Health & Wellness
Disclosure of the ongoing review, which will take months to complete, came as critics charged that many over-the-counter cough and cold remedies can harm toddlers and preschoolers. Those critics, including public health officials and pediatricians, are pushing the government for stricter warnings to prevent life-threatening overdoses.
And this mind-altering trick of perception keeps moral outrage at bay, especially among the rich, a new psychological study suggests.
By reducing outrage, this mental hoodwink also impedes social change because it inhibits people from taking action, allowing injustices to persist, said lead researcher Cheryl Wakslak of New York University.
Research has shown that people become emotionally distressed when confronted with inequality. The privileged minority is particularly affected, and they are likely to have a nagging worry that their cash and prizes are undeserved.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge in England report in this week's Science that a lower number of specific types of receptors that bind the neurotransmitter dopamine - a chemical central to the brain's reward system - in the front (or ventral) section of the striatum (a midbrain region implicated in planning and movement as well as executive function) correlates to increased impulsive behavior in rats. In addition, they found that the more impulsive animals, when given the option, consumed more cocaine than the calmer rats did.
In recent years, errors in treatment have become a serious problem for hospitals, ranging from operations on wrong body parts to medication mix-ups.
At least 1.5 million patients are harmed every year from being given the wrong drugs, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. That's an average of one person per U.S. hospital per day.
One reason these mistakes persist: Only 10% of hospitals are fully computerized and have a central database to track allergies and diagnoses, says Robert Wachter, the chief of medical service at UC San Francisco Medical Center.
No deaths have been confirmed, although a Pennsylvania family filed a lawsuit Wednesday claiming a relative died from eating tainted peanut butter.
Tipping the scales at 14 stone, Connor McCreaddie is three times as heavy as the average child of his age.
At a meeting tomorrow, his mother Nicola McKeown must convince officials that she has not abused her son by allowing him to grow so fat.
Connor could be placed on the child protection register along with victims of physical and sexual abuse, or on the less serious register of children in need.
With childhood obesity soaring, doctors have warned that such desperate measures could become more common.
It would be a devastating blow for Mrs McKeown, who insists her boy "has always been big".
They found that women who ate two or more servings of low-fat dairy foods a day had an 85 percent higher risk of a certain type of infertility than women who ate less than one serving of low-fat dairy food a week.
Women who ate one serving of high-fat dairy food a day were 27 percent less likely to be infertile than women who avoided full-fat dairy foods.