Sales over science, profit over people, greed over need

Butterflies waft across a beautiful field of spring flowers. A delightful young family bicycles joyously down a country lane. A couple on a park bench leans sensually into each other. A 40-something woman’s face radiates with both perfect beauty and internal happiness. “All’s right with the world,” is the message… as long as you’ve taken your dosages of Lunesta, Celebrex, Cialis, and Botox.

Welcome to medicated America, where the fix for every problem–from incontinence to erectile dysfunction, stiff joints to mood swings, weight gain to wrinkles– is just a prescription away. Thus the beautiful images, stirring music, attractive actors, and soothing words in the omnipresent, multibillion-dollar kaleidoscope of drug advertising by Pfizer, Merck, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, and other giants of Big Pharma–all pitching their particular brand-name nostrum directly at us hoi polloi (the industry spends a fourth of its income on ads and other promotions, nearly double its expenditures on research and development). The corporate come-ons typically conclude with a phrase that has achieved cliche status in America’s vernacular: “Ask your doctor if ‘Suprema Wundercure’ is right for you.”

Full Story Here: Hightower Lowdown | The great American medicine show, a spectacle of deceit, manipulation, and flimflammery.

A federal court in Texas ruled to stop a new law on Monday that excluded Planned Parenthood from the Texas Women’s Health Program, which serves about 130,000 low-income women in the state. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel ruled that the law was unconstitutional because it bars eight Planned Parenthood clinics that don’t provide abortions from participating in the program based on their affiliation with legally and financially separate entities that offer abortions.

Yeakel also cited the fact that the Department of Health and Human Services cut off all Medicaid funding for family planning to Texas because of the new law, which could jeopardize the entire program.

“The court is particularly influenced by the potential for immediate loss of access to necessary medical services by several thousand Texas women,” Yeakel wrote in his ruling. “The record before the court at this juncture reflects uncertainty as to the continued viability of the Texas Women’s Health Program.”

Full Story Here: Texas Planned Parenthood Defunding Halted By Federal Judge.

Health insurance agents and brokers will no longer be getting paid to tell sick people about a government-backed health insurance plan that can’t turn them down.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is ending a program at the end of this month that gave $100 to agents and brokers who referred customers to the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, which was created by the health care reform law President Barack Obama enacted in 2010. The PCIP, as it’s known, was designed as to provide help to people who can’t find affordable health insurance because of their medical histories.

The PCIP’s performance has been underwhelming: enrollment remains far below expectations even as the $5 billion set aside for the program is spent faster than predicted. Through the end of February, 56,257 people had PCIP benefits. This represents a tiny portion of the 50 million Americans who are uninsured and is far below the 200,000 to 375,000 people who were projected to join the Pre-Existing Conditions Insurance Plan. Moreover, each PCIP enrollee is costing almost $29,000 a year, which is more than twice government estimates from 2010.

Full Story Here: Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan Scraps Initiative That Helped Sick People Find Health Care.

Food safety in the United States is often an overlooked area of concern. Americans generally do not spend much time thinking about deadly toxins that could be in their food. But with Americans eating more and more imported food from poorly inspected and unknown places, the possibility of tainted food continues to rise.

Americans now get 15 to 20 percent of all of the food they consume from overseas. This includes two-thirds of our fruits and vegetables, and 80 percent of our shrimp and other seafood. Despite the nearly unavoidable nature of imported food, our government agencies lack the ability to properly inspect imported food for contaminants. We currently inspect only a small fraction of all imported food, and Americans are getting sick as a result.

Full Story Here: How Safe is the Food We Eat | Economy In Crisis.

Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in the late 1990s, the number of people on prescription drugs for life has ballooned.

Why has Big Pharma failed to produce new antibiotics for deadly infections like MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococci), C. Difficile and Acinetobacter baumannii even as they leap from hospital to community settings? Because there is no money in it.

Pharma executives “have shown less interest in medicines like antibiotics that actually cure disease than in those that only treat symptoms,” writes Melody Petersen, author of Our Daily Meds. “Most blockbusters are pills for conditions such as anxiety, high cholesterol or constipation that must be taken daily, often for months or years. They are designed for rich Americans who can afford to buy them.” Nor are medicines for tropical diseases like malaria, which kills a child every 30 seconds, a priority, notes Petersen. They also lack ka-ching.

Full Story Here: 6 Kinds of Pills Big Pharma Tries to Get You Hooked on for Life | Personal Health | AlterNet.

The elusive G-spot has been found, a researcher claims in a new report.

The famed orgasmic spot was identified as a region of tissue, about a third of an inch long and one-tenth of an inch wide, located on the anterior (towards the front of the body) vaginal wall, said Dr. Adam Ostrzenski, of the Institute of Gynecology, Inc., in St. Petersburg, Fla.

“It’s a grape-like structure,” Ostrzenski said. “Nothing else looks similar.”

For his research, Ostrzenski examined the cadaver of an 83-year-old woman who had died from head trauma.

Full Story Here: G-Spot Exists? Researcher Says He Has Evidence, But Skeptics Dispute Finding.

The announcement on Tuesday that a California dairy cow had mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), highlights shortcomings of the country’s food safety system, say critics.

The beef industry and the USDA were quick to dismiss worries of contamination to the food supply.  John Clifford, the USDA’s chief veterinary officer, said, “It was never presented for slaughter for human consumption, so at no time presented a risk to the food supply or human health.”

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said in a statement: “U.S. regulatory controls are effective, and that U.S fresh beef and beef products from cattle of all ages are safe and can be safely traded due to our interlocking safeguards.”

But Elisa Odabashian, West Coast director of Consumers Union, noted that the monitoring system leaves public health gaps because it is just too small.

Full Story Here: ‘Mad Cow’ Finding Highlights Food Safety Gaps, Say Critics | Common Dreams.

The USDA has confirmed that a case of mad cow disease was found in a California dairy cow. It is the fourth case of mad cow, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), found in U.S. cattle since the first in December 2003. Los Angeles-based Baker Commodities confirmed that the cow was discovered in a Hanford, Calif. transfer station after workers selected the cow for random sampling. The company does not yet know from which farm the cow came from.

USDA Chief Veterinary Officer John Clifford said Tuesday afternoon that the cow did not enter the human food chain and that all U.S. meat and dairy supplies are safe. Further mitigating the risk to the public, milk does not transmit BSE.

According to the USDA, the animal’s carcass is being held under state authority at a California rendering facility and will be destroyed. “It was never presented for slaughter for human consumption, so at no time presented a risk to the food supply or human health,” Clifford said.

Full Story Here: Mad Cow Disease Confirmed In California Dairy Cow, USDA Says.

Company purchased Pfizer’s infant formula business, creates privatization pathway in emerging Asian markets

A deal that saw pharmaceutical giant Pfizer sell its infant formula business to Nestlé in a $11.85 billion billion deal this week is another attempt by Nestle to put profit over public health, said a watchgroup group on Monday.

Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, stated that Nestle’s “renewed focus on growing the market for its infant formula products is troubling given the corporation’s track record of using dubious practices to market infant formula in developing countries, where it is often prepared in unhygienic conditions with unsafe water. It appears this investment will pave the way for more dubious marketing practices, which as recently as last year have been criticized by public health groups in Laos.”

Full Story Here: Nestle’s New Deal More Proof of Profits Trumping Public Health | Common Dreams.

A recent Stanford University study, examining 192 pairs of twins, where one twin was autistic and one was not, found that genetics account for 38 percent of the risk of autism and environmental factors account for 62 percent.(1)

Suggesting an environmental and genetic tag team are other studies showing mothers of autistic children and autistic children themselves have a high rate of a genetic deficiency in the production of glutathione, an antioxidant and the body’s primary means of detoxifying heavy metals.(2) High levels of toxic metals in children are strongly correlated with the severity of autism.(3) Low levels of glutathione, coupled with high production of another chemical, homocysteine, increase the chance of a mother having an autistic child to one in three, according to Dr. Jim Adams, director of Arizona State University’s Autism/Asperger’s Research Program. That autism is four times more common among boys than girls is likely related to a defect in the single male X chromosome contributing to antioxidant deficiency. There is no such thing as a genetic disease epidemic because genes don’t change that quickly. So, the alarming rise in autism must be the result of increased environmental exposures that exploit these genetic defects.

Full Story Here: The Autism Epidemic and Disappearing Bees: A Common Denominator?.

Gulf Coast residents and clean up workers have found chemicals present in BP’s oil in their own bloodstreams.

Ocean Springs, Mississippi – Not long after BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, 2010, Lorrie Williams knew something was very wrong with her health.

She began getting frequent headaches, was experiencing shortness of breath, her eyes were burning, and she was having nightmares.

Williams, her husband Bud Waltman, and their ten-year-old son, Noah, have all tested positive for having chemicals in their blood that are also present in BP’s oil. Her 25-year-old son has been to the emergency room twice for haemorrhaging blood from his nose, and several of their neighbours also have experienced ongoing respiratory problems.

Her two-year-old granddaughter has been sick constantly.

Full Story Here: BP Blamed for Ongoing Health Problems.

“Pink slime” isn’t the only industrialized meat treated with unappetizing chemicals. Chlorine, tri-sodium phosphate (normally used to clean cement) and hypobromous acid (used to clean swimming pools) are used to treat poultry for salmonella and sterilize feces that might still be on carcasses because the production line speeds are too excessive.

As our food system becomes more industrialized, we increasingly rely on chemical cocktails to keep bacteria and other pathogens under control. Since labeling isn’t required, consumers are left in the dark about what chemicals their food may have been treated with. But this is only the beginning of what consumers don’t know about their meat. 

HIMP — the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP)-based Inspection Models Project – isn’t as memorable of a catch phrase as pink slime, but its implications are more sickening. Since 1998, the USDA has been experimenting with this program that gives the job of monitoring the safety and quality of poultry to the poultry processors and drastically increases the number of birds federal inspectors must examine at a time.

Full Story Here: Pink Slime? It Gets Worse. | Food & Water Watch.

A coroner’s inquest was told Natasha Harris, a 30-year-old mother of eight from Invercargill in southern New Zealand who died in February 2010, drank huge amounts of the caffeinated beverage, Fairfax Media reported.

It said pathologist Dan Mornin told the inquest that he believed Harris died from cardiac arrhythmia and was also suffering from low potassium levels and caffeine toxicity.

Full Story Here: Woman’s death blamed on ‘addiction’ to Coca Cola | The Raw Story.

Since passing the House Budget using a legislative tactic they’ve previously described as “unconstitutional,” Republicans have begun their appropriations process by marking up legislation that would cut millions from federal safety net programs and middle class health care benefits in order to finance their $3 trillion giveaway to corporations and the richest Americans.

Under the Republican-approved budget, for instance, the House Ways & Means committee is instructed to reduce the deficit by $53 billion between 2013 and 2022 and members are not wasting any time going after the benefits that lower and middle class Americans rely on and block granting social programs to the states. First on the chopping block: are health care subsidies for middle class families earning up to $90,000 a year who will purchase insurance in the state-based exchanges, child care and related assistance for 4.4 million children, Meals On Wheels and other home-based services for nearly 1.7 million older Americans, and transportation services for almost 1 million disabled individuals.

During this morning’s hearing, Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) pressed the Joint Committee on Taxation on the consequences of the GOP’s health subsidy proposal — which would require families to pay back the government if their incomes fluctuate and dissuade people from claiming credits in the first place. Under current law, the premium support is paid out as an advance refundable amount to insurance companies based on an estimate of annual income (the assistance is available, on a sliding scale, to families of four making up to $90,000 a year). Should a family’s income change during the year, it will have to pay the government back a specific dollar amount come tax season. Congress has increased the amount since the law passed and under the current Republican proposal, “an individual would be liable for the full amount of the overpayment.”

Full Story Here: GOP Proposal Would Take Coverage Away From 350,000 People, Disproportionately Hurt Women | ThinkProgress.

A 14-year national survey of nearly 53,000 Japanese women, aged between 40 and 69, found that the group reported 134 thyroid cancer cases, including 113 cases of papillary carcinoma, a common type of the illness.

Those who ate seaweed daily were 1.7 times more likely to developcancer than those who ate it no more than twice a week, the study said.

Full Story Here: Seaweed linked to post-menopause cancer risk | The Raw Story.

This is the lowest national rate for teen births since the Centers for Disease Control began tracking it in 1940, and CDC officials attributed the decline to pregnancy prevention efforts. Other reports show that teenagers are having less sex and using contraception more often. Studies have backed this up. Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle found that teenagers who received some type of comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant. And in 2007, a federal report showed that abstinence-only programs had “no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence.”

But 37 states require sex education that includes abstinence, 26 of which require that abstinence be stressed as the best method. Additionally, research shows that abstinence-only strategies could deter contraceptive use among teenagers, thus increasing their risk of unintended pregnancy.

Full Story Here: Teen Pregnancies Highest In States With Abstinence-Only Policies | ThinkProgress.

Why is Walmart hiding behind its misleading, greenwashed corporate PR?

Food & Water Watch and our allies have collected over 460,000 petition signatures asking Walmart not to carry Monsanto’s new genetically engineered sweet corn, which could be planted this spring. Instead of doing the right thing and rejecting this unlabeled, untested and potentially unsafe produce, Walmart has issued misleading PR statements that are nothing but corporate doublespeak. Without a firm public statement of rejection, Walmart’s assertions that it “cares about consumers” are utterly meaningless.

Full Story Here: Why Hasn’t Walmart Rejected Monsanto’s GE Sweet Corn?.

“Pink slime” isn’t the only industrialized meat treated with unappetizing chemicals. Chlorine, tri-sodium phosphate (normally used to clean cement) and hypobromous acid (used to clean swimming pools) are used to treat poultry for salmonella and sterilize feces that might still be on carcasses because the production line speeds are too excessive.

As our food system becomes more industrialized, we increasingly rely on chemical cocktails to keep bacteria and other pathogens under control. Since labeling isn’t required, consumers are left in the dark about what chemicals their food may have been treated with. But this is only the beginning of what consumers don’t know about their meat. 

HIMP — the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP)-based Inspection Models Project – isn’t as memorable of a catch phrase as pink slime, but its implications are more sickening. Since 1998, the USDA has been experimenting with this program that gives the job of monitoring the safety and quality of poultry to the poultry processors and drastically increases the number of birds federal inspectors must examine at a time.

Full Story Here: Pink Slime? It Gets Worse. | Food & Water Watch.

The HACCP-Based Inspection Models Project (HIMP) expansion plan proposed by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack would expand the pilot program to 200 slaughterhouses, allowing companies to employ their own poultry inspectors. Chairman of the National Joint Council of AFGE Food Inspection Council Chair Stan Painter says that the proposed program could lead to the elimination of 1,000 USDA poultry inspection jobs. The USDA has claimed (PDF) that the proposed change could save inspectors $95 million during its first three years and would save the poultry industry about $250 million.

“This new inspection system for poultry slaughter plants is another example of attacks on everyday working people while billionaires and corporations are getting tax breaks. And this time, it’s putting our kids and families at risk while taking jobs away from people we count on. It’s shocking,” AFL-CIO Online Mobilization Director Manny Herrmann wrote in an e-mail petition.

Full Story Here: Obama Administration Pushes to Privatize Poultry Inspection – Working In These Times.

Despite the nearly unavoidable nature of imported food, our government agencies lack the ability to properly inspect imported food for contaminants.

Americans now get 15 to 20 percent of all the food they consume from overseas. This includes two-thirds of our fruits and vegetables, and 80 percent of our shrimp and other seafood. Despite the nearly unavoidable nature of imported food, our government agencies lack the ability to properly inspect imported food for contaminants. We currently inspect only a small fraction of all imported food, and Americans are getting sick as a result.

Food safety in this country is something that is too often overlooked. Americans generally do not spend much time thinking about deadly toxins that could be in their food. But with Americans eating more and more food that is imported from poorly inspected countries, the possibility of tainted food continues to rise.

Unfortunately, Americans are largely going it alone when it comes to food safety. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently only has enough money to inspect 2 percent of the imported food entering the country, but their ability may be decreasing even further. This summer, the House of Representatives cut $205 million from the FDA’s food safety budget for the proposed fiscal year 2012 budget, taking the total to $750 million, $87 million less than is allotted for the current year.

Full Story Here: Unchecked Food a Serious Threat to Americans | Economy In Crisis.

Wednesday was “Back Up Your Birth Control Day of Action!,” a day started by the National Institute for Reproductive Health’s Back Up Your Birth Control Campaign to dispel misinformation about emergency contraception (EC), also known as the “morning after pill.” The campaign is encouraging people to post pictures with the theme EC=BC, or “emergency contraception equals birth control,” on the campaign’s tumblr page, as well as distributing fact sheets about EC and coupons for a 5 dollar discount on emergency contraceptives

The need for an educational campaign on EC stems in part from the confusion created by the anti-choice movement’s strategy of intentionally mischaracterizing EC, and increasingly all forms of hormonal birth control, as abortion. The morning after pill is often mistaken for the actual “abortion pill,” also known as RU486, which does terminate a pregnancy within the first trimester by inducing a biological process similar to a natural miscarriage.

Full Story Here: EC=BC: Emergency Contraception Is Birth Control, Not Abortion | ThinkProgress.

If the Supreme Court ends up upholding the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, there is no danger that Americans will be forced to buy and eat broccoli, despite Justice Scalia’s suggestion to the contrary during oral argument on Tuesday. As conservative law professor and former Solicitor General during the Reagan administration Charles Fried put it, “the whole broccoli argument is beneath contempt”, a Tea Party talking point. There’s a wife gulf between requiring Americans to pay for health care they cannot be denied rather than shifting the costs to others and forcing people to buy and eat a vegetable that no grocer is required to give them regardless of their ability to pay. The real question is not whether the Court will give the Court too much power but whether it will give it enough. After the Court’s decision, which is expected this June, will Congress have the tools it needs to respond to crises in an interdependent modern world?

The Framers of the U.S. Constitution, though they had fought a revolution against oppressive government, recognized that, while there was certainly danger in giving government too much power, there was also danger in giving it too little. In 1787, the United States was on the edge of failure. Under the Articles of Confederation, the federal government lacked the power needed to govern a nation. Individual states functioned more as independent countries than part of one nation. The federal government could not make or enforce treaties, regulate the national economy, or even collect the revenues needed to pay bills run up during the Revolutionary War. It was quite possible that the country would break into separate nations. A few months before the Framers met in Philadelphia, Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts made clear how serious the crisis was.

Full Story Here: Health Care Law Not About Broccoli, But Nationhood | Common Dreams.

‘FDA should remove “responsible for protecting the public health” from its mission statement’

Today the Food and Drug Administration has announced that it will not take steps to bar bisphenol-A, or BPA, a known toxic chemical, from canned food and liquid infant formula containers.

  Studies show that BPA leaches from epoxy linings of cans into food and drink, and resurfaces in breast milk, saliva, urine, amniotic fluid and umbilical cord blood; the contamination is linked to many health problems including birth defects.

Jane Houlihan, Senior Vice President for Research of the Environmental Working Group today stated, “The next decision the FDA should make is to remove ‘responsible for protecting the public health’ from its mission statement. It’s false advertising. Allowing a chemical as toxic as BPA, and linked to so many serious health problems, to remain in food means the agency has veered dangerously off course.”

Full Story Here: FDA Keeps BPA in Food, Fails Public Health Again | Common Dreams.

Not surprisingly, today’s debut Supreme Court argument over the so-called “individual mandate” requiring everyone to buy health insurance revolved around epistemological niceties such as the meaning of a “tax,” and the question of whether the issue is ripe for review.

Robert Reich:-:

Behind this judicial foreplay is the brute political fact that if the Court decides the individual mandate is an unconstitutional extension of federal authority, the entire law starts unraveling.

But with a bit of political jujitsu, the President could turn any such defeat into a victory for a single-payer healthcare system – Medicare for all.

Here’s how.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich.

China, like all countries, takes great pride in its Olympic athletes. They want their country to be represented by athletes who perform at the highest possible level. That is why, as part of their preparation for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, the Chinese Olympic Team is receiving a special supply of food to ensure their food safety. If China cannot even trust the food that they produce under their own food safety standards, it seems ridiculous that the United States is willing to import it.

The General Administration of Sport of China has asked national team members not to eat meat from outside the special supply that will be provided to them. Team members will receive prescreened ingredients for their meals. This is an attempt to avoid possible contamination from banned performance-enhancing substances that may be found in food. Officials are particularly worried about clenbuterol hydrochloride, a bronchodilator that is commonly found in meat sold in Chinese super markets. Clenbuterol can be used to obtain leaner meat from animals, but it is banned from use on food-producing animals in the United States and the European Union. Because of the substance’s performance enhancing nature, it is banned from competition and athletes are commonly tested for it.

Full Story Here: China Fears Its Own Food, Yet We Import It | Economy In Crisis.

Since before the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring 50 years ago, scientists have known that certain synthetic chemicals can interfere with the hormones that regulate the body’s most vital systems. Evidence of the health impacts of so-called endocrine-disrupting chemicals grew from the 1960s to the 1990s. With the 1996 publication of Our Stolen Future by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and J. Peterson Myers, many people heard for the first time how such exposures — from industrial pollution, pesticides, and contact with finished consumer products, such as plastics — were affecting people and wildlife. Since then public concern about these impacts has grown.

In 2009, the American Medical Association called for reduced exposure to endocrine- disrupting chemicals. Last year, eight scientific societies, representing some 40,000 researchers, urged federal regulators to incorporate the latest research on endocrine-disrupters into chemical safety testing.

Full Story Here: Scientists Warn of Low-Dose Risks of Chemical Exposure by Elizabeth Grossman: Yale Environment 360.

Two years and three days after President Barack Obama signed into law a health care overhaul aimed at extending medical insurance to more than 30 million Americans, the high court begins three days of hearings over the law’s validity.

The challenge from 26 states and a small business group puts the court smack in the middle of a heavily partisan fight over the president’s major domestic accomplishment and a presidential election campaign in which all his Republican challengers oppose the law.

Full Story Here: Obama Health Law Reaches Supreme Court.

On the second anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, Mitt Romney seems willing to say almost anything to distance himself from the fact that his 2006 Massachusetts health care law served as a template for the national coverage expansion — even if it includes outright lying about its provisions.

During an event this morning in Louisiana, Romney told at least three whoppers. The former governor said that a recent Congressional Budget Office report concluded that the costs of the law have doubled, cited a discredited study claiming that 30 percent of employers will stop offering insurance as a result of the law, and insisted that the Catholic Church would be required to offer birth control to its employees:

Full Story Here: Romney Celebrates Health Care Reform Anniversary By Lying About It | ThinkProgress.

Congress finds that the health care and insurance industries are industries affecting interstate commerce and the health care liability litigation systems existing throughout the United States are activities that affect interstate commerce by contributing to the high costs of health care and premiums for health care liability insurance purchased by health care system providers.

The administration is deploying this very argument in defense of the Affordable Care Act at the Supreme Court next week, insisting that since health care costs “affect interstate commerce,” the Constitution’s commerce clause empowers Congress to regulate the industry and require everyone to purchase coverage in an effort to lower insurance premiums. As a result of the mandate — that is, if people are required to purchase insurance before they fall ill — Congress can require insurance companies to accept all applicants, regardless of their pre-existing conditions, and offer more affordable coverage to those who need it most.

Full Story Here: House Republicans Accidentally Accept The Constitutionality Of The Affordable Care Act | ThinkProgress.

Today is the two-year anniversary of President Barack Obama signing the Affordable Care Act, which, once fully implemented will cover 30 million Americans and begin to lower the rate of growth in health care spending. Since reform passed, however, Republicans have voted to repeal or defund the law at least 25 times and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is preparing to focus largely on health care as he charts “a course for a Republican Senate in 2013 and what could be a bruising reelection bid in 2014.”

During the nearly 10-month legislative battle that preceded passage and in the years after, the GOP characterized the bill as a “socialist” “government takeover” and warned Americans that the bill would destroy lives and American society, hurling apocalyptic warnings that seem downright satirical two years later:

Full Story Here: FLASHBACK: Two Years Ago, GOP Predicted ‘Armageddon’ If Health Reform Became Law | ThinkProgress.

You’ve probably heard while growing up that ‘you are what you eat.’ Well, if that saying holds any truth, then Leo Barnett might as well be a carrot. The three-year-old boy from Britain was written about in the Daily Mail as living with a condition known as hyper-beta carotenemia. Other than being a mouthful, the condition prohibits Barnett’s body from digesting carotene.

You might be more familiar with beta carotene as the compound the body converts to vitamin A after eating certain foods, or as the pigment that gives some fruits and vegetables their orange colour. But for Barnett, eating something like a carrot or an orange will leave the toddler looking, well, orange. Since Barnett’s body can’t handle the carotene due to a missing enzyme in his liver, the beta carotene builds up within his body and the result is an orange tinge to his skin that would give any tanning salon a run for their money.

While Barnett is believed to be the only one in Britain with the disease, he’s not the only one with adverse reactions to certain foods. Health Canada reports that as many as five to six per cent of young children and three to four per cent of adults in westernized countries have some sort of food allergy that ranges from mild to fatal. While hyper-beta carotenemia is usually non-fatal, when combined with a weak immune system, the lack of vitamin A can lead to illness.

Full Story Here: Food Body Reactions: 7 Foods That Have Strange Side Effects.

Charlie Sheen, John Edwards, Anthony Weiner, David Duchovny: These men share more than a wandering eye. All of them have supposedly been not just fans of but actually addicted to sex.

In recent years sex has become the addiction du jour. Google “sex addiction,” which does not appear in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and you’ll find dozens of websites detailing symptoms, causes and treatments. Now, in his new book “The Myth of Sex Addiction,” David J. Ley, Ph.D. is calling foul on what he considers an irresponsible diagnosis that “poses a real risk of stigma and shame to innocent people.”

The debate over whether sex addiction is real and should be diagnosed as an official disorder (for which treatments could be covered by insurance and pharmaceuticals could be developed) isn’t new. While some, like Ley, argue that it isn’t real, many others disagree. In November, The Daily Beast published a piece titled “The Sex Addiction Epidemic.” The article reported that the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health, “an education and sex-addiction treatment organization,” estimated that 3 to 5 percent of the US population, approximately 9 million people may meet the criteria for sex addiction. WebMD describes the sex addict in detail, as “a person who has an unusually intense sex drive or an obsession with sex. Sex and the thought of sex tend to dominate the sex addict’s thinking, making it difficult to work or engage in healthy personal relationships.” Ley contends that the idea that a person could be hooked on sex really gained traction as the Clinton scandal came to light in 1998, and it appears that the number of sex therapists treating this sort of compulsive behavior and the number of organizations offering treatment has been on the rise since around 2000. The Daily Beast reported that 10 years ago fewer than 100 therapists were treating sex addiction — now 1,500 are.

Full Story Here: Sex Addiction: Why You’re Not Addicted To Sex, According to Dr. David J. Ley.

Rush Limbaugh has been on a several day long sexist tirade against Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, who testified before Congress on the Obama administration’s proposed rule requiring employers to provide contraception coverage in their health plans. Limbaugh’s misogynistic attacks have earned him the condemnation of 75 Democratic lawmakers and lost him the support of at least four advertisers.

Conservatives have tried to frame the debate over the contraception rule as one of religious freedom, while progressives have countered that it’s simply about women’s health. However, as New Deal 2.0′s Bryce Covert noted, providing access to contraception is also simply good economic policy:

Research consistently demonstrates a link between decreased fertility thanks to contraception and increased female employment. And right on cue, women, freed up from unwanted child bearing and child rearing, consequently flooded the workforce after the pill became widely accessible. In 1950, 18 million women were in the workforce. By the 1980s, the pill’s impact had had such an effect that 60 percent of women of reproductive age were employed. By 2000, the ranks of women in the workforce had more than tripled since the ’50s, rising to 66 million. Overall, from 1970 to 2009 women went from holding 37 percent of all jobs to almost half of them.

Full Story Here: How Access To Contraception Benefits The Economy | ThinkProgress.

Fruit chews have long become a staple snack in many family homes. They’re quick, easy and tout appealing healthy qualities — making them incredibly attractive to busy parents (coming in handy for children and adults alike). Most of these fruity chews are low in calories and fat free, some of them even containing your daily need of a handful of vitamins in just one little pouch. They’re even made with real fruit juice and fruit purees. With all these factors in mind, one begins to wonder who needs to eat plain fruit anymore?

While fruit snacks are definitely low on the list of the worst offenders of processed foods, they’re still, well, a processed food. So that means, for one, they’re built to last for a long period of time on the grocery shelves, and two, they’ve been engineered to smell, look and taste appetizing.

Let’s take a look at what exactly is in these snacks, in addition to the fruit juices and purees. An average fruit chew snack ingredient list will look something like this: Corn syrup, sugar, modified corn starch, juice from concentrate, fruit purees, citric acid, lactic acid, natural and artificial flavors, sodium citrate, gelatin, coconut oil, carnauba wax, red 40, yellow 5 and blue 1.

Full Story Here: What’s In Your Fruit Chew Snacks?.

For the second time this year, certain birth control medications are being recalled over a packaging error.

Glenmark Generics Inc. has announced a voluntary recall of seven lots of its Norgestimate and Ethinyl Estradiol Tablets USP, 0.18 mg/0.035 mg, 0.215 mg/0.035 mg, 0.25 mg/0.035 mg.

Glenmark Generics explained how the error occurred:

The recall is being implemented because of a packaging error, where select blisters were rotated 180 degrees within the card, reversing the weekly tablet orientation and making the lot number and expiry date visible only on the outer pouch.

Birth control pills are intentionally packaged in a specific order to provide protection from pregnancy. In these specific recalled pills, 21 tablets contain hormonal compounds to prevent pregnancy, while the last seven tablets don’t contain any active ingredients. If a woman takes the pills out of order or takes inactive pills thinking they are active, she may be at risk of pregnancy.

Full Story Here: Birth Control Recall: Norgestimate and Ethinyl Estradiol Tablets Recalled Over Packaging Errors.

We intuitively know that sleep is important, and a great deal of research on the health effects of sleeplessness backs up this belief. But what exactly is going on in our brains when we don’t get enough shuteye?

Researchers tackled this question in a new study that suggests our brains become bundles of hyper-reactive nerve cells as the sleepless hours tick by. In a sense, our noggins overheat when we deprive them of necessary down time–bad news for those of us who work into the wee hours.

The research team, led by Marcello Massimini of the University of Milan, delivered a stout magnetic current to study participants’ brains that set off a cascade of electrical responses throughout their nerve cells. The team then measured the strength of this electrical response in the frontal cortex, a brain region that’s involved in making executive decisions, using nodes attached to participants’ scalps. This procedure was completed a day before a night of sleep deprivation and repeated afterward.

Full Story Here: Study: Sleeplessness Causes Our Mental Circuits to Overheat – Forbes.

Yesterday, a George W. Bush appointed judge declared unconstitutional a Washington state law that, among other things, requires pharmacies to dispense birth control and emergency contraception. While it’s not impossible that the law should be blocked on very narrow grounds, Judge Ronald Leighton’s opinion overreaches in ways that could undermine many efforts to protect women’s health and potentially render religious objectors immune to the rule of law.

This lawsuit was brought by pharmacies and pharmacists who objected to dispensing emergency contraception on religious grounds. Yet, as conservative Justice Antonin Scalia explained in a Supreme Court opinion more than twenty years ago, a law does not suddenly become unconstitutional because someone raises a religious objection to it. Scalia explained that “the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a ‘valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes).’” In other words, so long as a law does not single out people of faith for inferior treatment, they have to follow they same laws as everyone else.

Leighton, however, suggests that a law must also exempt religious objectors if it also contains exemptions that are unrelated to religion:

Full Story Here: Bush-Appointed Judge Strikes Down Washington Law Protecting Access To Birth Control | ThinkProgress.

Full Story Here: The Testimony Chairman Issa Doesn’t Want You to Hear – YouTube.

A military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities is “not prudent” at the present moment, America’s top military official, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, told “CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS” in an interview set to air Sunday morning.

“It’s not prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran,” said Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the interview.

“I think it would be premature to exclusively decide that the time for a military option was upon us,” Dempsey added, according to early reports of the interview, noting that he sensed that increased sanctions were beginning to have an effect.

Full Story Here: Israeli Strike On Iran ‘Not Prudent,’ Gen. Martin Dempsey Says.

People do some crazy stuff to get rid of their post-workout muscle pain, which is known in the medical community as DOMS — for delayed onset muscle soreness. DOMS occurs when an exercise causes stress to muscle tissue. The tissue develops microscopic tears, causing inflammation and then pain that begins to mount in the 24- to 48-hour period that follows a workout.

While some athletes swear by acupuncture (that works!), others insist that nothing but a hot water bottle (which doesn’t) will do. But amidst all the anecdotal evidence and superstition, how can we determine what actually will improve the muscle pain? A few new studies give us a glimpse into what might be the best strategies, including the latest one, released just yesterday on the efficacy of ice baths – a method of dunking your post-workout body in a frigid bath of water that is favored by everyone from rugby players to triathletes.

The study found that cold water baths do indeed reduce muscle soreness, but they have a limited effect. A look at some other remedies that have the clinical data to back up their claims:

Full Story Here: Sore Muscle Remedies That Really Work.

Oh my god. I am so OCD.”

I know you’ve been obsessed, so tell me: what’s your poison? What did it for you? Was it an unrequited crush? Some esoteric branch of knowledge you could never quite master? A mop-haired teen idol with the face and vocal range of a neutered kitten? An old grudge you know will never be put right? Trouble at work, at home, in bed, in church? Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim?

Every one has been in that situation, when you wish you could quit thinking about something. Yet when you say “Stop,” your brain, politely but insistently, says “No.”

I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). But I want you to consider your own obsessions before we talk about my clinical ones, because the line between the two is not as clean and distinct as you might think. I suffer from debilitating obsessions that can leave me paralyzed by anxiety, and from compulsive ritual behaviors that can consume me for hours at a time. But in their structure (not necessarily in their content, and certainly not in their persistence) my obsessions are quite similar to yours.

Full Story Here: Fletcher Wortmann: The Real Experience Of Obsession.

Part of a series investigating the complex links between human, animal and environmental health: The Infection Loop.

In early October 2001, just days after Bob Stevens hiked through North Carolina’s Chimney Rock Park and drank from a waterfall, government officials were retracing his steps. They were desperate to know why the 63-year-old man lay gravely ill in a Florida hospital. His diagnosis: anthrax.

“We scratched our heads,” says Dr. D.A. Henderson, who served as the first director of the U.S. Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness following Sept. 11. While anthrax can thrive in nature, and has been known to kill livestock, human exposure is very rare. Nevertheless, officials searched for evidence of this bacterial disease, covering a trail between Stevens’ herb garden in Lantana, Fla., and an Irish Pub in Charlotte, N.C. Nothing surfaced. It wasn’t until several days later, when more anthrax cases popped up in New York City, that it became clear that this was an unnatural and deliberate attack — delivered via a tainted letter.

Stevens’ death marked the country’s first known casualty of bioterrorism. Yet the attack was hardly the first use of a living weapon.

Full Story Here: Bioterrorism Funding Withers As Death Germs Thrive In Labs, Nature.

Republicans in Congress have gone to war over the administration’s new rule requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage to women. Despite the fact that the regulation already excludes more than 335,000 entities, Republicans have introduced legislation seeking to expand the conscience clause protection to exclude even more religiously affiliated institutions from the requirement. The move, which is opposed by women’s groups, would significantly restrict access to affordable birth control by allowing Catholic colleges, universities, or hospitals to deny contraception coverage. As a result, these women would have to spend up to $600 a year buying birth control without the help of insurance.

But interestingly, members of Congress who seek to limit the availability of affordable birth control all enjoy contraception insurance as part of the government managed Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB). Members first approved the so-called “contraception equity” provision in 1998, through the FY 1999 Omnibus Supplemental Appropriations Act, H.R. 4328, PL 105-277, and have passed the measure ever since. The language “ensures that federal employees participating in FEHBP have insurance coverage of FDA-approved prescription contraceptives and related services.”

A ThinkProgress analysis reveals that 12 members of Congress who approved the conference report for the 1999 omnibus bill have signed on as co-sponsors of the current GOP-led measure to limit women’s access to contraception by changing the Obama administration’s rule. From the original FEHBP requirement:

Full Story Here: FACT: Members Of Congress Benefit From Contraception Coverage, But Seek To Limit Access For Women | ThinkProgress.

Hoping to hold the line on President Barack Obama’s controversial contraception ruling, which requires most religiously affiliated employers to cover the costs of their employees’ birth control, Democrats are passing around private polling data from last August showing that a majority of the country — including Catholics — actually favors the policy.

A Democratic source on Thursday morning sent over previously unreleased data put together by pollster Celinda Lake for the Herndon Alliance, a non-partisan pro-health care reform coalition. The survey, conducted with more than 1,000 people, focuses on all aspects of the Affordable Care Act.

Its release was not authorized by the Herndon Alliance. For the Democratic party, however, the poll serves an important function. It contained a series of questions that are highly relevant to the debate over whether religious-oriented institutions should be required to offer contraception as part of their health care plans.

Full Story Here: Barack Obama’s Contraception Ruling Backed By Previously Unreleased Survey.

You can’t see them. They’re hidden from view and probably always will be. But the health insurance industry’s big guns are in place and pointed directly at the citizens of Vermont.

Health insurers were not able to stop the state’s drive last year toward a single-payer health care system, which insurers have spent millions to scare Americans into believing would be the worst thing ever. Despite the ceaseless spin, Vermont lawmakers last May demonstrated they could not be bought nor intimidated when they became the first in the nation to pass a bill that will probably establish a single-payer beachhead in the U.S.

When he signed Act 48 into law on May 27, surrounded by dozens of state residents who worked for many years to achieve universal coverage, Governor Peter Shumlin expressed great pride in what had been accomplished.

Full Story Here: ANALYSIS: The battle for Vermont’s health | iWatch News by The Center for Public Integrity.

Full Story Here: Life & Happiness With Laura Rowley: How To Sleep Better (VIDEO).

Dr. David Agus spoke with “CBS This Morning” about his new book “The End of Illness” and longevity. Watch the above video to see his key tip to living longer and why something as simple as wearing uncomfortable shoes can hurt you in the long run.

Full Story Here: Dr. David Agus, Author Of ‘The End Of Illness,’ Offers Surprising Tips To Live Better, Longer.

Judging from its unexpected jump into the most-read list, this graph showing the breakdown of care provided by Planned Parenthood’s health centers is proving useful to people. So here it is again, lifted from April. Note the light blue slice, which suggests that cancer screenings account for approximately one-sixth of Planned Parenthood’s activities.

With Planned Parenthood being either the major obstacle to a budget deal or one of the major obstacles to a budget deal, it’s worth taking a minute explaining what they do — and what they don’t do.

As you can see in the chart atop this post, abortion services account for about 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s activities. That’s less than cancer screening and prevention (16 percent), STD testing for both men and women (35 percent), and contraception (also 35 percent). About 80 percent of Planned Parenthood’s users are over age 20, and 75 percent have incomes below 150 percent of the poverty line. Planned Parenthood itself estimates it prevents more than 620,000 unintended pregnancies each year, and 220,000 abortions. It’s also worth noting that federal law already forbids Planned Parenthood from using the funds it receives from the government for abortions.

Full Story Here: Repost: What Planned Parenthood actually does, in one chart – The Washington Post.

Noting that the foundation based their decision to sever ties on anti-choice advocate Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) “spurious congressional investigation” into Planned Parenthood, Speier blasted Komen for falling into the trap of a “political sandbox.” “A hearing has never been held,” she noted. “I guess it means that Susan G. Komen has become a 501(d)(4), because no longer do they want to be providing nonprofits, they want to become a political advocacy group,” she said.

Watch it:

Full Story Here: Rep. Speier Pulls Support From Breast Cancer Foundation Over Decision To Sever Ties With Planned Parenthood | ThinkProgress.

Looking at millions of individual bills that makeup the 2.7 trillion dollars of annual health care costs opens a gigantic window on the massive waste, redundancy, profiteering, fraud and sometimes criminal over-billing.

Here is a partial example of what I mean, in the words of Philip M. Boffey, the estimable science writer for the New York Times:

“Why does an appendectomy in Germany cost roughly a quarter what it costs in the United States? ($3,285 compared to $13,123). Or an MRI scan cost less than a third as much, on average, in Canada? ($304 compared to $1,009).”

“Americans continue to spend more on health care than patients anywhere else. In 2009, we spent $7,960 per person, twice as much as France, which is known for providing very good health services. And for all that spending, we get very mixed results–some superb, some average, some inferior–compared with other advanced nations.”

Moreover, France and Germany, Italy, England, Canada, Belgium, Sweden and all other western countries plus Japan and Taiwan cover almost all their citizens, unlike the U.S. where 50,000,000 people are uninsured.

Full Story Here: Why Are US Health Costs So High? Follow the Bills | Common Dreams.

Currently, NIOSH is still evaluating whether there exists sufficient scientific causality to justify compensating 9/11 first responders and survivors that have developed cancer. In fact, this past July, NIOSH Director John Howard issued a report explaining:

Full Story Here: Sickened and Still Waiting for Justice: 9/11 First Responders and Cold War Nuclear Weapons Workers Battle for Fair Compensation | Truthout.

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last 3 to 12 weeks of their lives.

People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Full Story Here: Bronnie Ware: Top 5 Regrets of the Dying.

One day in August 2007, Daniel Coleman, an administrator in the Maryland court system, decided he should stay home to recover from an illness, as his doctor had ordered. But the day after he requested time off, he suddenly had more to worry about than his health; he was unemployed, too.

In many industrialized countries around the world, taking time off from work to deal with a medical issue isn’t just a benefit; it’s considered an entitlement, as much as an eight-hour day. But in the world’s richest nation, a worker who claims that right has had to appeal to the highest court in the land.

So the Supreme Court will now weigh the rights of public employees to seek justice under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The case, Coleman v. Maryland Court of Appeals, is based on Coleman’s lawsuit alleging that he was unfairly terminated following a dispute with his supervisor over leave time. Pitting Coleman, together with many civil rights advocates, against Maryland and 26 other states, the central question is whether a state can be held accountable under the law as a private employer would.

Full Story Here: The Right to Be Healthy: Supreme Court Weighs Sick Leave for State Workers – Working In These Times.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pulled a Scrooge move just before Christmas. The agency published an entry in the Federal Register declaring that it will end its attempt at mandatory restrictions on the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture. The agency isn’t advertising the shift, though: This news would have remained a secret if not for Maryn McKenna’s Superbug blog over at Wired. McKenna, who specializes in writing about antibiotics and their link to pathogens, caught the Federal Register notice.

This is a sorry end to a process that began in 1977 (!), but McKenna created an excellent timeline that traces the history of the issue back to the 1950s. In 2009, the Obama administration breathed new life into a moribund process because the top two Obama appointees at the FDA, Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and her then-deputy Joshua Sharfstein, strongly supported restricting antibiotic use in agriculture.

But despite Hamburg and Sharfstein’s many supportive statements, the FDA has only produced a draft set of “voluntary” guidelines. And, with this latest announcement, it looks like that’s as far as they’re willing to go.

Full Story Here: Scrooged: FDA gives up on antibiotic restrictions in livestock | Grist.

The new rules are being issued under the new health care law and will make pharmaceutical companies report money they have given to doctors for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment. The payment data will be made available to the public online.

Companies that fail to comply with the new rule could be subject to a penalty up to $10,000 for each payment they fail to report.

Full Story Here: Obama administration to make drug companies disclose money paid to doctors | The Raw Story.

The new rules are being issued under the new health care law and will make pharmaceutical companies report money they have given to doctors for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment. The payment data will be made available to the public online.

Companies that fail to comply with the new rule could be subject to a penalty up to $10,000 for each payment they fail to report.

Full Story Here: Obama administration to make drug companies disclose money paid to doctors | The Raw Story.

Tom Donohue signaled that the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce may be softening its attacks against President Obama’s signature accomplishments like the Affordable Care Act and the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Kevin Hall reports that Donohue is pledging a “wait-and-see approach” towards the new agency and has not decided if the organization will challenge the recess appointment of Richard Cordray as its director.

During his annual State of the Business address yesterday, Donohue also adopted a more moderate tone towards health care reform. “The health care law established 159 new agencies, panels, commissions, and regulatory bodies,” Donohue said, but did not echo his 2011 call for repealing the law in its entirety. Consider the contrast:

DONOHUE IN 2011: By mid-December, HHS had already granted 222 waivers to the law—a revealing acknowledgement that the law is unworkable. And, with key provisions under challenge in the courts by states and others, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

Last year, while strongly advocating health care reform, the Chamber was a leader in the fight against this particular bill—and thus we support legislation in the House to repeal it. We see the upcoming House vote as an opportunity for everyone to take a fresh look at health care reform—and to replace unworkable approaches with more effective measures that will lower costs, expand access, and improve quality.

Full Story Here: Chamber Of Commerce Drops Call For Health Care Repeal From Annual Policy Address | ThinkProgress.

OPS: The Fascist Oligarchy is becoming frightened

You’ll be hard-pressed to open a magazine or go to a news site without seeing headlines like these. Human relationships, desire, love and sex have been written about and rationalized since time immemorial, it’s no wonder that modern scientists continually try to dissect their mysteries. But what can our minds really tell us about matters of the heart?

That’s exactly what author Kayt Sukel, who has a background in neuroscience, set out to find out. The result was her new book, “Dirty Minds: How Our Brains Influence Love, Sex and Relationships.” Part of her exploratory journey even included being a lab rat for a study on female orgasms — a study which produced a pretty incredible video of a woman’s brain during climax. The experiment involved masturbating to orgasm … while strapped into an fMRI machine. It may not have been her sexiest moment, but Sukel says she didn’t let the circumstances affect her performance.

“My Type-A personality and refusal to accept failure probably helped me along,” she said, laughing. “It was kind of a ‘Little Engine That Could’ moment.”

Full Story Here: The Science Of Sex: 5 Must-Know Facts About Your Brain And Desire.

The results, from one of the largest and longest studies on the health effects of marijuana, are hazier for heavy users – those who smoke two or more joints daily for several years. The data suggest that using marijuana that often might cause a decline in lung function, but there weren’t enough heavy users among the 5,000 young adults in the study to draw firm conclusions.

Still, the authors recommended “caution and moderation when marijuana use is considered.”

Marijuana is an illegal drug under federal law although some states allow its use for medical purposes.

The study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham was released Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association

Full Story Here: Marijuana And Lungs: Study Finds Drug Doesn’t Do Same Kind Of Damage As Tobacco.

Today, however, In These Times’ Michelle Chen reports that the bans may have arrived too late, at least for farm workers and thier communities:

Steven Roach of the advocacy group Food Animal Concerns Trust, told In These Times that while the diseases can spread in many ways through the environment, “There’s a very clear connection between farmworkers and some of the resistant infections.” Due to workplace exposures, he added, “They’re at higher risk for getting resistant infections. And they also are a pathway for introducing resistant bacteria into the community. So a farm worker may just be carrying resistant bacteria if they visit somebody in the hospital, or they have children.”

Full Story Here: Despite FDA Antibiotic Ruling, Health Risks in Industrial Farming Persist | Common Dreams.

A shortage of Adderall, which is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, shows little sign of easing as manufacturers struggle to get enough active ingredient to make the drug and demand climbs.

Adderall, a stimulant, is a controlled substance, meaning it is addictive and has the potential to be abused. The Drug Enforcement Administration tightly regulates how much of the drug’s active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) can be distributed to manufacturers each year.

The system is designed to prevent the creation of stockpiles that could be diverted for inappropriate use. Adderall and other stimulants are popular with students who may not have ADHD but are seeking to improve their test scores.

Full Story Here: Adderall Shortage Shows Little Sign Of Easing As Demand Climbs.

Two separate research teams — one in the Netherlands and the other in the United States — have found ways to alter the H5N1 avian influenza so it could pass easily between mammals.

Two top scientific journals said on Tuesday they were mulling whether to publish full details on how Dutch scientists mutated the H5N1 flu virus in order for it to pass from one mammal to another.

Full Story Here: WHO ‘deeply concerned’ by mutant bird flu | The Raw Story.

The new year is upon us! Can you believe it will be 2012? Where did the time go? New Year’s Eve is a time for partying and revelry, forgetting the old year that has passed. But New Year’s Day brings the promise of a better year, a more prosperous one. Many cultures believe that eating specific foods on the first day of the new year brings luck, wealth and prosperity. It’s a tradition that’s worth upholding even if you’re not a believer in luck.

From Europe to South America, people have been eating lucky foods for centuries. Browse our guide for the dishes you should be eating this New Year’s Day. You’ll find that eating fish and pork brings lots of luck, but chicken and lobster is to be avoided at all costs. And you might think it’s strange to stuff your face with twelve grapes on New Year’s Eve, but it might just work and bring you luck. What’s the harm in at least trying?

Full Story Here: Good Luck Foods For The New Year.

2012 Medicare Debate: Baby Boomers At Center Of Issue

Baby boomers take note: Medicare as your parents have known it is headed for big changes no matter who wins the White House in 2012. You may not like it, but you might have to accept it.

Dial down the partisan rhetoric and surprising similarities emerge from competing policy prescriptions by President Barack Obama and leading Republicans such as Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan.

Limit the overall growth of Medicare spending? It’s in both approaches.

Squeeze more money from upper-income retirees and some in the middle-class? Ditto.

Raise the eligibility age? That too, if the deal is right.

Full Story Here: 2012 Medicare Debate: Baby Boomers At Center Of Issue.

Stella, a small business owner, canceled his health insurance plan more than three years ago when his premium rose to more than $400 a month. He considered himself healthy and decided that he was wasting money on something that he rarely used.

So when a deal popped up on daily deals site Groupon for a teeth cleaning, exam and an X-ray at a nearby dentist, Stella, 55, bought the deal – which the company calls a “Groupon” – for himself and another for his daughter. He paid $39 for each, $151 below what the dentist normally charges.

Full Story Here: Daily Deals Sites Offering Cheaper Healthcare For Uninsured Americans.

Thyme Gargle

Thyme has a natural antiseptic called thymol, which is an active ingredient in some mouthwashes. It also soothes the throat. Thyme tea can also be used as a gargle for a sore throat, or drunk to ease stomach cramps.

Steep one tablespoon of dried thyme in one cup boiling water. Strain, let cool, and gargle or drink.—K.M.

Organic Lip Balm

Immune systems aren’t the only things that take a hit in winter; skin also shows the wear of those chilly months. Lips lose moisture more quickly than other parts of the face because they don’t have sweat or sebaceous glands. Gentle protection from homemade lip balm is an appealing alternative to using store-bought brands made from petroleum jelly.

For this version you’ll need 2 tbsp. coconut oil, 1 tbsp. grated cocoa butter, and 1/4 tsp. vitamin E oil (or the oil from 3 capsules). If you like scent and flavor, add a drop of rose, peppermint, vanilla, or sweet orange essential oil.

Melt the coconut oil in a stainless steel pot over low heat. Stir in cocoa butter until melted. Remove from heat, add vitamin E oil and stir. Pour the mixture into a container—empty baby food or cosmetic jars, or small tins from the beauty supply store or herbalist. Let set for three hours.—J.K.

Full Story Here: 6 Recipes for Winter Wellness by Jennifer Kaye and Kate Malongowski — YES! Magazine.

Let’s say you have a Ford and decide to replace everything under the hood with Hyundai parts, including the engine and transmission. Could you still honestly market your car as a Ford?

That question gets at the heart of the controversy over who is being more forthright about GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to “save” Medicare, Republicans or Democrats.

If you overhaul the Medicare system like you did your Ford and tell the public it’s still Medicare, are you doing so honestly?

As I noted last week, PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Time’s fact checker, decided that the Democrats’ claim that Ryan’s plan would mean the end of Medicare was so blatantly untrue it merited designation as the 2011 “Lie of the Year.” Republicans, whose erroneous claims about health care reform garnered “Lie of the Year” prizes in 2009 and 2010, cheered. Democrats, as you might imagine, jeered — as did some journalists and pundits.

Full Story Here: When Medicare Isn’t Medicare | Common Dreams.

Here’s what I wanted for Christmas: something that would make us both healthier and richer. And since I was just making a wish, why not ask that Americans get smarter, too?

Surprise: I got my wish, in the form of new Environmental Protection Agency standards on mercury and air toxics for power plants. These rules are long overdue: we were supposed to start regulating mercury more than 20 years ago. But the rules are finally here, and will deliver huge benefits at only modest cost.

So, naturally, Republicans are furious. But before I get to the politics, let’s talk about what a good thing the E.P.A. just did.

Full Story Here: Springtime for Toxics – NYTimes.com.

Roger Bybee

With a raft of new Charles Dickens biographies hitting bookstores this fall, it is difficult not to quote the classic chronicler of the Victorian era’s polarities when describing the state of America’s healthcare system: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

The good times are concentrated among corporate executives. Healthcare, insurance and drug company CEOs have actually managed to displace bankers as the best-rewarded bosses in America. The Guardian archly reported recenty: “Pity Wall Street’s bankers. Once the highest-paid bosses in the land, they are now also-rans. The real money is in healthcare and drugs, according to the latest survey of executive pay.”

Among the big winners in healthcare listed by the UK-based newspaper:

John Hammergren, chief executive of McKesson Corporation, a pharmaceutical distribution corporation, took home a breathtaking $145,266,971 in 2010.

Joel Gemunder, outgoing president of Omnicare, a pharmacy company that dispenses drugs in nursing homes, benefited handsomely from s 2010 total pay package worth $98,283,242.

“CVS Caremark, which operates 7,000 pharmacies across the US, awarded chief executive Thomas Ryan $68,079,823 in 2010.

Ronald Williams, boss of health insurance giant Aetna, made $57,787,786 in 2010.

But for America’s healthcare consumers, the bad times got worse.

Full Story Here: The Best of Times and the Worst of Times, When It Comes to Heathcare – Working In These Times.

Two nurses in a Utah hospital’s intensive care unit were fired this week for taping a patient’s mouth shut and laughing about it, hospital officials said Friday.

Artalejo’s daughter, Brittany Bilson, told the television station that her mother’s teeth were chattering and she was moaning and shaking. Bilson said the nurses told her mother to shut up, taped her mouth closed and joked they would be fired if they were caught.

Penny Artalejo was admitted to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo on Dec. 17 with nausea and anxiety from taking medication for chronic neck pain, her daughters told Utah radio station KSL.com.

Full Story Here: Taping Patient’s Mouth Shut: Utah Nurse Fired For Treatment Of Penny Artalejo.

Long-delayed rules to limit toxins like mercury and arsenic from coal-burning power plants will be approved today, after twenty years of delay that protected coal utility profits at the expense of American health. The Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will finalize its mercury rule today, marking the end of an era of deliberate pollution despite the scientific knowledge that pregnant women and small children were being poisoned:

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to approve a tough new rule on Friday to limit emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxins from the country’s power plants, according to people with knowledge of the new standard. Though mercury is a known neurotoxin profoundly harmful to children and pregnant women, the air toxins rule has been more than 20 years in the making, repeatedly stymied because of objections from coal-burning utilities about the cost of installing pollution control equipment.

Full Story Here: After 20 Years Of Poisoned Babies, EPA Will Finally Cut Coal Industry’s Toxic Mercury Pollution | ThinkProgress.

Before you pour your child a heapin’ bowl of sugary cereal, read this: The Environmental Working Group has just come out with its list of the 10 worst children’s cereals. Your child’s favorite might be on it.

At No. 1 is Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, coming in at 55.6% sugar by weight, followed by Post Golden Crisp at 51.9% and Kellogg’s Froot Loops Marshmallow at 48.3%. The list also includes, in descending order of sugar, Quaker Oats Cap’n Crunch OOPS! All Berries (yes, that’s really the name), Quaker Oats Cap’n Crunch original, Quaker Oats Oh!s, Kellogg’s Smorz, Kellogg’s Apple Jacks and Quaker Oats Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries. In last place, a somewhat dubious achievement, is Kellogg’s Froot Loops original at 41.4% sugar by weight.

How much sugar is that? The report found that a cup of Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, Post Golden Crisp or General Mills Wheaties Fuel has more sugar at 18.7 to 20 grams than does a Hostess Twinkie, which comes in at 17.5 grams.

Full Story Here: Some children’s cereals have too much sugar, a report says – latimes.com.

It used to be joked that a consultant is someone who borrows your watch to tell you what time it is. These days, the opportunist is Big Pharma, which raises your insurance premiums and taxes while providing you “low-priced” drugs that you paid for.

How did Pharma get a good third of the United States taking antidepressants, statins, and Purple Pills, albeit at low prices? By selling the diseases of depression, high cholesterol, and gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD. Supply-driven marketing, also known as “Have Drug — Need Disease and Patients,” not only turns the nation into pill-popping hypochondriacs, it distracts from Pharma’s drought of real drugs for real medical problems.

Of course, not all diseases are Wall Street pleasers. To be a true blockbuster disease, a condition must (1) really exist but have huge diagnostic “wiggle room” and no clear-cut test, (2) be potentially serious with “silent symptoms” said to “only get worse” if untreated, (3) be “underrecognized,” “underreported” with “barriers” to treatment, (4) explain hitherto vague health problems a patient has had, (5) have a catchy name — ED, ADHD, RLS, Low T or IBS — and instant medical identity, and (6) need an expensive new drug that has no generic equivalent.

Full Story Here: Seven Diseases Big Pharma Hopes You Get in 2012 | | AlterNet.

As ThinkProgress has been reporting for some time, the corporate front group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been colluding with the billionaire Koch brothers to privatize government and eliminate environmental regulations that interfere with profits.

GOP legislators in many states have given ALEC free reign to write anti-health care reform and anti-environment legislation. Now, ALEC is fighting to kill Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules limiting the sale of rat poisons that pose a serious health threat to children and the ecosystem.

A top representative for the ultra-conservative group said kids eating rat poison is an “acceptable risk” that does not justify government intervention:

Full Story Here: ALEC Deems Kids Eating Rat Poison An ‘Acceptable Risk’ | ThinkProgress.

Shampoo, check. Garbages bags, check. Plan B, check.

If the federal government approves a request from Plan B’s manufacturer, the emergency contraception that prevents pregnancy up to 72 hours after sexual intercourse may soon be available to consumers over-the-counter.

Instead of having to ask a pharmacist for the product, Plan B will be placed on shelves alongside other contraceptives, such as condoms and spermicides. Even more significantly, there will be no age limit to buy the emergency contraception without a prescription.

Currently, you can only purchase Plan B without a prescription if you are at least 17 years old.

Despite claims to the contrary, Plan B and the “abortion pill” are not the same thing. Plan B works by preventing pregnancy. It cannot end a pregnancy.

Full Story Here: FDA Weighs Putting Plan B Morning-After Pill On Drugstore Shelves.

Traces of radioactive cesium thought to be from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were detected in Japanese baby formula on Tuesday as concerns about food safety continue almost nine months after the accident.

Meiji, the Tokyo company that makes the powdered formula, announced the recall of 400,000 cans of it as a precaution, but said the levels of cesium detected were well below the government’s safety limits. Tests found a combined 30.8 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 134 and cesium 137, the company said, compared with the government limit of 200, the company said. (A becquerel is a frequently used measurement of radiation.)

Babies could still “drink the formula every day without any effect on their health,” Meiji said in a statement.

Full Story Here: Cesium Found in Japanese Baby Formula – NYTimes.com.

David Sbarra, Rita Law, and Robert Portley from the University of Arizona recently published a study to summarize the evidence on the link between divorce and early death. They gathered data from 32 studies involving more than 6.5 million people in 11 countries that included 755,000 divorces and 160,000 deaths.

In general, the researchers found that adults who were divorced were 23% more likely to die younger than their married counterparts. Men had almost twice as high a risk of early death compared to women. People younger than 65 years of age were more at risk following divorce than older people. This pattern was consistent regardless of what country people lived in.

Full Story Here: Robert Hughes, Jr.: Will Divorce Increase Your Chances of Dying?.

Medical marijuana jeopardizes liver transplant

A cancer patient is removed from the transplant list at Cedars-Sinai for using medical marijuana and for failing to show up for a drug test. He is hoping the hospital will reconsider.

Norman Smith, who has liver cancer, was placed on the transplant list at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center last year.

But early this year, doctors removed him because he was using medical marijuana and failed to show up for a drug test.

To get back on the list, Smith, 63, has to spend six months avoiding medical marijuana, submitting to random drug tests and receiving counseling. He is still undergoing chemotherapy and radiation for the cancer, which recently returned after being in remission. Smith has aske

Full Story Here: Medical marijuana jeopardizes liver transplant – latimes.com.

I have long argued that the impact of the Affordable Care Act is not nearly as big of a deal as opponents would have you believe. At the end of the day, the law is – in the main – little more than a successful effort to put an end to some of the more egregious health insurer abuses while creating an environment that should bring more Americans into programs that will give them at least some of the health care coverage they need.

There is, however, one notable exception – and it’s one that should have a long lasting and powerful impact on the future of health care in our country.

That would be the provision of the law, called the medical loss ratio, that requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of the consumers’ premium dollars they collect—85% for large group insurers—on actual medical care rather than overhead, marketing expenses and profit. Failure on the part of insurers to meet this requirement will result in the insurers having to send their customers a rebate check representing the amount in which they underspend on actual medical care.

Full Story Here: The Bomb Buried In Obamacare Explodes Today-Hallelujah! – Forbes.

Seven states that are suing to overturn the landmark law are also on the list for funding.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said 13 states will split grants totaling nearly $220 million to help set up health insurance exchanges. Millions of uninsured Americans will be able to buy private coverage through these online supermarkets starting in 2014, with taxpayer-provided assistance to cover the cost of premiums.

“States are moving at their own pace to get their exchanges up and running,” said Sebelius. “This is a natural result of a process that gives states maximum flexibility.”

Full Story Here: Obama Health Care Law: States Suing To Overturn Law Collect Federal Funding.

Men, might want to consider keeping that laptop off your lap.

A new study in the journal Fertility and Sterility found that when exposing sperm taken from 29 men to electromagnetic radiation from laptop WiFi for four hours, the sperm had DNA damage and decreased motility.

Reuters reports that about 25 percent of the sperm had stopped moving after the four-hour laptop radiation exposure, while just 14 percent of the sperm had stopped moving when kept away from a computer. Nine percent of the radiation-exposed sperm had DNA damage, which was three times the damage of the non-radiation exposed sperm.

The researchers, from Nascentis Medicina Reproductiva in Argentina and the Eastern Virginia Medical School, wrote in the study that they “speculate that keeping a laptop connected wirelessly to the internet on the lap near the testes may result in decreased male fertility. Further in vitro and in vivo studies are needed to prove this contention.”

Full Story Here: Laptop WiFi May Damage Sperm, Study Suggests.

Bird Flu: Scientists Develop New Strain Of H5N1, Avian Influenza, That Could Kill Millions

It sounds like the setup for a Hollywood thriller: scientists in a lab create a virus as contagious as the flu that kills half of those infected. We’re safe as long as the virus remains locked up, but if it escapes or gets into the hands of bioterrorists, it has the potential to become a pandemic and kill millions around the world.

But this isn’t the latest summer blockbuster. According to New Scientist magazine, researchers in the Netherlands studying H5N1 — commonly referred to as the bird flu or avian influenza — have created a strain of the virus that’s easily passed between mammals, and it’s just as lethal as the original virus.

According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, the H5N1 virus has infected more than 500 people in more than a dozen countries and is known to kill around 60 percent of those that become infected.

Full Story Here: Bird Flu: Scientists Develop New Strain Of H5N1, Avian Influenza, That Could Kill Millions.

A little more than a year ago, on the day after the GOP regained control of the House of Representatives, Speaker-to-be John Boehner said one of the first orders of business after he took charge would be the repeal of health care reform.

“I believe that the health care bill that was enacted by the current Congress will kill jobs in America, ruin the best health care system in the world, and bankrupt our country,” Boehner said at a press conference. “That means we have to do everything we can to try to repeal this bill and replace it with common sense reforms to bring down the cost of health care.”

Boehner is not the first nor the only Republican to try to make us believe that the U.S. has the world’s best health care system and that we’re bound to lose that distinction because of Obamacare. I’ve heard GOP candidates for president say the same thing in recent months, charging that we need to get rid of a President who clearly is trying to fix something that doesn’t need fixing, something that isn’t broken in the first place.

Full Story Here: Does the U.S. Have the World’s Best Health Care System? Yes, If You’re Talking About the Third World | Common Dreams.

That phase is taking place as the state moves toward implementation of the first-in-the-nation, single-payer health insurance system. The grant from the federal Department of Health and Human Services will be used so the state can continue the planning, development and design of its health benefits marketplace, or exchange, which eventually will help people buy private health insurance online.

The grant comes on top of a $1 million planning grant the state received last year, Vermont Health Care Reform Director Robin Lunge said.

Full Story Here: Vt. to get $18 million for US health care reform – Boston.com.

Americans are reporting that they weigh, on average, about 20 pounds more than they did 20 years ago, according to a new report from Gallup.

The findings, based on the annual Gallup Health and Healthcare Survey, show that men are reporting they weigh 196 pounds on average and women are reporting they weigh 160 pounds on average, up nearly 20 pounds from self-reported weights in 1990.

In addition, our “ideal weight” has also increased — for men, it is now 181 pounds (up from 177 pounds a decade ago), and for women, it is now 138 pounds (up from 137 a decade ago), according to the report.

Full Story Here: Americans Are 20 Pounds Heavier Today Than Two Decades Ago: Report.

Do you think that granting corporations the rights of people in the Citizens United case is disturbing? Then contemplate the fact that corporations have been patenting human genes and tissues at alarming rates — in the last 30 years, more than 40,000 patents have been granted on genes alone.

As the Occupy movement fights against the unmitigated influence of corporations on our lives, author and medical ethicist Harriet Washington’s new book, Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself–And the Consequences for Your Health and Our Medical Future, is a timely wakeup call to protect the very essence of human life from the medical-industrial complex.

In a recent phone interview with AlterNet, Washington discussed the dark implications of corporate medical patents, how we find ourselves in this nightmarish scenario and what needs to be done to stop medical research profits from trumping human health. Washington is also the author of Medical Apartheid, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has been a fellow in medical ethics at Harvard Medical School, a senior research scholar at the National Center for Bioethics at Tuskegee University and a fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Full Story Here: Corporations Are Patenting Human Genes and Tissues — Here’s Why That’s Terrifying | Personal Health | AlterNet.

I am a member of an endangered species. I am an American Farmer. We farmers represent less than one percent of this nation’s population, yet our numbers continue to dwindle each year as agri-business giants like Monsanto, Cargill, and ADM devour us. I don’t understand why banks are too big to fail, but nothing is done to stem the alarming loss of healthy small farms, almost always family enterprises. Banks can fail; agriculture cannot. We do not eat or drink money.

These are difficult times, to be sure. The economic and social challenges facing our nation are worsened by the tragic disconnect between our government and the people. Who works for whom? As giant corporations and banks continue to have their cake and eat it too, 99 percent of the rest of us are expected to pay our taxes and to be satisfied with the crumbs. Worse still, the crumbs are genetically modified (GM). They are the illusion of crumbs.

Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) run rampant like a plague, spreading poisonous genes into food and fiber crops, livestock, wildlife, insects, birds, the soil, and unsuspecting people. We are what we eat, and we are eating toxic unnatural food contrived in laboratories by billion-dollar chemical companies. Ninety percent of American corn, cotton, canola, soybeans, and sugar beets are genetically modified today. Eighty percent of all processed foods on our grocery shelves are made with GM ingredients. Livestock are fed primarily with genetically-modified feed in feed lots and factory farms, and those malnourished, sickened cattle, pigs, and chickens are the chief source of our protein.

I was impressed when the First Lady planted an organic garden near the White House, but I was stunned President Obama hired former Monsanto big wig, Michael Taylor, as this nation’s Food Czar. The former VP of Public Policy at Monsanto, the world’s largest supplier of GM products and the company that brought us DDT and Agent Orange, assures us his former employer’s fake food is safe to eat.  How comforting for all of us.

Full Story Here: This Farmer’s Perspective on GMOs — Son of A Farmer.

As families across America adorn their dinner tables with plump, juicy turkeys this Thursday, they’ve likely given little thought to what their future food previously consumed.

By the end of this year, an estimated 248 million turkeys will have been raised in the U.S., approximately 83 percent on farms that produce more than 60,000 turkeys each and most eating a diet that includes low doses of antibiotics. This common agricultural practice results not only in more meaty birds, according to experts, but also in greater risks to public health.

“Antibiotic use in animals comes back to haunt people,” said Stuart Levy, a Tufts University microbiology professor who focuses on antibiotic resistance. He recently co-authored a review of the evidence showing how animal antibiotics affect human health — via direct contact and indirectly via food, water, air and anywhere manure goes.

Full Story Here: Drugged-Up Turkey: Antibiotic Use On Farms Linked To Rising Rates Of Drug-Resistant Infections.

Organizations like the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Health Association insist that contraception encourages promiscuous behavior and that mandating coverage violates religious freedoms. As Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) wrote in a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, “this regulation requires that a Catholic institution either violate its fundamental beliefs by providing coverage that includes contraception and sterilization or, per the new requirements of PPACA, potentially pay a heavy financial penalty for failing to provide what PPACA deems adequate health coverage to their employees.”

But broadening the exemption would place religious beliefs ahead of women’s health and significantly restrict access to the birth control that most women rely on. More than 99 percent of all women ages 15 to 44 who have ever had sexual intercourse have used at least one contraceptive method and most people support expanding access to them. A national poll conducted in May, for instance, found that 88 percent of voters, including four in five Republicans, support women’s access to contraception. Most Americans even think that improving women’s access to contraception is a more effective way of reducing the number of abortions than enacting restrictive abortion laws.

Full Story Here: Conservative Groups Pressure Administration To Restrict Access To Contraception | ThinkProgress.

Is pizza a vegetable? Maybe not in most homes, but in public school cafeterias it is.

School meals that are subsidized by the government are required to contain a certain minimum of vegetables under current rules, and a serving of pizza that contains at least two tablespoons of tomato sauce meets the veggie requirement. The Obama administration recently sought to change the rule so that only a half-cup of tomato paste or more could be counted as a vegetable — part of its efforts to cut back on the amount of pizza, French fries and other “unhealthy” foods showing up on school lunch trays.

But the food industry and some lawmakers are pushing back. On Monday, Congress released the final version of a spending bill that would block the new tomato paste rule, essentially keeping pizza in the vegetable category. The bill would also eliminate other changes the United States Department of Agriculture had proposed, like increasing whole grains in school meals and limiting the use of starchy vegetables to two servings a week, which would have cut back on the fries served daily at many schools.

Full Story Here: At Schools, Making Pizza a Vegetable – NYTimes.com.

OPS: More proof that Republicans are soulless sociopaths

The research, presented Sunday at the American Heart Association’s 2011 scientific sessions, found that women who reported repeated episodes of forced sex in childhood or adolescence had a 62 percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease.

Severe physical abuse in childhood or adolescence was linked to a 45 percent higher risk of cardiovascular events.

“It’s almost hard to imagine stressors much greater than physical and sexual abuse,” Janet Rich-Edwards, lead author of the study and associate professor in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital told HuffPost. “When we think about stress and health, abuse is the elephant in the room.”

Full Story Here: Childhood Abuse May Increase Risk For Heart Attack, Stroke.

No Republican member of Congress voted for the Affordable Care Act that President Obama signed into law in March 2010. More than a year and a half later, conservatives and Republicans remain united in denouncing the act and in pushing the courts to strike it down as unconstitutional.

The shrill political rhetoric conveys a vivid impression of health reform as stalled or facing imminent decapitation.

Conservative activists have been cheered by the slew of constitutional challenges filed by state attorneys general, and by the decisions of Kansas and Oklahoma to return to Washington funding provided to help states implement the law.

Almost unnoticed in the rowdy fracas is the real, general pattern. Many aspects of the law (such as new regulations of insurers and expansion of insurance coverage to children up to 26) are already implemented or in the active planning stage in Washington and in the states, where much of the work is unfolding.

Full Story Here: The GOP and health care reform | StarTribune.com.

Weaver Shepperson has been blind for nearly 50 years. He’s lived alone since his wife died in 1999 and needs transportation several times a month to visit his doctors.

Yet he doesn’t plan to move out of the rowhouse in Washington’s historic Capitol Hill neighborhood where he’s lived since 1955.

The 80-year-old is part of a burgeoning movement among senior citizens determined to stay in their homes as long as possible. With the help of nonprofit groups known as “villages,” they’re enjoying many of the perks that residents of retirement or assisted-living communities receive, at a fraction of the cost.

Shepperson pays $530 annually for membership in Capitol Hill Village. It enables him to receive a ride to the doctor’s office from the village’s network of volunteers. The village also takes care of his grocery shopping. Without it, he says he might have had to move into assisted living.

Full Story Here: Aging Americans Stay Home with Aid of ‘Villages’ | Common Dreams.

Dr. Jane C. Burns always takes her vacation in September and October. That’s when, she says, there is a “lull in the action.”

By action, she means the influx of children with Kawasaki disease that she has come to expect during summer and winter months. Similar seasonal patterns are seen in other parts of the world, but no one has been able to explain why.

Now Burns and her colleagues think they may have found an important clue — blowing in the wind. Despite 50 years of research, the underlying cause of Kawasaki, a rare condition that involves the inflammation of blood vessels, remains unknown.

Full Story Here: Kawasaki Disease: Researchers Find Surprising Link To Wind Patterns.

For a product to be considered honey by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it must contain pollen. But the FDA does not check honey to see if it contains pollen. Checking for pollen is an important step because pollen can be used to trace the origin of the honey to make sure it comes from a safe, reputable source.

Chinese firms have been known to strip the pollen out of their honey using a process called ultra filtering. With the pollen stripped out, the honey can then be sold to the U.S. by funneling it through other countries, often India. This allows the Chinese firms to circumvent U.S. restrictions, to the detriment of the U.S. consumer.

Full Story Here: Imported Honey May Not Technically Be Honey | Economy In Crisis.

The next time you find yourself in the honey aisle of your grocery store, debating between a pricy premium, artisanal honey and the store-brand nectar contained in a plastic bear, you might want to think twice before choosing based on price.

That’s because a searing investigation of the honey market by Food Safety News found that 76% of all honey bought at grocery stores were treated with a process called “ultra-filtration,” which removes not only impurities like wax, but also all traces of pollen. And of the types of brands at grocery stores, the ones that were far-and-away the most likely to be ultra-filtered were generic brands.

There are issues with ultra-filtration in general — many believe that pollen, and other so-called “impurities,” are actually beneficial to human health, and make honey a better choice than rival sweeteners like sugar. And there doesn’t seem to be any serious benefit to the process; it’s expensive and doesn’t significantly improve shelf-life, even though some manufacturers claim it does.

Full Story Here: Smuggled Honey Makes It To American Stores Under Cover Of ‘Ultra-Filtration’.

At 2 a.m. Sunday morning, we finally recaptured that lost hour of sleep from last March as we marked the end of daylight saving time. And for the 47 million Americans who are sleep deprived, that extra hour is a chance to literally make up for lost time.

“This is one of those weekends we should really relish,” said HuffPost blogger Russell Rosenberg, Ph.D., CEO of the Atlanta School of Sleep Medicine and chairman of the board of the National Sleep Foundation. “The fact that Americans are so sleep deprived, it’s a nice reprieve from the busy lifestyles that we all lead.”

Rosenberg said this is the “good news story” of daylight saving time — the welcome counterpart to the hour of sleep we lose at the beginning of spring, which can take up to a week to adjust to and send those who are already sleep deprived over the threshold of “crashing and burning.” In fact, some studies have found a link between the spring-forward clock change and an increase in accidents and heart attacks.

Full Story Here: Daylight Saving 2011: How Time Change Affects Our Health.

Full Story Here: Wisconsin GOP Senate Passes Abstinence-Only Bill That Prohibits Teachers From Teaching Contraception | ThinkProgress.

Not all diet plans are nutritious and safe. A new U.S. News ranking rates diets’ healthiness.

Weight lost doesn’t always equal health gained. That new diet that took inches off your waistline could be harming your health if it locks out or severely restricts entire food groups, like carbs, or relies on supplements with little scientific backing, or clamps down on calories to an extreme.

“People are so desperate to lose weight that it’s really weight loss at any cost,” says Madelyn Fernstrom, founding director of the UPMC-University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Weight Management Center and author of The Real You Diet. And when that desperation sets in, says Fernstrom, “normal thinking goes out the window.” Who cares if the forbidden-foods list is longer than War and Peace? Pounds are coming off. You’re happy. But your body might not be.

Full Story Here: U.S. News Releases Ranking Of Best Diets For Healthy Eating.

Using both a low and high estimate, the report concludes that the state would save between $553 million to $1.8 billion by the year 2020 by shifting to a single payer health care system and enacting other reforms along with it. The following chart from the report shows that these savings come from reductions in payer and provider administration, investments, clinical reforms, and fraud reduction:

Full Story Here: New Report Finds Vermont Could Save As Much As $1.8 Billion By 2020 From Shifting To Single Payer | ThinkProgress.