Health & Wellness
House lawmakers just passed a bill calling for a study on children under 16 who receive psychotropic drugs through the state's Medicaid program.
Herceptin, the breast cancer drug developed by Genentech, reduces the risk of death for certain stomach cancer patients by 26 percent compared with chemotherapy alone, according to new research.
"This will quickly have an impact on the standard of care," said Dr. Richard Schilsky, president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which is holding its annual meeting here. "It's going to force us to test stomach cancer patients on whether they are HER-2 positive or not."
Herceptin, or trastuzumab, is currently approved for use in the 25 percent or so of breast cancer patients whose tumors generate a protein called HER-2, which can fuel cancer growth.
"This will quickly have an impact on the standard of care," said Dr. Richard Schilsky, president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which is holding its annual meeting here. "It's going to force us to test stomach cancer patients on whether they are HER-2 positive or not."
Herceptin, or trastuzumab, is currently approved for use in the 25 percent or so of breast cancer patients whose tumors generate a protein called HER-2, which can fuel cancer growth.
In exactly 93 minutes, director Robert Kenner manages to slice down to the bone the many myths of the U.S. food system in a riveting documentary that exposes how a handful of corporations determine what our nation's children eat and how America's addiction to cheaper, faster, and larger portions has managed to shorten the average lifespan of the next generation for the first time since the Black Plague.
Like it or not, capitalism and business are at the heart of what makes America tick. They exist using a language all their own, influencing our economic system through terms like government spending, taxes, investment, profits, quarterly earnings, debt, revenues and growth.
And when capitalism and business speaks, America listens, particularly when the news is big - from politicians, to CEO's, to the average Joe. When taxpayers were asked to dish out billions in the case of the recent banking and auto industry bailouts, ears perked and immediate action was taken to bring about long overdue and necessary change. Business could not continue under threat and no stone was to be left unturned. The banking sector was overhauled and policed while the auto industry was told to go electric or go home.
And when capitalism and business speaks, America listens, particularly when the news is big - from politicians, to CEO's, to the average Joe. When taxpayers were asked to dish out billions in the case of the recent banking and auto industry bailouts, ears perked and immediate action was taken to bring about long overdue and necessary change. Business could not continue under threat and no stone was to be left unturned. The banking sector was overhauled and policed while the auto industry was told to go electric or go home.
Danger ... phone risk
The chances of developing a malignant tumor are "significantly increased" for people who use a mobile for ten years.
The shock finding is the result of the biggest ever study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization.
© Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
A litter of pigs
A litter of pigs
In modern disaster management theory, when any large system experiences a major shock or failure, you assess the risk, activate an ordered emergency response, and manage the after-effects. In the world of real people hit directly by the real shock, you look for someone to blame.
For ordinary Mexicans this week, who faced the shutdown of their country by swine flu and an unknown number of deaths, it was a culprit that was needed.
© Guardian photo
Filmmaker, Tracy Worcester, with a pig as seen in the documentary
Filmmaker, Tracy Worcester, with a pig as seen in the documentary
Cambridge researchers have recently reported that for every three children with autism and related disorders two others remain undiagnosed.
Autism is the most common developmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communication, and unusual, repetitive or severely limited activities and interests.
Latest reports have revealed that about one percent of school-aged children have an autistic spectrum disorder, indicating that the prevalence of the disease has increased by 12 times in the past 30 years.
Autism is the most common developmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communication, and unusual, repetitive or severely limited activities and interests.
Latest reports have revealed that about one percent of school-aged children have an autistic spectrum disorder, indicating that the prevalence of the disease has increased by 12 times in the past 30 years.
In 2003, a young Illinois state senator named Barack Obama told a local AFL-CIO meeting, "I am a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program."
Single payer. Universal. That's health coverage, like Medicare, but for everyone who wants it. Single payer eliminates insurance companies as pricey middlemen. The government pays care providers directly. It's a system that polls consistently have shown the American people favoring by as much as two-to-one.
Fear changes how we see things, enhancing our ability to identify blurry shapes but impairing our perception of fine details. This may help us to escape threats.
Looking at a fearful face, which activates the brain in a similar way to feeling fear, enhances sensitivity to visual contrast, but whether it improves vision across the board wasn't clear. So Bruno Bocanegra and René Zeelenberg at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, showed people pictures of faces with either fearful or neutral expressions, followed by a "blob" covered in stripes of varying thicknesses.
Those shown a fearful face were better at identifying whether thick stripes were vertical or slightly tilted and worse at identifying the orientation of thin stripes than those shown neutral faces (Psychological Science, DOI: link).
Looking at a fearful face, which activates the brain in a similar way to feeling fear, enhances sensitivity to visual contrast, but whether it improves vision across the board wasn't clear. So Bruno Bocanegra and René Zeelenberg at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, showed people pictures of faces with either fearful or neutral expressions, followed by a "blob" covered in stripes of varying thicknesses.
Those shown a fearful face were better at identifying whether thick stripes were vertical or slightly tilted and worse at identifying the orientation of thin stripes than those shown neutral faces (Psychological Science, DOI: link).
