In a new controversial law, Washington is set to become the first US state to elect the 'dignity death' clause, where patients with less then six months to live can request lethal doses of medication from doctors.
While the law, which is set to take effect this Thursday, will allow doctors to give patents lethal medical doses to end their life, they are not required to participate. Because of the sensitive nature of the issue, pharmacists and doctors can refuse such methods, which constitute as assisted suicide.
But Dr. Tom Preston, who is a part of the Compassion and Choices group that lobbied for the law, says that over time more doctors may find themselves more comfortable with the notion.
BBCMon, 09 Feb 2009 07:40 UTC
Psychopathic criminals are more likely to be released from prison than non-psychopaths, even though they are more likely to re-offend, a study suggests.
The Canadian research says psychopaths can charm and deceive prison staff and parole boards.
Psychopathy, a severe form of personality disorder, is characterised by superficial charm, pathological lying and a lack of remorse.
UK expert said psychologists were now on psychopaths' parole boards.
Drawn by payments of up to $10 000 (about R103 000) an increasing number of women are offering to sell their eggs at US fertility clinics as a way to make money amid the financial crisis.
Nicole Hodges, a 23-year-old actress in New York City who has been out of work since November, says she has decided to sell her eggs because she desperately needs cash.
"I'm still paying off college. I have credit card bills and, you know, rent in New York is so expensive," Hodges, who has been accepted as donor and is waiting to be chosen by a couple, told Reuters Television.
A new study of sex education in Texas (via RHReality Check) by the Texas Freedom Network reveals just what our federal abstinence-only dollars have been paying for. Texas spends far more on abstinence-only programs, $18 million in 2007, than any other state.
What those dollars have produced, according to TFN's study, is "generations of sexually illiterate young people" fed "grossly distorted or simply wrong" information "at a time of high rates of teen pregnancy and STDs." (And teen sex, period: According to the TFN's report, kids in Texas are having more sex--and more unsafe sex--than kids in the US as a whole.)
A team at Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine conducted several studies (1,2) to determine if vaccines can cause changes in the immune system of dogs that might lead to life-threatening immune-mediated diseases. They obviously conducted this research because concern already existed. It was sponsored by the Haywood Foundation which itself was looking for evidence that such changes in the human immune system might also be vaccine induced. It found the evidence.
The vaccinated, but not the non-vaccinated, dogs in the Purdue studies developed autoantibodies to many of their own biochemicals, including fibronectin, laminin, DNA, albumin, cytochrome C, cardiolipin and collagen.
This means that the vaccinated dogs -- "but not the non-vaccinated dogs"-- were attacking their own fibronectin, which is involved in tissue repair, cell multiplication and growth, and differentiation between tissues and organs in a living organism.
Lyndsay Moss
ScotsmanTue, 03 Mar 2009 01:53 UTC
YOUNG children who spend more than two hours watching television every day can double their risk of developing asthma, research revealed yesterday.
A study of more than 3,000 children found those who watched a lot of TV around the age of three were more likely to be diagnosed with the condition by the age of 11.
Experts said the link was likely to be down to the lack of physical exercise as
sociated with such sedentary activities as watching TV or playing computer games.
Some 1.1 million children in the UK have asthma, and the number is rising.
Geoffrey Colvin, senior editor-at-large
Fortune MagazineThu, 19 Oct 2006 00:22 UTC
Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret? Painful and demanding practice and hard work
What makes Tiger Woods great? What made Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett the world's premier investor? We think we know: Each was a natural who came into the world with a gift for doing exactly what he ended up doing. As Buffett told Fortune not long ago, he was "wired at birth to allocate capital." It's a one-in-a-million thing. You've got it - or you don't.
Well, folks, it's not so simple. For one thing, you do not possess a natural gift for a certain job, because targeted natural gifts don't exist. (Sorry, Warren.) You are not a born CEO or investor or chess grandmaster. You will achieve greatness only through an enormous amount of hard work over many years. And not just any hard work, but work of a particular type that's demanding and painful.
Researchers believe drinking two cups a day cuts woman's risk of ovarian cancer
Drinking tea can cut the risk of ovarian cancer by up to a third, researchers have said.
A study found women drinking at least two cups a day of black tea had a 30 per cent drop in risk.
It is thought antioxidant compounds found in tea - catechins and theanins - contribute to improved blood vessel function.
Everyday actions such as sending an email or eating a sandwich are governed in the brain by a cascade of decision-making that runs from abstract to concrete, rather as in a large corporation, a new study has shown.
The process takes place along a path moving from front to back in a key region in the brain called the prefrontal cortex, located just behind the forehead.
"It is among the strongest evidence to date for a systemic organization of the frontal cortex," said lead author David Badre of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
An important antiviral drug no longer works against this season's most prevalent type of flu, which has mutated into a resistant strain, researchers reported today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
That drug -- sold as Tamiflu in the U.S. -- was one arrow in a very small quiver of antiviral medicines used to battle influenza, an illness that lands 200,000 Americans in the hospital and kills 36,000 every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Public health officials and physicians called the development and spread of Tamiflu-resistant flu disturbing.
"It makes me nervous," said Michael Koller, a doctor of internal medicine at Loyola University Medical Center. "We know that it keeps mutating and that is why it is still around. It manages to figure out ways to outsmart us and our medications."
