nile to humans and horses. The spike in mosquitoes comes earlier than the usual summertime appearance of the pest.
Expecting to be treated with prejudice may be part of a self-fulfilling prophecy, according to new research led by a University of Toronto psychologist.
The groundbreaking study was done using a series of computer-animated male and female faces expressing a range of looks, from rejection to acceptance. Researchers created a slide show where the expressions on the animated faces morphed from looks of rejection to looks of acceptance, and study participants were asked to identify the point at which the expressions changed.
"Those female participants who told us men stereotyped them and treated them with prejudice saw rejection and contempt on the animated men's faces more readily and for a longer period of time than they did on the women's faces," says lead author Dr. Michael Inzlicht, assistant professor of psychology at U of T. "This shows that a person's level of sensitivity to being stereotyped - their expectation that a person will behave prejudicially towards them - may distort their perception of reality."
On June 2, the West Australian reported that WA Premier Alan Carpenter had called for a nationwide suspension of approvals for foods containing genetically modified (GM) crops until more health research was carried out. Carpenter said the national food regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand should not approve any more food for human consumption until independent scientific trials were conducted to better determine the safety of GM foods.
The article quoted Carpenter as saying: "There are still unresolved issues and questions about the effect of genetically modified foods on human beings." He added that GM ingredients could be found in common foods including corn chips, breakfast cereals, taco shells, margarine, biscuits, soy products and oils.
On June 6 WA Conservation Council representative Dr Maggie Lilith presented the Carpenter government with a letter asking it to extend the current ban on GM crops, which will expire in early 2009 at the latest, for a further 10 years.
A Catholic Bishop on Saturday expressed optimism Pope Benedict XVI would issue this month a statement taking a favorable stance toward the use of biotechnology to address world hunger.
In a statement posted on the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) website, Malolos Bishop Jose Oliveros, CBCP Episcopal Commission on Bioethics chair, said the Vatican is set to release its statement in early July.
Katherine Kimzey started suffering debilitating headaches, fainting spells and arthritis-like stiffness last November.
Six weeks later, the 14-year-old Dallas resident became so dizzy she could barely walk. She was hospitalized and missed three weeks of school. Then, she had a seizure. For weeks, she bounced back and forth between specialists and was eventually diagnosed with epilepsy.
Good to see that the Telegraph of London has picked up on developments I wrote about here in the U.S., where a head of official steam is building behind the perception that there is a troubling relationship between certain childhood vaccines, including MMR (mumps/measles/ rubella), and autistic symptoms and other damage in a subset of particularly vulnerable children. As I have written, this has been prompted by recent U.S. cases in which multiple vaccinations have aggravated an underlying mitochondrial weakness to produce catastrophic effects, leading Dr. Bernardine Healy, the former head of the National Institutes of Health, to tell CBS News:
Jon LaPook
CBS NewsWed, 04 Jun 2008 01:57 UTC
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Led by actors Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey, they're
marching against the medical establishment that says there's no evidence vaccines cause autism, CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook reports.
"We want to send the message to the CDC and our federal government that vaccinations schedules are not one size fits all for all children and that each child is different," said concerned parent Michael Williamson.
Young girls in Ireland should be vaccinated against the human papilloma virus (HPV), as this will reduce their risk of developing cervical cancer, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has said.
HIQA has proposed a school-based national programme of vaccination for all 12-year old girls against the HPV virus, in addition to a once-off HPV vaccine programme for 13 to 15-year old girls.
It says both such vaccination schemes would, along with the new cervical screening programme, help reduce the incidence of cervical cancer in Ireland.
Comment: Unfortunately, the situation is not as clear cut as made out in this article. There are many opinions that the
HPV vaccine's benefit is modest and not worth the risk and cost. Plus, there are a lot of reported cases with adverse side effects (
here and
here). And the disease is
not even contagious. So why is the push for more and more vaccines onto young children?
Can 'Blue Zones' Help Turn Back the Biological Clock? Dan Buettner spent five years visiting areas of the world where people tend to live longer, healthier lives, areas he calls "Blue Zones
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| Author Dan Buettner has traveled the globe visiting "Blue Zones," where people tend to live longer and lead healthier lives
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Comment: For his book Buettner interviewed several experts on aging. While they all had the usual: eat well, be active, etc., expert Robert Kane also had to inform us that "the biggest threat to improving our lifestyles has been smoking"
And indeed it is ,since it couldn't also be the toxic stuff in our food and water and the socio-economic shock doctrine imposed on us.
Bruce E. Levine
AlterNetFri, 06 Jun 2008 18:58 UTC
Mothers suffering from depression are increasingly pushed into taking pills, at great potential risk to themselves and their infants.
Today in the United States, 11 percent of women take antidepressants, the use of antidepressants by pregnant women has dramatically increased, and postpartum depression -- rare in those cultures in which women receive high levels of social support following childbirth -- has become so staggeringly common among U.S. women that Congress is legislating increased medical treatment.
Comment: Unfortunately, the situation is not as clear cut as made out in this article. There are many opinions that the HPV vaccine's benefit is modest and not worth the risk and cost. Plus, there are a lot of reported cases with adverse side effects (here and here). And the disease is not even contagious. So why is the push for more and more vaccines onto young children?