All Entries in the "Health" Category

Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo Has Cancer-Causing Chemicals, Group Says

Two chemicals considered harmful to babies remain in Johnson & Johnson’s baby shampoo sold in the U.S., even though the company already makes versions without them, according to a coalition of health and environmental groups.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has unsuccessfully been urging the world’s largest health care company for 2 1/2 years to remove the trace amounts of potentially cancer-causing chemicals – dioxane and a substance called quaternium-15 that releases formaldehyde – from Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, one of its signature products.

Johnson & Johnson said it is reducing or gradually phasing out the chemicals, but did not r

Full Story Here: Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo Has Cancer-Causing Chemicals, Group Says.

Personhood USA Confirms That Mississippi Abortion Ban Would Outlaw Birth Control Pills

Next Tuesday, Mississippians will go to the polls to decide on Initiative 26, a personhood amendment to the state constitution that defines a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” Personhood amendments represent an extreme reach into a family’s privacy, essentially criminalizing abortion and potentially outlawing common forms of birth control.

Right-wing supporters of Mississippi’s personhood amendment, however, decry the fact that the bill will ban birth control as “scare tactics.” “It’s an outright lie that Initiative 26 would ban birth control pills,” said American Family Association Executive Director Brad Prewitt. “Stopping a pregnancy is not the issue; ending a pregnancy is.” Unfortunately for proponents, the Personhood movement spokesman Walter Hoye stated the opposite on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show. As the Florida Independent reports, when asked if there were any restrictions on birth control in the amendment, Hoye answered “no…well, yes,” adding, “any birth control that ends the life of a human being will be impacted by this measure,” including the pill:

Full Story Here: Personhood USA Confirms That Mississippi Abortion Ban Would Outlaw Birth Control Pills | ThinkProgress.

400% Rise in Anti-Depressant Pill Use: Americans Are Disempowered — Can the OWS Uprising Shake Us Out of Our Depression?

Is it time to repoliticize a great deal of our despair, and reconsider the old-fashioned antidepressant of political activism?

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported that antidepressant use in the United States has increased nearly 400 percent in the last two decades, making antidepressants the most frequently used class of medications by Americans ages 18-44. Among Americans 12 years and older, 11 percent were taking antidepressants by 2005-2008 (the most recently reported study period), and 23 percent of women ages 40–59 years were taking them.

Why has U.S. antidepressant use skyrocketed? Are the symptoms of what is commonly called depression—helplessness, hopelessness, and immobilization—always evidence of a medical condition? Or is it time to repoliticize a great deal of our despair, and reconsider the old-fashioned antidepressant of political activism?

Full Story Here: 400% Rise in Anti-Depressant Pill Use: Americans Are Disempowered — Can the OWS Uprising Shake Us Out of Our Depression? | Drugs | AlterNet.

Instead Of Unnecessary Cuts To Benefits, Democrats On Super Committee Should Modernize The System

News reports out today suggest that Democrats on the Super Committee are proposing $400 billion in cuts to Medicare—$200 billion in cuts to benefits, and $200 billion in cuts to providers. It’s unclear what this means, and whether it’s true, but one thing is certain: there is a better way.

Today the Center for American Progress is releasing a package of reforms to modernize the payment and delivery system. These reforms are a win-win: they will reduce costs and at the same time improve the quality of care and the efficiency of the health care system. Here’s what we propose:

– Immediately expand a Medicare program that bundles payments together for certain procedures nationwide. Then, completely replace fee-for-service with bundled payments for all procedures and primary care by 2016.

– Immediately implement competitive bidding for durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies nationwide, and expand the program to include laboratory tests.

– Require electronic eligibility, claims processing, and payment, as well as centralized physician credentialing.

– Do not pay extra for technologies that are more expensive but no more effective than other available technologies.

Full Story Here: Instead Of Unnecessary Cuts To Benefits, Democrats On Super Committee Should Modernize The System | ThinkProgress.

Coffee May Keep World’s Most Common Cancer At Bay, New Research Shows

First it was cutting the risk of depression, now skin cancer — when it comes to the health benefits of coffee, the good news keeps rolling in.

New research presented at an American Association for Cancer Research conference suggests daily joe consumption may help reduce the risk of basal cell carcinoma, the world’s most common cancer.

Women who drank more than three cups of caffeinated java daily saw a 20 percent reduction in risk, while men saw a 9 percent reduction, compared to people who had less than one cup per month. The researchers also tested for a possible connection between coffee consumption and decreased risk of melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma risk — two other skin cancer types — but found none.

Full Story Here: Coffee May Keep World’s Most Common Cancer At Bay, New Research Shows.

What Does the Recession Mean for Our Sex Lives?

As a new report predicts a rise in infidelity, we take a look at contradictory economy-related sexual predictions.

Our enduring recession is going to make men cheat more, if you believe the conclusions of a new study making the rounds this week. Omri Gillath, a social psychology professor at the University of Kansas, found that after exposing men to visuals meant to make them contemplate their own mortality, they were more responsive to sexual imagery. By superimposing mating strategies from our days on the savannah onto modern times, he concludes that as the economy continues to give us “signs that we have lower chances of survival,” we can expect men to be more inclined to stray. It’s a short-term mating strategy, Gillath says, that optimizes a man’s chance of successfully passing on his genes.

The study serves as a reminder not only of how overreaching evolutionary psychology can be, but also how many contradictory economic-related predictions have been made in recent years about our sexual behavior. It started in 2008 with reports that the popularity of sex-related items had gone up. At the start of the recession, sales of lubricants grew by 32 percent, Durex condoms reported 6 percent growth and sex toy retailer Babeland announced a 25 percent increase in business. Sex-related services also got a boost: Dating sites like Match.com reported a rise in traffic and hookup services like Manhunt saw membership boom. This caused business blogger Penelope Trunk to conclude, “So the deeper the recession, the more sex people are having.”

Full Story Here: What Does the Recession Mean for Our Sex Lives? | | AlterNet.

Penile Fracture: Study Links Broken Penises To Infidelity

Not only do affairs fracture relationships, they may also fracture penises, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

Dr. Andrew Kramer, a urologist and assistant professor of surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center, studied 16 cases of penile fracture between 2004 and 2011 that required surgery. Half the patients admitted to fracturing their penises during an extramarital affair.

According to the study, which was published last month, penile fracture occurs when the “tunica albuginea” — the fibrous membrane surrounding the tissue in the center of the penis — is torn during the bending or buckling of an erect penis. It can result in erectile dysfunction if not surgically repaired.

We talked to Dr. Kramer to learn more about his unusual findings.

(Warning: Graphic content ahead)

Full Story Here: Penile Fracture: Study Links Broken Penises To Infidelity.

Death Watch for Health Clinics

Community wellness centers used to have bipartisan support — that is, until they were included in the Affordable Care Act

The Mary Howard Health Center sits on the first floor of a ten-story, low-rise office building a few blocks from the heart of downtown Philadelphia. The center serves the city’s homeless residents, providing everything from wound care to mental-health services. Like all community health centers, Mary Howard provides health care without regard for income or insurance status.

“They’re doing a good job, giving me all the attention I need,” says James Brown (“like the soul singer”), a 71-year-old Mary Howard patient with a painful abscess on his back the size of a fist. “It’s just like a regular hospital.”

The center saw 1,760 patients last year, a capacity increased by funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s (ARRA) $2 billion earmark for community health centers. Most of the $636,000 ARRA grant Mary Howard received went to expanding the center’s capacity from four to ten patient rooms.

Without Mary Howard, Brown says, “I would have just gone to emergency care … but I trust [the health center] just as much as emergency care.”

Full Story Here: Death Watch for Health Clinics.

Why Do People Become Addicts?

Dr. Gabor Mate discusses with AlterNet the principles of harm reduction, the connections between ADD and addiction, and the work he’s done with drug addicts.

Gabor Mate M.D. has been for over ten years the staff physician at the Portland Hotel, North America’s only supervised safe-injection site in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, home to one of the world’s densest areas of drug users. Mate advocates for and practices a holistic view of reality, its challenges and potential solutions. Mate’s books include When the Body Says No: Understanding The Stress-Disease Connection; Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates And What You Can Do About It, and his latest, In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction.

McNally: Can you tell us a bit about your path to the work that you do today?

Mate: I’m a medical doctor. I’ve worked for 20 years in family practice in Vancouver, BC. For seven years I worked in palliative care looking after old people and for 12 years I’ve worked in the downtown eastside.

Full Story Here: Why Do People Become Addicts? | | AlterNet.

Finally Revealed: Processed Food Rebates Dominate School Cafeterias

When I first started writing about the food being served in my daughter’s elementary school cafeteria, I figured there had to be a reason children were being fed Apple Jacks cereal, strawberry milk, Pop-Tarts, Giant Goldfish Grahams and Otis Spunkmeyer muffins for breakfast.

I was right. The manufacturers of those sugar-laden products pay hefty rebates–some call them “kickbacks”–to giant food service companies as an inducement to purchase their highly processed goods. But I have now learned it’s not just the lousy food that’s fueled by rebates. Just about everything that goes into running a public school cafeteria comes with a rebate check that helps make sure the industrial version of food wins out.

In what may be the first ever detailed look into how industry rebates dominate school food service, documents I obtained under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that more than 100 companies paid rebates in recent years to the food service management company hired by D.C. Public Schools–Chartwells–for everything from breakfast cereal, hamburger patties and canned green beans to paper cups, armored car services and drug counseling for employees.

Full Story Here: Finally Revealed: Processed Food Rebates Dominate School Cafeterias | The Slow Cook.

How Medicare Fails the Elderly

HERE is the dirty little secret of health care in America for the elderly, the one group we all assume has universal coverage thanks to the 1965 Medicare law: what Medicare paid for then is no longer what recipients need or want today.

No one then envisioned the stunning advances in medicine that now keep people alive into advanced old age, often with unintended and unwelcome consequences. Indeed, scientific reports have showed the dangers, not merely the pointlessness and expense, of much of the care Medicare is providing.

Of course, some may actually want everything medical science has to offer. But overwhelmingly, I’ve concluded in a decade of studying America’s elderly, it is fee-for-service doctors and Big Pharma who stand to gain the most, and adult children, with too much emotion and too little information, driving those decisions.

Full Story Here: How Medicare Fails the Elderly – NYTimes.com.

Climate change poses immediate threat to health: experts

Climate change poses an immediate and serious threat to global health and stability, as floods and droughts destroy people’s homes and food supplies and increase mass migration, experts warned Monday.

In a statement issued at a meeting in London, they urged tougher action to reduce climate change including upping the EU target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from 20 percent by 2020 to 30 percent from 1990 levels.

“It is not enough for politicians to deal with climate change as some abstract academic concept,” said a signatory, Hugh Montgomery, director of the University College London (UCL) Institute for Human Health and Performance.

Full Story Here: Climate change poses immediate threat to health: experts | The Raw Story.

Filthy Phones: 1 In 6 Cell Phones Have Traces Of E. Coli Bacteria

About one in six cellphones tested in the U.K. had traces of E. coli bacteria from fecal matter, a new study released for Global Handwashing Day suggests.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London travelled to 12 cities in Britain, took 390 samples from cellphones and hands and then analyzed the samples in the lab to record the type and number of germs.

The findings included:

- Although 95 per cent of people said they washed their hands with soap where possible, 92 per cent of phones and 82 per cent of hands had bacteria on them.

- 16 per cent of hands and 16 per cent of phones were found to harbour E. coli bacteria that are associated with stomach upsets.

Full Story Here: Filthy Phones: 1 In 6 Cell Phones Have Traces Of E. Coli Bacteria.

Doctors recommend evaluating children for ADHD at age four

The American Academy of Pediatrics this weekend expanded its guidelines for diagnosing and treating kids with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, recommending that doctors evaluate all patients aged four to 18 who show signs of the condition.

The new guidelines update decade-old recommendations that focused on diagnosing and managing ADHD in kids aged six to 12. But behavior problems, over-activity and trouble paying attention can show up earlier, researchers said, and ADHD often persists into adolescence or even adulthood.

Pediatricians should also look out for learning disabilities, anxiety and other issues that can go hand-in-hand with ADHD. And, they should tailor treatment with behavior therapy and medication based on kids’ age and severity of symptoms, says a statement published in Pediatrics.

Full Story Here: Doctors recommend evaluating children for ADHD at age four | The Raw Story.

Boss Told Me To Stop Giving Dying Co-Worker CP: Worker Dies

Last month, a Time Warner Cable customer service rep died at her desk. After any unexpected death, people searched for answers, explanations, someone to blame. But in this case, there may have actually been something foul afoot. A local news station reports that after a co-worker began giving CPR to 67-year-old Julia Nelson, a supervisor allegedly told her to stop and “get back on the phone and take care of customers.”

Nelson slumped at her desk at the Time Warner Call Center in Garfield Heights, Ohio, and wasn’t breathing by the time paramedics arrived. But before that happened, a co-worker rushed over and began administering CPR, the woman told WOIO, only to be asked to stop. Employees at the scene have confirmed this report.

The woman was also told later by another supervisor that she could be “held liable if something goes wrong.”

Full Story Here: Boss Told Me To Stop Giving Dying Co-Worker CPR, Says Service Rep – Careers Articles.

Bosses Four Times As Likely To Be ‘Psychopaths’: Survey Says

What’s the key to business success? Well, being a psychopath might actually give you an edge. While most workers would prefer not to have a crazy boss, their attitudes toward female bosses are changing. And it’s possible the high percentage of crazy bosses explains the average worker’s weight gain. (Or maybe it’s just the donuts in the break room). Here’s a closer look at some of the latest small-business surveys.

Crazy Talk

A study of more than 200 executives by researcher Paul Babiak found that almost 4 percent were considered psychopaths when ranked on the Psychopathy Checklist, a tool therapists use to assess this personality disorder. Babiak, whose findings were reported in his book Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, found that in comparison, only 1 percent of the general population shows psychopathic tendencies.

In other words, those who are successful in business could be four times more likely to be psychopaths than the average person. What exactly does that mean? Psychopaths lack empathy and don’t feel remorse for their actions. That makes them great at manipulating their way to the top.

Full Story Here: Bosses Four Times As Likely To Be ‘Psychopaths’: Survey Says.

Women Over 50 Enjoying Healthy, Active Sex Lives: Study

A new study from the Women’s Health Initiative has found that, contrary to popular belief, older women are generally satisfied with their sex lives — and if they do have a problem, it’s because they’d like to be having more sex.

The study, released this month and featured in the Menopause journal, asked 27,347 women aged 50 to 79 a series of questions about how they perceive sexual activity and their own sex lives. Results from the study indicated sexual activity among 50 to 59-, 60 to 69-, and 70 to 79-year-old age groups to be 60.7 percent, 44.9 percent and 28.2 percent, respectively.

Most of the study’s participants were satisfied with their current sex lives (63.2 percent). Of those dissatisfied, 57 percent responded that they would like to be having more sex, not less. The most common reasons sited by participants who said they were not sexually active were poor health, depression and loss of a partner.

“This is the first study that indicates that [older] women would actually like to have more sex,” Gisele Wolf-Klein, MD, director of geriatric education at the North Shore-LIJ Health System in New Hyde Park, N.Y., told WebMD. Though she was not involved in the study, she went on to note, “We know sexual activity decreases with age, and we do attribute that to lack of a partner, but we thought that women were kind of happy with this. That it didn’t represent a major problem. Well, that does not seem to be the case.”

Full Story Here: Women Over 50 Enjoying Healthy, Active Sex Lives: Study.

The ‘Terrible 10′: The Worst Aspects Of America’s Food Scene

The first annual Food Day is October 24; it aims to bring Americans from all walks of life together to “push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way,” according to the Food Day website. In anticipation of the day, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has released its “Terrible Ten,” a list of the 10 worst aspects of American’s food scene. Although the list is not necessarily a cohesive one — there’s no obvious connection between lobbyists and vending machines — it does highlight some of the biggest threats to a healthy food system.

Check out the “Terrible Ten” slideshow below.

Full Story Here: The ‘Terrible 10′: The Worst Aspects Of America’s Food Scene.

Obama Administration Cuts Major Part Of Health Care Reform Law: CLASS Long-Term Insurance Program Canceled

The Obama administration Friday pulled the plug on a major program in the president’s signature health overhaul law – a long-term care insurance plan dogged from the beginning by doubts over its financial solvency.

Targeted by congressional Republicans for repeal, the program became the first casualty in the political and policy wars over the health care law. It had been expected to launch in 2013.

“This is a victory for the American taxpayer and future generations,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., spearheading opposition in the Senate. “The administration is finally admitting (the long-term care plan) is unsustainable and cannot be implemented.”

Full Story Here: Obama Administration Cuts Major Part Of Health Care Reform Law: CLASS Long-Term Insurance Program Canceled.

The Untimely Death of Long-Term Health Insurance

Robert Reich :-:

The Administration’s decision to pull the plug on long-term health insurance in the new healthcare law (so-called Community Living Assistance Services and Support or, as it was known by healthcare insiders, CLASS) offers an important lesson.

As written, the law had three incompatible parts.

First, it required beneficiaries to receive at least $50 a day if they had a long-term illness or disability (to pay a caregiver or provide other forms of maintenance). That $50 was an absolute minimum. No flexibility on the downside.

Second, insurance premiums had to fully cover these costs. In budget-speak, the program was to be self-financing. Given the minimum benefit, that meant fairly hefty premiums.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (The Untimely Death of Long-Term Health Insurance).

Anti-Abortion Groups Push ‘Heartbeat’ Bills In All 50 States

Earlier this month, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) introduced The Heartbeat Informed Consent Act which would require all abortion providers to “make the heartbeat of the unborn child visible and audible to its mother as part of her informed consent.” Bachmann’s bill may be a shameless pander to evangelical voters, but abortion foes are already planning a much more ambitious campaign to propose Bachmann-style “heartbeat” bills in all 50 states:

A nationwide coalition of anti-abortion groups said Wednesday it is preparing to push legislation in all 50 states requiring that pregnant women see and hear the fetal heartbeat before having an abortion.

The effort follows the introduction of similar legislation at the federal level by Republican presidential candidate and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. [...]

Full Story Here: Anti-Abortion Groups Push ‘Heartbeat’ Bills In All 50 States | ThinkProgress.

House Passes Abortion Bill

The House passed a controversial abortion bill Thursday on a near party-line vote, reigniting the chamber’s political battle over women’s health.

The bill, which passed 251-172, would prevent coverage of abortion services by insurance plans on state exchanges that receive federal subsidies. It would also strengthen conscience protections for hospitals and medical providers. At least 15 Democrats voted in support of the bill.

It’s no surprise the bill from Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., easily passed the House, but it isn’t likely to get much further in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Republicans in the upper chamber have not forced a floor vote on any abortion legislation passed by the House this year. President Obama also threatened on Wednesday to veto the legislation, saying that it “intrudes on women’s reproductive freedom and access to health care.”

That hasn’t dissuaded Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who sponsored a bill earlier this year to make a federal ban on funding abortion permanent law.

Full Story Here: House Passes Abortion Bill – Meghan McCarthy – NationalJournal.com.

Protect Life Act: New Bill Would Allow Hospitals To Refuse To Perform Abortions

The House is scheduled to vote this week on a new bill that would allow federally-funded hospitals that oppose abortions to refuse to perform the procedure, even in cases where a woman would die without it.

Under current law, every hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid money is legally required to provide emergency care to any patient in need, regardless of his or her financial situation. If a hospital is unable to provide what the patient needs — including a life-saving abortion — it has to transfer the patient to a hospital that can.

Under H.R. 358, dubbed the “Protect Life Act” and sponsored by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), hospitals that don’t want to provide abortions could refuse to do so, even for a pregnant woman with a life-threatening complication that requires a doctor terminate her pregnancy. This provision would apply to the more than 600 Catholic hospitals governed by the Catholic Health Association, which are regulated by bishops and prohibited from performing abortions.

Full Story Here: Protect Life Act: New Bill Would Allow Hospitals To Refuse To Perform Abortions.

New Film Exposes Connection Between the Kochs and a Small Community Dying of Cancer

A new video from Brave New Foundation shows how people are paying the ultimate price for the Koch brothers’ politics and profiteering.

The many sins of the Koch brothers have been keeping Robert Greenwald and his crew at Brave New Foundation busy. Since January they’ve been working on their Koch Brothers Exposed video investigations, documenting the malfeasance of Koch Industries and the two-headed monster at the helm.

“What we’ve been doing with our ‘Koch Brothers Exposed’ project is connecting the dots: explaining the size and scope of what they’re doing, which is really nothing short of trying to buy democracy,” said Greenwald, the president of Brave New Foundation. (Full disclosure: Greenwald is on AlterNet’s board of directors.) ”What we’ve done with each of the Koch pieces is to use specific stories to depict people’s lives and show that ideology has consequences. What the Kochs are doing is not harmless, it is not victimless, and there are people who are paying a terrible price for the brothers’ politics and their profiteering.”

Full Story Here: New Film Exposes Connection Between the Kochs and a Small Community Dying of Cancer | Environment | AlterNet.

South Beach Diet Author On Four Reasons Why America Is Still Getting Fatter And Sicker – And What to Do About It

Americans are fatter, and sicker, than ever. And we don’t have to be.

We are eating horrendously, moving and exercising less, and not getting enough sleep. This has made us fatigued, depressed, irritable, achy, and generally miserable. And if feeling terrible isn’t bad enough, these habits are also making us ill–with diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and many forms of cancer, to name just a few.

What many of us don’t realize is that these poor lifestyle habits are causing the cells, tissues, and organs in our bodies to “rust,” or age before their time, as many of us walk around in a state of constant inflammation.

Full Story Here: Dr Arthur Agatston: South Beach Diet Author On Four Reasons Why America Is Still Getting Fatter And Sicker – And What to Do About It.

The GOP Can Kill Medicare This Year Without Even Casting a Vote. Here’s How

“Putting off reform of the SGR even for a year would result in implementation of a very significant decrease to Medicare physician fees in calendar year 2012, which would lead to reduced physician participation in Medicare, and therefore patients’ access to care.

Now, I know that the “sustainable growth rate” sounds really boring. So, how about we reframe this as “a life and death battle to save Medicare”. Is that more interesting?

You in the front row. You have a question? Why would anyone want to kill Medicare you ask?

Medicare is a thorn in the side of private health insurers. As long as Medicare exists, it would be pretty easy for the nation to expand the program to cover everyone. Instant socialized medicine. So, Medicare must die. In addition, most Medicare patients are not sick, and therefore privates would be more than happy to write them high cost policies with huge deductibles. The small percentage of Medicare recipients who actually cost the program money are poor (because of their massive health care costs) and they would be placed on Medicaid and would become the problem of state governments. In this way, the privates would suck up the Medicare premiums while dodging the financial risks.

Full Story Here: McCamy Taylor’s Journal – The GOP Can Kill Medicare This Year Without Even Casting a Vote. Here’s How.

House Republicans’ Labor Budget Cuts Rules That Protect Rooftop Workers From Falling, Coal Miners From Coal Dust

In addition to blocking President Obama’s health care law and slashing funding for job training, the budget plan presented by House Republicans for health and labor programs this week would scuttle several worker safety protections put forth by the Department of Labor.

Among other anti-regulatory measures, the budget would block the department from moving forward with its Injury and Illness Prevention Program, which would require employers to develop written plans to address workplace hazards and reduce worker injuries. Under the Republican plan, no Labor Department funding could be devoted toward the program.

The budget also takes aim at an obscure but notable Labor Department rule intended to reduce the death and maiming of construction workers who labor on rooftops. The department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration had planned to ramp up the enforcement of harness rules for roofers working on residential construction sites, but the Republican plan forbids the agency from doing so, as noted by the public-health blog The Pump Handle.

Full Story Here: House Republicans’ Labor Budget Cuts Rules That Protect Rooftop Workers From Falling, Coal Miners From Coal Dust.

Cancer drug trial halted in UK for being too successful

THE trail of a new drug for prostate cancer was halted in the UK because the results were too good.

Doctors at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London concluded that it would have been unethical not to offer it to all 922 cancer patients on the trial after the drug was shown to ease pain and cause only minor side-effects, The (London) Sunday Telegraph said.

The drug – Radium-223 Chloride, known as Alpharadin TM – targets tumours with alpha radiation, reducing the damage to surrounding tissue.

Dr Chris Parker, lead researcher on the project, said, “It’s more damaging. It takes one, two, three hits to kill a cancer cell compared with thousands of hits for beta particles. They have such a tiny range, a few millionths of a meter. So we can be sure that the damage is being done where it should be.”

Full Story Here: Cancer drug trial halted in UK for being too successful | News.com.au.

Food Safety Still Lacking In U.S.

Food safety in the United States is not up to par. We are importing more and more of our food, but we do not have the resources to ensure that it is safe.

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 about 1 percent of all imported food, and Americans are getting sick as a result.

Our government has taken half-hearted measures to remedy this problem. Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act early this year, which was intended to help improve food safety standards in this country. The act included provisions for improving the safety of both domestic and imported food, including adding the ability of regulators to refuse food shipments from foreign facilities that do not allow U.S. inspections. The act also requires that importers verify the safety of the food they bring into the country.

Full Story Here: Food Safety Still Lacking In U.S. | Economy In Crisis.

There Is No Biological Reason to Eat Three Meals a Day — So Why Do We Do It?

For most of history, meals were very variable.

We grew up believing in three meals a day.

When we skip meals, eat extra meals or subvert paradigms — spaghetti breakfasts, pancake suppers — we feel naughty, edgy and criminal. “Three meals a day” resonates like a Bible phrase.

But it’s a cultural construct.

People around the world, even in the West, have not always eaten three squares. The three-meals model is a fairly recent convention, which is now being eclipsed as, like everything else, eating becomes a highly personalized matter of choice. What and when and how frequently we eat is driven less and less by the choices of our families, coworkers and others, and more and more by impulse, personal taste and favorite nutrition memes, and marketing schemes such as Taco Bell’s promotion of late-night eating known as “Fourthmeal: the Meal Between Dinner & Breakfast.” Selecting how and when we eat is like loading our iPods.

Full Story Here: There Is No Biological Reason to Eat Three Meals a Day — So Why Do We Do It? | Food | AlterNet.

Corporations Undermine UN Effort to Reduce Chronic Diseases

While much of the world’s attention focused on the UN debate about Palestinian statehood this week, the General Assembly took up another issue that garnered less media scrutiny, even though its outcome could prevent millions of premature deaths in coming decades. On September 19th and 20th, 30 heads of State and 100 other senior ministers and experts met at the UN General Assembly’s first high level summit on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to discuss how to reduce the burdens of such conditions as diabetes, heart disease, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases.

These conditions cause about 35 million deaths a year, of which 80 percent occur in low and middle-income countries and one quarter among people younger than 60 years. By 2030, NCDs will cause more than three quarters of all deaths in the world. While the UN has previously recognized HIV, tuberculosis and malaria as threats to economic development and global security, this was the first time the UN acknowledged that non-communicable disease also jeopardized economic well-being.

The NCD summit was an important step in shaping a coordinated global response to these conditions but unlike infectious diseases, where few organizations profit directly from their spread, powerful industries depend on encouraging consumption of products like tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy food and automobiles that have fueled epidemics of non-communicable diseases. Thus, the summit previewed the great public health battle of this period. On one side are the public health professionals, advocacy organizations and local officials who have to cope with the rising tide of NCDs fueled by the growing consumption of tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food. On the other are industries built on the model of profiting by promoting unhealthy lifestyles and products.

Full Story Here: Corporations Undermine UN Effort to Reduce Chronic Diseases | Common Dreams.

Hospital Drug Shortages Present Costly Crisis

A drug for dangerously high blood pressure, normally priced at $25.90 per dose, offered to hospitals for $1,200. Fifteen deaths in 15 months blamed on shortages of life-saving medications.

A growing crisis in the availability of drugs for chemotherapy, infections and other serious ailments is endangering patients and forcing hospitals to buy from secondary suppliers at huge markups because they can’t get the medications any other way.

An Associated Press review of industry reports and interviews with nearly two dozen experts found the shortages – mainly of injected generic drugs that ordinarily are cheap – have delayed surgeries and cancer treatments, left patients in unnecessary pain and caused hospitals to give less effective treatments. That’s resulted in complications and longer hospital stays.

Full Story Here: Hospital Drug Shortages Present Costly Crisis.

Scientists discover virus that kills all types of breast cancer ‘within seven days’

Scientists at the Penn State College of Medicine said this week they have discovered a virus that is capable of killing all types of breast cancer “within seven days” of first introduction in a laboratory setting.

The virus, known as adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV2), is naturally occurring and carried by up to 80 percent of humans, but it does not cause any disease.

Researchers learned of its cancer-killing properties in 2005, after Penn State scientists observed it killing cervical cancer cells. They also found that women who carried the AAV2 virus and human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes cervical cancer, had a lower propensity to develop cervical cancer.

When combined in a lab recently, AAV2 eradicated all the breast cancer cells “within seven days,” according to researchers. Better still, it proved capable of wiping out cancer cells at multiple stages, negating the need for differing treatments used today.

Full Story Here: Scientists discover virus that kills all types of breast cancer ‘within seven days’ | The Raw Story.

Michele Bachmann Calls For End Of Food Safety Regulations To Create More Jobs

Remember those recent recalls of tainted peanuts, eggs, ground turkey, and other food products over the past two years? Well, Michele Bachmann wants us all to eat more tainted food.

During a visit to a meatpacking plant in Des Moines, Iowa, Bachmann called for an end to food safety regulations that keep food safe for human consumption. Bachmann told reporters that food regulations hurt job growth and that they’re “overkill.”⁠

“That’s part of the problem, the overkill, and when they make it complicated, they make it expensive and so then you can no longer stay in business.”

Full Story Here: Michele Bachmann Calls For End Of Food Safety Regulations To Create More Jobs | Addicting Info.

Obama Medicare Cuts Target Providers, Then Beneficiaries For Savings

President Obama wants to extract $320 billion in savings from the health care system in his push to trim the deficit, starting with cutting payments to Medicare and Medicaid providers and ending with making beneficiaries pay more.

The biggest savings — $135 billion over 10 years — would come from letting Medicare pay for drugs at the same rates as Medicaid, which enjoys much greater rebates on generic and brand-name drugs.

The next largest source of savings — $42 billion — would come from nursing homes, rehab centers and long-term care facilities, which the administration thinks can be encouraged to be much more efficient in providing care right after people get out of hospitals.

Full Story Here: Obama Medicare Cuts Target Providers, Then Beneficiaries For Savings.

2010 marks another year of decline for employer-sponsored health insurance coverage

According to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of uninsured Americans under age 65 rose from 48.3 million in 2009 to 49.1 million in 2010. When including those 65 and older, the number reached 49.9 million in 2010.

AUDIO: Listen to EPI’s press call about the 2010 report

While the Great Recession officially ended in the summer of 2009, the labor market continued to deteriorate into 2010. The unemployment rate increased from 9.3 percent in 2009 to 9.6 percent in 2010, and long-term unemployment (the unemployed without a job for 27 weeks or more) grew from 31.2 percent in 2009 to 43.3 percent in 2010. As most Americans, particularly those under age 65, rely on health insurance through the workplace, these unemployment trends make it no surprise that employer-sponsored health insurance continued to fall from 2009 to 2010. But the situation started deteriorating long before the Great Recession: Employment-based coverage for those under 65 eroded in nine of the past 10 years, including a 0.7 percentage point drop from 59.4 percent in 2009 to 58.6 percent in 2010.

Because all Americans age 65 and older have near-universal access to health insurance coverage through Medicare, this report focuses exclusively on coverage rates for the under-65 population. This report’s highlights are:

Full Story Here: 2010 marks another year of decline for employer-sponsored health insurance coverage | Economic Policy Institute.

6 Serious Health Benefits Of Apples

My favorite thing about fall in Vermont is rambling through a nearby orchard, picking crisp, juicy apples and crunching into one, fresh off the tree. Yet, apples are so commonplace that they’re almost overlooked and pushed aside by flashier superfruits, such as pomegranates and goji berries.

But as a registered dietitian and associate nutrition editor of EatingWell Magazine, I know that apples have surprising nutritional benefits that justify the “apple a day” adage. Here are some of apples’ nutritional boons:

Full Story Here: EatingWell: 6 Serious Health Benefits Of Apples.

Are Tattoos Toxic? New Research Shows Endocrine Disruptors, Metals and Carcinogens in Tattoo Ink

Research has turned up troubling findings about toxic chemicals in tattoo inks, including phthalates, metals, and hydrocarbons that are carcinogens and endocrine disruptors.

The End Is Near tattoo parlor in South Park Slope could pass for one of the neighborhood’s upscale boutiques.

Local artwork covers the light blue walls. Ornate body jewelry fills a glass showcase. A stuffed badger greets visitors. There’s just one thing that gives the parlor away – the unmistakable electric hum of a tattoo needle.

“We’re not the seedy underground that used to be,” said Trischa, the shop’s one-named manager, whose fair skin, revealed by a black tank top, is almost completely painted with ink.

As tattoo shops turn chic, ink’s allure has spread into the mainstream. Despite the well-known risks of infection, allergies and scarring, an estimated 45 million people in the United States – including 36 percent of adults in their late 20s – have at least one tattoo, according to estimates by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a Harris Interactive Poll.

Full Story Here: Are Tattoos Toxic? New Research Shows Endocrine Disruptors, Metals and Carcinogens in Tattoo Ink | Personal Health | AlterNet.

Study concludes Gulf War syndrome involves real brain damage

For the last twenty years, veterans of the Persian Gulf War of 1991 have been complaining of a range of ailments, including pain, fatigue, and problems with memory and concentration. And for just as long, the causes have remained uncertain and there has been a tendency by the military to attribute the complaints to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Now a long-term study at the University of Texas in Dallas has used a new technique to measure blood flow in the brains of sufferers and has detected “marked abnormalities” in brain function that can probably be attributed to low levels of exposure to sarin nerve gas. This abnormal blood flow has persisted or even worsened over the eleven years of the study.

“The findings mark a significant advancement in our understanding of the syndrome, which was for years written off by the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs as a form of combat stress rather than an objectively diagnosable injury,” reports the Dallas Observer.

Full Story Here: Study concludes Gulf War syndrome involves real brain damage | The Raw Story.

Ron Paul’s Campaign Manager Died Sick and Uninsured, the Way ‘Freedom’ Allows

At the fifth GOP debate this week, moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul, a doctor, whether someone who opts to not buy health insurance and then gets sick should be allowed to die. The crowd responded with startling shouts of “Yeah!” followed by applause, leaving even Rick Perry “taken aback.” Paul’s answer, while more gentle, was more or less the same. “That’s what freedom is all about: taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to take care of everybody … ” said Paul, who was cut off by clapping from the audience. While you wouldn’t know it from his answer, Blizter’s hypothetical probably hit close to home for Paul, whose campaign manager Kent Snyder died young of pneumonia — without insurance — in 2008.

He was just 49 years old when he died of complications from the virus on June 26, two weeks after Paul dropped out of the race. Snyder’s mother was left with around $400,000 in medical costs. Paul supporters set up a donation fund to help with the debt.

Snyder was credited as “the driving force behind Ron Paul’s presidential bid” in the last election, having turned “his one-man operation into a national grass-roots phenomenon that now calls itself ‘The Freedom Movement.’”

Full Story Here: Ron Paul’s Campaign Manager Died Sick and Uninsured, the Way ‘Freedom’ Allows — Daily Intel.

Health-Care Reform Rules Would Restrict Public Reporting

It’s estimated that hundreds of thousands of patients die annually from preventable harm suffered while undergoing medical care. The infections, injuries and errors could rank as a leading cause of death in the United States.

Last year’s sweeping health-care reform law — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — promised to improve the problem by allowing outside groups to use Medicare billing records to analyze and publicly report on the quality of care. But proposed rules that would guide the release of the data are being criticized by consumer groups that say the rules would make independent accountability impossible.

Agencies typically adopt rules to administer laws like the health-care act. The rules being developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) propose restricting the release of Medicare billing data to “qualified entities.” To qualify, a group would have to:

Full Story Here: The Washington Current: Health-Care Reform Rules Would Restrict Public Reporting.

Cargill Turkey Recall: Salmonella Found In Batch Of Ground Turkey

Minnesota-based Cargill Inc. recalled more ground turkey products Sunday because a test showed salmonella in a sample from an Arkansas plant less than a month after production resumed following an earlier recall and shutdown.

Cargill recalled 36 million pounds of ground turkey last month after a salmonella outbreak that federal health officials said sickened 107 people in 31 states by Aug. 11. One person died.

Federal health officials linked the outbreak to ground turkey from Cargill’s plant in Springdale, Ark., and the company shutdown the plant when it announced the Aug. 3 recall. But Cargill spokesman Mike Martin said two weeks later that limited production had resumed after the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved additional anti-bacterial safety measures.

Full Story Here: Cargill Turkey Recall: Salmonella Found In Batch Of Ground Turkey.

Less Work, More Living

Working fewer hours could save our economy, save our sanity, and help save our planet.

Millions of Americans have lost control over the basic rhythm of their daily lives. They work too much, eat too quickly, socialize too little, drive and sit in traffic for too many hours, don’t get enough sleep, and feel harried too much of the time. It’s a way of life that undermines basic sources of wealth and well-being—such as strong family and community ties, a deep sense of meaning, and physical health.

Imagining a world in which jobs take up much less of our time may seem utopian, especially now, when a scarcity mentality dominates the economic conversation. People who are employed often find it difficult to scale back their jobs. Costs of medical care, education, and child care are rising. It may be hard to find new sources of income when U.S. companies have been laying people off at a dizzying rate.

But fewer work hours for people with jobs is a key step toward solving the unemployment crisis—while giving Americans healthier lives. Fewer hours means more jobs are available to people who need them. Living on less pay usually means consuming less, making more of the things one needs at home, and living lighter, whether by design or by accident.

Full Story Here: Less Work, More Living by Juliet Schor — YES! Magazine.

GM Feed Toxic, New Meta-Analysis Confirms

A meta-analysis on 19 studies confirms kidney and liver toxicity in rats and mice fed on GM soybean and maize, representing more than 80 percent of all commercially available GM food; it also exposes gross inadequacies of current risk assessment Dr Eva Sirinathsinghji

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A team of independent scientists led by Gilles-Eric Séralini at Caen University in France carried out a meta-analysis combining the results of 19 previous studies [1], and their report concluded: “From the regulatory tests performed today, it is unacceptable to submit 500 million Europeans and several billions of consumers worldwide to the new pesticide GM-derived foods or feed, this being done without more controls (if any) than the only 3-month-long toxicological tests and using only one mammalian species, especially since there is growing evidence of concern.”

Full Story Here: GM Feed Toxic, New Meta-Analysis Confirms.

Tick-borne parasite infecting blood supply: CDC

A tick-borne infection known as Babesiosis, which can cause severe disease and even death, is becoming a growing threat to the U.S. blood supply, government researchers said on Monday.

There are currently no diagnostic tests approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that can detect the infection before people donate blood.

A 31-year study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now suggests the parasitic infection may be increasing.

Babesia infections are marked by anemia, fever, chills and fatigue, but they can also cause organ failure and death.

Full Story Here: Tick-borne parasite infecting blood supply: CDC | Reuters.

Senator Sanders on Social Security

“There has been too much discussion in this country — not just from Republicans, but from Democrats alike — that we should be making cuts in Social Security. That is wrong,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said to a standing ovation from more than 3,000 labor leaders who attended the United Steelworkers convention in Las Vegas in August 2011.

Full Story Here: Senator Sanders on Social Security – YouTube.

24-Year-Old Dad Dies Of Tooth Infection

Aunt: Unemployed Nephew Couldn’t Afford Antibiotics

Doctors at University Hospital in Cincinnati said a 24-year-old father died Wednesday from a tooth infection.

Patti Collins, wife of famed local musician Bootsy Collins, said she couldn’t believe what happened to her nephew, Kyle Willis, who left behind a 6-year-old daughter.

“I said, ‘What do you mean they’re calling the family?’ (My daughter) said, ‘Mom, the infection (Willis) had in his tooth has gone to his brain,” Collins said.

Full Story Here: 24-Year-Old Dad Dies Of Tooth Infection – Cincinnati News Story – WLWT Cincinnati.

FDA Creating New Nutrition Facts Label

Uncle Sam wants you to know more about what you’re eating.

The Food and Drug Administration wants to revise the nutrition facts label – that breakdown of fats, salts, sugars and nutrients on packaging – to give consumers more useful information and help fight the national obesity epidemic.

A proposal is in the works to change several parts of the label, including more accurate serving sizes, a greater emphasis on calories and a diminished role in the daily percent values for substances like fat, sodium and carbohydrates.

It’s the latest attempt to improve the way Americans view food and make choices about what they eat, and comes in the wake of major advances in nutrition regulations by the Obama administration.

Calorie counts are popping up on menus of chain restaurants across the country and the longstanding food pyramid was toppled this year by the U.S. government in favor of a plate that gives a picture of what a healthy daily diet looks like.

Full Story Here: FDA Creating New Nutrition Facts Label.

Obama to Breathers: Sorry, Wait Until 2013

On Friday, in a move that shocked enviros and public-health advocates, President Obama asked the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw its proposal to tighten a key air-quality standard. The request, Obama said, is part of the administration’s efforts to reduce “regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty.”

The EPA has been at work on new rules on ozone pollution, better known as smog, since September 2009. The agency rolled out new, tougher draft standards in January 2010, only to have the release of the final rules repeatedly delayed. In a statement, Obama said he has asked the agency to wait until 2013—you know, after the next election—to improve the standard.

The decision to single out this rule is significant. Back in 2008, the Bush administration EPA issued smog rules that called for limits of 75 parts per billion, which were weaker than those that the agency’s own scientists said was necessary to protect human health. Improving the standard has been a top priority for environmental and public-health experts, so when the EPA said in January 2010 that it was considering lowering the limit to between 60 and 70 parts per billion, those groups were cheering.

Full Story Here: Obama to Breathers: Sorry, Wait Until 2013 | Mother Jones.

Feds Begin To Clamp Down On Health Insurance Rates

Health insurance rates for the individual and small group markets will face stricter scrutiny to determine whether they are reasonable under new rules required by last year’s healthcare reform law, known as the Affordable Care Act.

Starting Thursday, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will review rates in nine states that lack the authority to adequately review rates. The remaining 41 states will conduct their own reviews.

“These new rules combined with the funding states are receiving under the Affordable Care Act will trigger much closer scrutiny of health insurance rate hikes,” says DeAnn Friedholm, the director of Consumers Union’s health reform campaign. “But ultimately, it will be up to the states to protect consumers when rate increases are found to be unreasonable. States need to make sure they have the tools necessary to prevent unreasonable rate increases from going into effect. And some states that have the authority to curb rate hikes need to act more aggressively to prevent insurers from gouging consumers.”

Full Story Here: The Washington Current: Feds Begin To Clamp Down On Health Insurance Rates.

It’s Time For A National Institute of People’s Medicine.

Pharmaceutical corporations are failing seriously. No, I don’t mean financially. Each of big pharma’s top five have annual revenues topping forty billion dollars. Instead the drug industry is floundering in its ability to provide the public with many of the basic medicines that are absolutely required for the treatment of a host of diseases.

First, there is an ongoing critical shortage of specific well-established medicines. The tragic result is that some patients may not receive life-saving, life-extending, or palliative therapies. This dearth of medications includes vinblastine and vincristine, two chemicals found in Madagascar’s Rosy Periwinkle. These two drugs revolutionized the therapy of childhood leukemia, changing the prognosis from almost certain death to nearly certain cure. Also increasingly scarce is Taxol (Paclitaxel), a gift from the Pacific Yew Tree and discovered through research financed by the National Cancer Institute. Since it’s launch in 1992, Taxol has been an essential component in the chemotherapy of breast and ovarian cancers as well as AIDS-associated Kaposi’s sarcoma. The global giant Bristol-Myers-Squibb generated well over ten billion dollars in revenues from this taxpayer-financed discovery. Another shortfall involves the cancer chemotherapy mainstay Cytarabine, employed in the therapy of leukemia and lymphoma. There is also a sparsity of the drug thyrogen, used in protocols to test for or treat thyroid cancer. Presently there are at least 14 generic cancer drugs in short supply. And the shortages don’t stop there.

Full Story Here: OpEdNews – Article: It’s Time For A National Institute of People’s Medicine..

Women Age Better If They Have Active Sex Lives: Study

Remember what great sex lives some of the fabulously post-60 “Golden Girls” seemed to have? Turns out that wasn’t unrealistic, according to a new study out of the University of California, San Diego.

The research examined the sex lives of women between the ages of 60 and 89 and found those who enjoyed an active sex life had a better quality of life and were happier, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

Though sexual activity was lower in older woman — “seventy per cent of women in their sixties reported some sexual activity in the previous six months, a figure which dropped to 57 per cent among women in their seventies and 31 per cent among those in their eighties,” according to the report — and the women studied were less likely than younger women to become aroused or climax, the results showed a majority of the women ranked their sex lives between moderately satisfied and very satisfied, according to the Telegraph.

Full Story Here: Women Age Better If They Have Active Sex Lives: Study.

Bernie Sanders Introduces Bill To Lift The Payroll Tax Cap, Ensuring Full Social Security Funding For Nearly 75 Years

Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was a featured speaker at the United Steel Workers 2011 conference in Las Vegas.

Sanders focused much of his speech on the Social Security system, blasting suggestions by Democrats and Republicans alike that, for example, we should adjust the cost of living adjustment to cut Social Security payments to working class Americans or raise the retirement age. “When [Social Security] was developed, 50 percent of seniors lived in poverty. Today, poverty among seniors is too high, but that number is ten percent. Social Security has done exactly what it was designed to do!” he thundered, defending the program. Watch it:

video at link

Today, Sanders announced that he will introduce legislation that would strengthen Social Security without cutting benefits to any of its beneficiaries. Sanders’ legislation would eliminate the income cap that currently exists in the payroll tax that does not tax income above $106,800:

Full Story Here: Bernie Sanders Introduces Bill To Lift The Payroll Tax Cap, Ensuring Full Social Security Funding For Nearly 75 Years | ThinkProgress.

Michigan GOP Lawmakers Move To Limit Health Care Coverage For Public Employees

Michigan Republicans dealt another blow to public employee unions Wednesday as they pushed ahead with a plan to force local governments and school districts to cap health care spending or risk losing state aid, a move that would require workers to pay more for coverage and limit officials’ ability to negotiate local contracts.

The measure expected to be signed by Gov. Rick Snyder is just the most recent loss for public sector unions in the longtime labor stronghold and during a year in which government employees nationwide are being forced to pay more for pension and health care benefits to help stem massive budget shortfalls.

It’s also the latest move by Snyder’s administration to expand state oversight of local government and education affairs.

Full Story Here: Michigan GOP Lawmakers Move To Limit Health Care Coverage For Public Employees.

Greenpeace finds toxic chemicals in top brand name clothes

Traces of toxic chemicals harmful to the environment and to human health have been detected in products made by 14 top clothing manufacturers, Greenpeace said Tuesday.

Samples of clothing from top brands including Adidas, Uniqlo, Calvin Klein, H&M, Abercrombie & Fitch, Lacoste, Converse and Ralph Lauren were found to be tainted with the chemicals, known as nonylphenol ethoxylates, the watchdog said at the launch of its report “Dirty Laundry 2″.

Greenpeace campaigner Li Yifang said that nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), commonly used as detergents in industries including the production of natural and synthetic textiles, were detected in two-thirds of the samples the group tested.

Full Story Here: Greenpeace finds toxic chemicals in top brand name clothes | The Raw Story.

“Pro-Life” Kansas Governor Cuts Funding for Dying Infants

A national study published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that child welfare in Kansas is slipping fast. The state dropped to 40th in infant mortality, and has the terrible distinction of being the worst in the country in terms of African-American infant mortality. 1 in 5 children are living in poverty in Kansas, the lowest level in seven years.

Clearly, something needs to be done to improve the well-being of Kansas’ children. But how did Republican Governor Sam Brownback respond? He is gutting the agency responsible for child protective services, child support enforcement, and child, adult and family well being services, after a failed attempt to slash funding for Head Start. According to Keri Ann Rinker of Kansas NOW,

“The state was on track to close 9 [Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services centers], citing agency cost savings. Public outcry has prevented one of those closures. The City Council of Lawrence, Kansas has agreed to pick up the state’s tab and fund their own office to serve the most needy within their community.”

Full Story Here: “Pro-Life” Kansas Governor Cuts Funding for Dying Infants | Care2 Causes.

Foodborne Illnesses in America

Complex Factory Foods pose the Highest Risk

A close look at the people behind the raw milk scare, and the actual numbers of foodborne illness, reveals that politics more than science drives the food safety agenda in the U.S.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack just appointed Susan Vaughn Grooters to the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF), which is also served by Dr. Wafa Birbari of junk food giant, Sara Lee Corp.

Lacking a PhD, Grooters will serve her two-year term on NACMCF as a “consumer representative.” She currently works with STOP Foodborne Illness (formerly Safe Tables Our Priority), an organization that condemns raw dairy and urges broad expansion of federal control over food.

Grooters hopes to federalize state reporting of contaminated food, as explained to Center for Science in the Public Interest:

“States’ systematic differences in response to foodborne illness case reporting may also explain variations in rates,” said S.T.O.P’s public health specialist, Susan Vaughn Grooters. “Time differences in surveying cases of foodborne illness and lack of integrated data collection may also affect how well states accurately capture data.” [1]

In a playful charade calling for stricter controls on food, she recently tweeted:

“Really??? Really? I would beg to differ Sec. Vilsack! ..unless of course you’re proposing a change to policies…  http://usat.ly/kceLEY”

With these opinions, it’s almost a joke to say she represents consumers.

Full Story Here: Foodborne Illnesses in America.

Tainted and counterfeit Chinese honey floods into the U.S.

A third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals. A Food Safety News investigation has documented that millions of pounds of honey banned as unsafe in dozens of countries are being imported and sold here in record quantities. …

Experts interviewed by Food Safety News say some of the largest and most long-established U.S. honey packers are knowingly buying mislabeled, transshipped or possibly altered honey so they can sell it cheaper than those companies who demand safety, quality and rigorously inspected honey.

This is a serious issue because China has a monumental problem with its honey industry. A bee epidemic in China several years ago led beekeepers there to use an antibiotic that the U.S. FDA has banned in food and that has been linked to DNA damage in children. And as FSN observes, though China has a state-of-the-art honey processing industry, its beekeeping has not kept up — resulting, for example, in some Chinese honey being contaminated with lead from the use of improper storage containers.

Full Story Here: Honey laundering: tainted and counterfeit Chinese honey floods into the U.S. | Grist.

A Radical New Definition of Addiction Creates a Big Storm

A sweeping new definition of addiction stakes out controversial positions that many, including the powerful psychiatric lobby, are likely to argue with.

If you think addiction is all about booze, drugs, sex, gambling, food and other irresistible vices, think again. And if you believe that a person has a choice whether or not to indulge in an addictive behavior, get over it. The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) blew the whistle on these deeply held notions with its official release of a new document defining addiction as a chronic neurological disorder involving many brain functions, most notably a devastating imbalance in the so-called reward circuitry. This fundamental impairment in the experience of pleasure literally compels the addict to chase the chemical highs produced by substances like drugs and alcohol and obsessive behaviors like sex, food and gambling.

The definition, a result of a four-year process involving more than 80 leading experts in addiction and neurology, emphasizes that addiction is a primary illness—in other words, it’s not caused by mental health issues such as mood or personality disorders, putting to rest the popular notion that addictive behaviors are a form of “self-medication” to, say, ease the pain of depression or anxiety.

Indeed, the new neurologically focused definition debunks, in whole or in part, a host of common conceptions about addiction. Addiction, the statement declares, is a “bio-psycho-socio-spiritual” illness characterized by (a) damaged decision-making (affecting learning, perception, and judgment) and by (b) persistent risk and/or recurrence of relapse; the unambiguous implications are that (a) addicts have no control over their addictive behaviors and (b) total abstinence is, for some addicts, an unrealistic goal of effective treatment.

Full Story Here: A Radical New Definition of Addiction Creates a Big Storm | Drugs | AlterNet.

Why the New Healthcare Law Should Have Been Based on Medicare (And What Democrats Should Have Learned By Now

Robert Reich :-:

Last week, two appellate judges in Atlanta — one appointed by President Bill Clinton and one by George H.W. Bush – held the Constitution doesn’t allow the federal government to require individuals to buy health insurance.

Yet the so-called “individual mandate” is a cornerstone of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s 2010 health care reform law, scheduled to go into effect in 2014.

The whole idea of the law is to pool heath risks. Only if everyone buys insurance can insurers afford to cover people with preexisting conditions, or pay the costs of catastrophic diseases.

The issue is now destined for the Supreme Court (another appellate court has upheld the law’s constitutionality) where the prognosis isn’t good. The Court’s Republican-appointed majority has not exactly distinguished itself by its progressive views.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (Why the New Healthcare Law Should Have Been Based on Medicare (And What Democrats Should Have Learned By Now)).

Tainted Beef Leads To Grocery Recalls

At least three major grocery store chains are recalling certain packages of ground beef due to possible E. coli contamination

At least three major grocery store chains are recalling certain packages of ground beef due to possible E. coli contamination.

The recalls at Winn-Dixie Stores Inc., Publix Super Markets Inc. and Kroger Co. mainly in the southeastern U.S. stem from meat from National Beef Packaging Co. of Dodge City, Kan.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Friday that National Beef was recalling more than 60,000 pounds of beef after the Ohio Department of Agriculture found the bacteria.

The recalls affect products sold mainly in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee, but the meat could have been distributed nationwide.

The agriculture department says there have been no reports of illnesses. The company says it’s investigating.

E. coli can be deadly and can cause bloody diarrhea and other problems.

Full Story Here: Tainted Beef Leads To Grocery Recalls.

Can We Have Health Reform Without an Individual Mandate? Yes, It’s Called ‘Medicare for All’

John Nichols : -:

The essential vote on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel that ruled that the individual-coverage mandate in President Obama’s healthcare reform is unconstitutional did not come from a reactionary Republican appointed by Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush.

Rather, it came from respected jurist whose two appointments to the federal bench—first as a judge for the Northern District of Georgia in 1994 and then to the 11th Circuit in 1997—were made by then-President Bill Clinton. No, Judge Frank Mays Hull is not a raging lefty, but nor is she a right-wing judicial activist. A former law clerk for Judge Elbert Parr Tuttle, who as the chief justice of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1960 to 1967 led the court in issuing a series of epic decisions on behalf of civil rights, Judge Hull has a reputation as a moderate defender of the rule of law who has earned reasonable marks for her pragmatic and decidely mainstream interpretations of the Constitution.

So why did Hull join with another member of the appeals court panel (Chief Judge Joel Dubina, an appointee of George H.W. Bush) to form the 2-1 majority that rejected the individual mandate while affirming the rest of the law? Perhaps it was because one can favor sweeping healthcare reforms—including an expansion of Medicare—while still believing that it is wrong to require Americans to buy insurance from for-profit insurance companies.

Hull telegraphed her thinking with repeated questions during June oral arguments in Atlanta regarding the case. Noting that “the panel spent a significant amount of time discussing whether the mandate is ‘severable’ from the rest of the law,” Politico pointed out that: “Hull in particular asked the federal government three times where the line should be.”

Full Story Here: Can We Have Health Reform Without an Individual Mandate? Yes, It’s Called ‘Medicare for All’ | The Nation.

Appeals Court Finds Individual Mandate Unconstitutional

Moments ago, in a 2-1 decision, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act, ruling that Congress cannot “mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die.” The court kept the rest of the law enact. Some highlights from the decision:

– It is immaterial whether we perceive Congress to be regulating inactivity or a financial decision to forego insurance. Under any framing, the regulated conduct is defined by the absence of both commerce or even the “the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities”—the broad definition of economics in Raich… To connect this conduct to interstate commerce would require a “but-for causal chain” that the Supreme Court has rejected, as it would allow Congress to regulate anything.

– In sum, the individual mandate is breathtaking in its expansive scope. It regulates those who have not entered the health care market at all. It regulates those who have entered the health care market, but have not entered the insurance market (and have no intention of doing so). It is over inclusive in when it regulates:it conflates those who presently consume health care with those who will not consume health care for many years into the future. The government’s position amounts to an argument that the mere fact of an individual’s existence substantially affects interstate commerce, and therefore Congress may regulate them at every point of their life.

Full Story Here: Appeals Court Finds Individual Mandate Unconstitutional | ThinkProgress.

S&P’s list of AAA Rated Countries, All of Which Have Socialized Health Care

The debt ceiling debacle was reminiscent of the Tea Party political temper tantrums thrown while President Obama attempted to make Health Care reform a law, giving everyone a chance to enjoy the benefits of decent health care and well being.

While right wing politicians demonized socialized health care, some of them have actually benefited from it.

Republicans, Conservatives and Tea Partiers united, saying Socialized Health Care would wreak havoc on our economy. They proceeded to deem President Obama as an evil Socialist trying to turn this country into an evil-Marxist-Maoist-Communist [just fill in the blank] entity, but the following countries have socialized medicine and they have an AAA status with Standard & Poor’s.

Now that the USA no longer has a stellar AAA status, all remaining countries with AAA ratings have socialized medicine.

Full Story Here: FreakOutNation » S&P’s list of AAA Rated Countries, All of Which Have Socialized Health Care.

15 Food Companies That Serve You ‘Wood’

Wood pulp, or cellulose, in processed food report updated with the addition of Pepsi, Kellogg and Weight Watchers International.)

Are you getting what you pay for on your plate?

The recent class-action lawsuit brought against Taco Bell raised questions about the quality of food many Americans eat each day.

Chief among those concerns is the use of cellulose (read: wood pulp), an extender whose use in a roster of food products, from crackers and ice creams to puddings and baked goods, is now being exposed. What you’re actually paying for — and consuming — may be surprising.

>> Bankruptcy Watch: 14 Risky Restaurant Stocks

Cellulose is virgin wood pulp that has been processed and manufactured to different lengths for functionality, though use of it and its variant forms (cellulose gum, powdered cellulose, microcrystalline cellulose, etc.) is deemed safe for human consumption, according to the FDA, which regulates most food industry products. The government agency sets no limit on the amount of cellulose that can be used in food products meant for human consumption. The USDA, which regulates meats, has set a limit of 3.5% on the use of cellulose, since fiber in meat products cannot be recognized nutritionally.

Full Story Here: 15 Food Companies That Serve You ‘Wood’ – TheStreet.

Big Food Recalls Once Again Reveal the Hidden Costs of our Big Food System

Back in March, we tried to imagine through a short video what it would be like if the President got a wake-up call about his proposed food safety budget cuts and how they might affect one his favorite meals: a hamburger. On second thought, make that a turkey burger. Cargill Value Added Meats Retail, a subsidiary of Cargill Meat Solutions Corporation, just recalled 36 MILLION POUNDS of ground turkey products because of possible Salmonella contamination. This is exactly why it’s not a good idea to cut critical food and safety protections from the federal budget.

Cargill, the third largest turkey processor in the United States, is recalling the turkey products because of a strain of bacteria called Salmonella Heidelberg, which has sickened 76 consumers and caused one death. The fact that Salmonella Heidelberg is antibiotic-resistant certainly reinforces the need for ending the overuse of antibiotics in livestock production.

Tracing the contamination back to its source — no easy task when you’re talking about 36 million pounds of processed food distributed to 26 states — has been the task of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in conjunction with USDA and state health agencies. In case you’re wondering how long it takes to figure out where food contamination originated, in this case it took five months since the first reported case of food illness was reported until they linked the public health threat to Cargill’s ground turkey.

Full Story Here: Big Food Recalls Once Again Reveal the Hidden Costs of our Big Food System | Food & Water Watch.

Japan’s Food-Chain Threat Multiplies as Fukushima Radiation Spreads

Radiation fallout from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant poses a growing threat to Japan’s food chain as unsafe levels of cesium found in beef on supermarket shelves were also detected in more vegetables and the ocean.

More than 2,600 cattle have been contaminated, Kyodo News reported July 23, after the Miyagi local government said 1,183 cattle at 58 farms were fed hay containing radioactive cesium before being shipped to meat markets.

Agriculture Minister Michihiko Kano has said officials didn’t foresee that farmers might ship contaminated hay to cattle ranchers. That highlights the government’s inability to think ahead and to act, said Mariko Sano, secretary general for Shufuren, a housewives organization in Tokyo.

“The government is so slow to move,” Sano said. “They’ve done little to ensure food safety.”

Full Story Here: Japan’s Food-Chain Threat Multiplies as Fukushima Radiation Spreads – Bloomberg.

Who Put McDonald’s in Charge of Kids’ Health?Appetite for Profit

When McDonald’s sneezes, the media jumps. Such was the case yesterday when the company announced it was giving the Happy Meal a makeover. Well not really, but that’s how it got reported, because the media loves simple stories. But when it comes to marketing and PR by multinational corporations, nothing is ever that simple.

While my colleagues have done a great job of explaining why nutritionally, this move is little more than PR (see Marion Nestle and Andy Bellatti), missing from the analysis so far is this: what McDonald’s really wants is to remain in charge.

The fast food giant’s motivation beyond the obvious positive PR spin is to stave off more laws like the one passed in San Francisco to set nutrition standards for Happy Meals, not to mention lawsuits like the one filed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest based on deceptive marketing.

Full Story Here: Who Put McDonald’s in Charge of Kids’ Health?Appetite for Profit | Appetite for Profit.

Messing With Medicare

Paul Krugman: – :

At the time of writing, President Obama’s hoped-for “Grand Bargain” with Republicans is apparently dead. And I say good riddance. I’m no more eager than other rational people (a category that fails to include many Congressional Republicans) to see what happens if the debt limit isn’t raised. But what the president was offering to the G.O.P., especially on Medicare, was a very bad deal for America.

Specifically, according to many reports, the president offered both means-testing of Medicare benefits and a rise in the age of Medicare eligibility. The first would be bad policy; the second would be terrible policy. And it would almost surely be terrible politics, too.

The crucial thing to remember, when we talk about Medicare, is that our goal isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be, defined in terms of some arbitrary number. Our goal should be, instead, to give Americans the health care they need at a price the country can afford. And throwing Americans in their mid-60s off Medicare moves us away from that goal, not toward it.

Full Story Here: Messing With Medicare – NYTimes.com.

Mass Psychosis in the US

How Big Pharma got Americans hooked on anti-psychotic drugs

Drug companies like Pfizer are accused of pressuring doctors into over-prescribing medications to patients in order to increase profits [GALLO/GETTY]

Has America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux.

Once upon a time, antipsychotics were reserved for a relatively small number of patients with hard-core psychiatric diagnoses – primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorder – to treat such symptoms as delusions, hallucinations, or formal thought disorder. Today, it seems, everyone is taking antipsychotics. Parents are told that their unruly kids are in fact bipolar, and in need of anti-psychotics, while old people with dementia are dosed, in large numbers, with drugs once reserved largely for schizophrenics. Americans with symptoms ranging from chronic depression to anxiety to insomnia are now being prescribed anti-psychotics at rates that seem to indicate a national mass psychosis.

It is anything but a coincidence that the explosion in antipsychotic use coincides with the pharmaceutical industry’s development of a new class of medications known as “atypical antipsychotics.” Beginning with Zyprexa, Risperdal, and Seroquel in the 1990s, followed by Abilify in the early 2000s, these drugs were touted as being more effective than older antipsychotics like Haldol and Thorazine. More importantly, they lacked the most noxious side effects of the older drugs – in particular, the tremors and other motor control problems.

Full Story Here: Mass Psychosis in the US.

Walter Reed to close after more than a century

Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Army’s flagship hospital where privates to presidents have gone for care, is closing its doors after more than a century.

Hundreds of thousands of the nation’s war wounded from World War I to today have received treatment at Walter Reed, including 18,000 troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Dwight Eisenhower died there. So did Gens. John J. Pershing and Douglas MacArthur.

It’s where countless celebrities, from Bob Hope to quarterback Tom Brady, have stopped to show their respect to the wounded. Through the use of medical diplomacy, the center also has tended to foreign leaders.

The storied hospital, which opened in 1909, was scarred by a 2007 scandal about substandard living conditions on its grounds for wounded troops in outpatient care and the red tape they faced. It led to improved care for the wounded, at Walter Reed and throughout the military. By then, however, plans were moving forward to close Walter Reed’s campus.

Two years earlier, a government commission, noting that Walter Reed was showing its age, voted to close the facility and consolidate its operations with the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and a hospital at Fort Belvoir, Va., to save money.

Former and current patients and staff members will say goodbye at a ceremony Wednesday on the parade grounds in front of the main concrete and glass hospital complex. Most of the moving will occur in August. On Sept. 15, the Army hands over the campus to the new tenants: the State Department and the District of Columbia. The buildings on campus deemed national historic landmarks will be preserved; others probably will be torn down. The city is expected to develop its section for retail and other uses.

“For many of the staff members, even though they know that this is the future of the military health system, in a way, it’s still like losing your favorite uncle, and so there is a certain amount of mourning that is going on and it is an emotional time,” said Col. Norvell Coots, commander of the Walter Reed Health Care System.

Full Story Here: Associated Press.

An unprecedented 1 in 66 Americans is a diagnosed psychotic

Outselling even common drugs to treat high blood pressure and acid reflux, antipsychotic medications are the single top-selling prescription drug in the United States.

Once reserved for hard-core, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest type of mental illnesses to treat hallucinations, delusions or major thought disorders; today, the drugs are handed out to unruly kids and absent minded elderly.

A recent story in Al Jazeera by James Ridgeway of Mother Jones illuminates the efforts by major pharmaceutical companies to get doctors prescribing medicines like Zyprexa, Seroquel, and Abilify to patients for whom the drugs were never intended.

Full Story Here: An unprecedented 1 in 66 Americans is a diagnosed psychotic | The Raw Story.

Eating Meat Linked To Disease, Report Says

A new report released Monday claims the science is clear: Eating too much meat is bad for your health.

The so-called Meat Eater’s Guide, compiled by the Environmental Working Group, is generating buzz for its “cradle-to-grave” look at the environmental impact of 20 popular types of meat, dairy and vegetable proteins. But it also emphasizes the potential health impact of eating too much meat, recommending that people cut back to decrease their risk of heart disease and certain cancers.

“The goal is to really make this information accessible to consumers,” said Kari Hamerschlag, an agriculture analyst with the research and advocacy group. “On the health side, we really pulled together all of the information and tried to make it as clear as possible that there’s not just one reason to limit meat consumption; there are a whole host of reasons.”

The report, which weaves together statistics from various earlier studies, allows that meat can be an important source of protein and vitamins when eaten in moderation. But in the U.S., moderation may be a problem. The report cites data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization suggesting that Americans consume almost 60 percent more meat than their European counterparts, and four times more than in many developing countries. And much of that meat is either red or processed.

Full Story Here: Eating Meat Linked To Disease, Report Says.

Eye Test May Give Clues To Alzheimer’s Disease

Australian scientists are reporting encouraging early results from an eye test they hope will create a simple way to detect signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

The test is experimental and needs more study. But doctors know that Alzheimer’s causes changes in the eyes, not just the brain. Other researchers in the United States also are working on an eye test for the disease.

“It’s a small study” but “suggestive and encouraging,” one of the American researchers, Dr. Lee Goldstein of Boston University, said of the Australian work. “My hat’s off to them for looking outside the brain for other areas where we might see other evidence of this disease.”

Full Story Here: Eye Test May Give Clues To Alzheimer’s Disease.

Tens Of Billions Could Be Cut From Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security Without Impacting Services

How can President Obama and our Congress make the public believe they are sincere in cutting the federal deficit when both parties are ignoring tens of billions of dollars in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security savings that could be accomplished without impacting services or unduly causing hardship to our seniors and the nation’s disadvantaged? Our investigation is only in its preliminary stages and we are releasing some of the information we have uncovered in the interests of throwing more fuel on the deficit reduction talks before “the people” are again bamboozled by political maneuvers that will accelerate the total destruction of our economy and America’s fragile Middle-Class. Here’s a fact that appears to be almost unknown to the general public; the costs of the prescriptions that Medicare and Medicaid recipients receive through their relevant providers is not being billed to the government (paid for by taxpayers) at “retail” prices. Instead, their drugs are being billed at prices that are far above the retail price that anyone else else would be charged if they were walking in off the street and paid for their prescriptions with cash!

Before we explain how this scam works and how we arrived at this absurd subsidization of Big Pharma and the nation’s drug store chains, it’s important to grasp the tens of billions, or possibly the hundreds of billions of dollars that are being exacted from the American public in the name of benefiting the underprivileged, the disabled, and America’s seniors. The MSM has reported that approximately seventy million Social Security checks could be withheld if a new debt ceiling is not approved. Those checks are for Social Security Retirees, Social Security Disability recipients, and Supplemental Social Security (SSI). This figure of seventy million Americans receiving Social Security checks does not represent the millions that are also receiving low or no cost prescriptions through state run Medicaid programs, so the breadth of this scam is extremely hard to calculate and/or imagine – but consider these examples:

Cash price for 30 generic 10 Mg Ambien Tablets (Zolpidem Tartrate) $20.00 Medicare is billed: $72.99

Cash price for thirty 60 Mg Vyvanse Capsules $156.00 SSI is billed $210.99

Sink your teeth into the fact that for just two prescriptions, Medicare/SSI was billed $108.00 above and beyond what any individual would pay if they walked in and paid cash for the exact same medication!

Full Story Here: Tens Of Billions Could Be Cut From Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security Without Impacting Services.

THE GOP’S ASSAULT ON MEDICARE

Jim Hightower :-:

Remember the hoorahs from Republicans just 4 months ago, when House budget chairman Paul Ryan issued the GOP’s “bold” plan to slash federal spending? Gosh, how quickly that cheering turned to silence.

That’s because the budgetary jewel in Ryan’s creation was the elimination of Medicare. He proposed replacing it with a privatized voucher program that would pay only a fraction of what Medicare covers. This turned out to be a spectacularly stupid idea, resulting in angry seniors showing up at one of Ryan’s town hall meetings to whack him over the head with his own proposal. The “bold” plan suddenly had a stench worse than week-old road kill, and Republicans are now trying to disown it.

But don’t mistake the GOP’s sudden squeamishness for meaning that Ryan’s Let’s-Kill-Medicare effort has gone away. The big stinker is still in the Republican budget and still a core tenet of right-wing orthodoxy. Indeed, all eight of the party’s presidential contenders are on record in favor, but not publicizing it.

Full Story Here: Jim Hightower | THE GOP’S ASSAULT ON MEDICARE.

Men more likely to die from cancer: U.S. study

Men are more likely than women to die of most types of cancer, according to a new US study.

The report published Tuesday in the journal “Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention,” analyzed the survival rate at five years for 36 different types of cancer.

It found the greatest gender gap in deaths from mouth cancer, with 5.51 men dying for every woman, followed by cancer of the larynx, at 5.37, cancer of the hypopharynx at 4.47 and esophageal cancer at 4.08.

Full Story Here: Men more likely to die from cancer: U.S. study | The Raw Story.

Public Opinion Snapshot: Hands Off Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid!

The contentious congressional talks on a debt reduction deal continue to drag on. Conservatives have doubled and tripled down on their determination to cut spending as much as possible while doing absolutely nothing to raise government revenues. They are particularly licking their chops about cutting the so-called entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They want to cut benefits, reduce eligibility, and increase costs to recipients. What does the public think about this particular conservative crusade?

Not much. Not much at all. A just-released Pew poll documents the extent of public opposition. The poll asked respondents what is more important, reducing the budget deficit or keeping Medicare and Social Security benefits as they are. By an overwhelming 60-32 margin the public prefers to keep Medicare and Social Security as they are.

Full Story Here: Public Opinion Snapshot: Hands Off Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid!.

The Ryan Medicaid Plan: A Threat to Middle Class Security

The Medicaid changes in the Ryan budget plan would have extraordinary implications not only for the poor individuals who are normally thought of as the principal beneficiaries but for a very broad swath of middle-class families who are far more likely to become reliant on Medicaid benefits at some point in their life than most currently realize.

For more than a decade policymakers in Washington and ordinary citizens across the country have engaged in a public dialogue on the federal budget that has frequently served to confuse rather than clarify the choices facing our nation. This year Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman of the House Budget Committee, put forward a proposal that attaches significantly greater programmatic detail to the spending reductions he is proposing than previous advocates of large spending cuts. The proposal has been both praised and assailed for its content—but there is little question that it has served to move the budget debate to a more substantive and informative level.

The Ryan plan is important not simply because it provides greater detail as to how cuts in federal spending might be achieved but also because it has legislative credibility. On April 15, 2011 the Ryan budget was adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 235 to 193, with all but four members of the majority party (the Republicans) voting “yes.”

Full Story Here: The Ryan Medicaid Plan: A Threat to Middle Class Security.

Using Cash Could Lead To Healthier Eating Habits: Study

Using debit and credit cards have become second nature to most people who don’t want to run to the bank every time they’re out of cash, but new research shows that cash could help your eating habits.

Over a six-month spread researchers looked at the register receipts of a random sample of 1,000 loyal shoppers at a Northeastern supermarket chain and analyzed what they bought and how they paid for it, reports MSNBC.

The study published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that shoppers were more likely to buy items considered “unhealthy” when they paid with credit or debit cards than if they paid with cash, and that weekend shoppers were more likely to stick to a list.

Full Story Here: Using Cash Could Lead To Healthier Eating Habits: Study.

Study Identifies Benefits Of Wider Medicaid Use

Expanding low income adults’ access to Medicaid substantially increases health care use, reduces financial strain on covered individuals, and improves their self-reported health and well-being, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the National Bureau of Economic Research, and Providence Health & Services have found.

The researchers say theirs is the first study to evaluate the impact of insuring the uninsured in the United States using a randomized controlled trial, the gold standard in medical and scientific studies.

The study will be released on the website of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) on Thursday.

Full Story Here: The Washington Current: Study Identifies Benefits Of Wider Medicaid Use.

Administration Offers Health Care Cuts as Part of Budget Negotiations

Medicare and Medicaid Could Lose Billions in Budget Talks

Obama administration officials are offering to cut tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid in negotiations to reduce the federal budget deficit, but the depth of the cuts depends on whether Republicans are willing to accept any increases in tax revenues.

Administration officials and Republican negotiators say the money can be taken from health care providers like hospitals and nursing homes without directly imposing new costs on needy beneficiaries or radically restructuring either program.

Before the talks led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. broke off 12 days ago, negotiators said, they had reached substantial agreement on many cuts in the growth of Medicare, which provides care to people 65 and older, and Medicaid, which covers lower-income people. Those proposals are still on the table when Congress reconvenes this week, aides said, and are serious options that Democrats could accept in exchange for Republican concessions that raise revenues.

“Congress smells blood,” said William L. Minnix Jr., the chief lobbyist for nonprofit nursing homes.

Full Story Here: Medicare and Medicaid Could Lose Billions in Budget Talks – NYTimes.com.

Medicare and Medicaid Could Lose Billions in Budget Talks

Obama administration officials are offering to cut tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid in negotiations to reduce the federal budget deficit, but the depth of the cuts depends on whether Republicans are willing to accept any increases in tax revenues.

Administration officials and Republican negotiators say the money can be taken from health care providers like hospitals and nursing homes without directly imposing new costs on needy beneficiaries or radically restructuring either program.

Before the talks led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. broke off 12 days ago, negotiators said, they had reached substantial agreement on many cuts in the growth of Medicare, which provides care to people 65 and older, and Medicaid, which covers lower-income people. Those proposals are still on the table when Congress reconvenes this week, aides said, and are serious options that Democrats could accept in exchange for Republican concessions that raise revenues.

“Congress smells blood,” said William L. Minnix Jr., the chief lobbyist for nonprofit nursing homes.

Full Story Here: Medicare and Medicaid Could Lose Billions in Budget Talks – NYTimes.com.

OPS: Bend-over Obama strikes again

Study: Majority of Americans Approve of Stem Cells for Curing Serious Diseases

While research using human embryonic stem cells has roused political controversy for almost two decades, little has been done to scientifically assess American attitudes on the subject. New research from the University of Nevada, Reno provides decision-makers with a much clearer picture of how their constituents truly feel about the subject.

The study, “U.S. attitudes toward human embryonic stem cell research,” published this month in the journal, Nature Biotechnology, was conducted by University of Nevada, Reno faculty members Mariah Evans and Jonathan Kelley, who surveyed a large, representative national sample of 2,295 respondents in 2009.

Their most significant findings include:

Full Story Here: The Washington Current: Study: Majority of Americans Approve of Stem Cells for Curing Serious Diseases.

Coburn, Lieberman seek to raise Medicare age to 67

Two Senate rebels jumped into Congress’ cut-the-deficit competition on Tuesday, proposing to raise the age of Medicare eligibility to 67 and increase monthly premiums for millions of current beneficiaries.

“We can’t save Medicare as we know it,” said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., who authored the plan with Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. “We can only save Medicare if we change it,” he added in an apparent jab at President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats.

Democrats reacted with criticism of the proposal, which Coburn said was designed to rescue the financially imperiled program and help the nation confront a “wall of debt.” Republicans betrayed no sign of support either.

If nothing else, the response underscored the difficulty of legislative free-lancing at a time the Obama administration and congressional leaders are struggling to negotiate a compromise that cuts future deficits and clears the way for an increase in the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt.

Full Story Here: Excite News – Coburn, Lieberman seek to raise Medicare age to 67.

EPIC v. DHS Lawsuit — FOIA’d Documents Raise New Questions About Body Scanner Radiation Risks

In a FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, EPIC has just obtained documents concerning the radiation risks of TSA’s airport body scanner program. The documents include agency emails, radiation studies, memoranda of agreement concerning radiation testing programs, and results of some radiation tests. One document set reveals that even after TSA employees identified cancer clusters possibly linked to radiation exposure, the agency failed to issue employees dosimeters – safety devices that could assess the level of radiation exposure. Another document indicates that the DHS mischaracterized the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, stating that NIST “affirmed the safety” of full body scanners. The documents obtained by EPIC reveal that NIST disputed that characterization and stated that the Institute did not, in fact, test the devices. Also, a Johns Hopkins University study revealed that radiation zones around body scanners could exceed the “General Public Dose Limit.” For more information, see EPIC: EPIC v. Department of Homeland Security – Full Body Scanner Radiation Risks and EPIC: EPIC v. DHS (Suspension of Body Scanner Program).

Full Story Here: EPIC – EPIC v. DHS Lawsuit — FOIA’d Documents Raise New Questions About Body Scanner Radiation Risks.

7 Healthy Ways To Lose Weight Without ‘Dieting’

When it comes to losing weight and getting healthy, the little things add up — trying just one new thing every day can quickly make a big difference. With that in mind, we’ve taken science’s best weight-loss strategies and created seven healthy (and slimming) to-do’s!

Studies show that recording meals may help you lose up to 5 percent of your weight, says Robert A. Carels, Ph.D., an associate professor in the psychology department at Bowling Green State University.

Start today: Snap before and after photos of each meal with your camera phone. Keeping a visual food diary is a more accurate way to see what and how much you’re eating, United Kingdom researchers say. Afterward, download the pics so you’ll have a record.

Full Story Here: 7 Healthy Ways To Lose Weight Without ‘Dieting’.

Dennis Kucinich Confronts MD Who Claimed Canadian Health Care Was Worse That The US’s

The majority of the American people want a single-payer health care system – Medicare for all. The majority of doctors want it. A good chunk of hospital CEOs want it. But what they want doesn’t appear to matter. Why?

Because a single-payer health care plan would mean the death of the private health insurance industry and reduced profits for the pharmaceutical industry.

Presidential candidates John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Mitt Romney and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger talk a lot about universal health care. But not one of them advocates for single-payer – because single-payer too directly confronts the big corporate interests profiting off the miserable health care system we are currently saddled with.

YouTube – Dennis Kucinich Confronts MD Who Claimed Canadian Health Care Was Worse That The US’s.

Study: Children Born Near Mountaintop Removal Mining 26% More Likely to Have Birth Defects at EnviroKnow

A new study (PDF) in the forthcoming edition of Environmental Research compares the prevalence of birth defects in Appalachian children from mountaintop removal mining communities to non-mountaintop removal mining communities. The investigators found that “children born in counties home to mountaintop coal mines had a 26% higher risk of suffering birth defects, compared to ones born in non-mining regions.”

The researchers looked at birth defects in four Appalachian states — West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia (pictured at right) — from 1996-2003. They found that children born in mountaintop removal mining communities were more likely to have birth defects in six of seven categories, including heart, lung and gastrointestinal birth defects. Due to the correlation between poverty and birth defects, the researchers controlled for social factors such as smoking, drinking and mother’s education.

Melissa Ahern of Washington State University, who led the study, explained the bottom line. “These are costly to the health care system and involve a lot of human suffering,” she said. “I would think public health officials would be interested.” Study co-author Dr. Michael Hendryx said that the study “offers one of the first indications that health problems are disproportionately concentrated specifically in MTM areas.” He also noted that the findings are “significant not only to people who live in coalfields but to policy makers as well.”

Full Story Here: Study: Children Born Near Mountaintop Removal Mining 26% More Likely to Have Birth Defects at EnviroKnow.

Obama Health Care Law Glitch Opens Medicaid To Millions Of Middle-Class Americans

President Barack Obama’s health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.

The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid, said officials who make long-range cost estimates for the Health and Human Services department.

Up to 3 million more people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of the anomaly. That’s because, in a major change from today, most of their Social Security benefits would no longer be counted as income for determining eligibility. It might be compared to allowing middle-class people to qualify for food stamps.

Full Story Here: Obama Health Care Law Glitch Opens Medicaid To Millions Of Middle-Class Americans.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker To Cut Medicaid Without Public Hearings

Republicans argue that states are the “laboratories of democracy” that should be charged with developing new, innovative ways for delivering quality health care more efficiently. But that point is far harder to make in the face of Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-WI) effort to shut the public out of a debate about Medicaid cuts and shield legislators from having to weigh in on cutting benefits and services for the neediest Americans:

The new state budget bill grants broader power to Gov. Scott Walker’s administration to remake BadgerCare Plus and other state health programs with little legislative oversight, a situation that worries advocates for the roughly 1 million people covered by those programs.

The major question: how the governor’s Department of Health Services will use that authority as it cuts a projected $466 million in costs from the programs over the next two years.

Full Story Here: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker To Cut Medicaid Without Public Hearings | ThinkProgress.

Lyme Disease Symptoms: Key Facts About This Mysterious Illness

Summer is peak season for transmission of Lyme disease.

The only known transporter of Lyme bacteria — the deer tick — goes through the most infectious stage of its life cycle in the summer.

But you don’t need to be in contact with a deer to get a deer tick bite. Deer ticks can hitch a ride on small animals and land right in your backyard.

Here is a case study that highlights why Lyme disease is a mystery illness:

Anne had been diagnosed with three different autoimmune diseases, each by a top specialist:

Full Story Here: Leo Galland, M.D.: Lyme Disease Symptoms: Key Facts About This Mysterious Illness.

When Budget Cuts Become Unhealthy: GOP Whacks Cancer, Other Research

The House Appropriations Committee has become the meat grinder of the federal budget.

Along with their counterparts over in the Senate, House appropriators are the lawmakers who most closely control government spending. Since Republicans have controlled the House spending panel, they’ve used it to whack at the federal budget, again and again. Many of its targets — from legal aid to the poor, to hunger prevention for women and children — are just the sort of social programs one might expect to fall under a conservative fiscal axe.

More recently, though, Republicans — in Congress, and in states across the nation — have begun cutting funding for activities that effect an even wider number of Americans. This includes paying for research into things like curing cancer, which in the past largely have had strong bipartisan support.

Full Story Here: The Washington Current: When Budget Cuts Become Unhealthy: GOP Whacks Cancer, Other Research.

Cheap meat, MRSA and deadly greed

If they aren’t stopped soon, the WHO warns we are facing a ‘doomsday scenario of a world without antibiotics’

Here is a news story that could determine whether you live or die. Many of the world’s scientists are warning that one of the mightiest weapons doctors have against sickness is being rendered useless – so a few people can get richer, for a while. If they aren’t stopped soon, the World Health Organisation warns we are facing “a doomsday scenario of a world without antibiotics”. It will be a world where transplant surgery is impossible. It will be a world where a simple appendix operation will be as routinely lethal as it was in 1927, before the discovery of penicillin. It will be a world where pneumonia and TB and gonorrhea are far harder to deal with, and claim many more of us. But it’s a world that you and I don’t have to see – if we act on this warning now.

As the scientists I’ve interviewed explain it, antibiotics do something simple. They kill, slow down or stall the growth of bacteria. They were one of the great advances of the 20th century, and they have saved millions of us. But they inherently contain a problem – one that was known about from very early on. They start an arms race. Use an antibiotic against bacteria, and it kills most of it – but it can also prompt the bacteria to evolve a tougher, stronger, meaner strain that can fight back. The bacteria is constantly mutating and dividing. The stronger the antibiotic, the stronger some bacteria will become to survive. It’s Darwin dancing at super-speed.

Full Story Here: Johann Hari: Cheap meat, MRSA and deadly greed – Johann Hari, Commentators – The Independent.

Physicians Turn Away Two-Thirds Of Kids With Public Insurance, Study Shows

Some 66 percent of publicly-insured children were unable to get a doctor’s appointment for medical conditions requiring outpatient specialty care including diabetes and seizures, while children with identical symptoms and private insurance were turned away only 11 percent of the time, according to an audit study of specialty physician practices in Cook County, Ill. conducted by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine and the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings are published in the June 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

“We found disturbing disparities in specialty physicians’ willingness to provide outpatient care for children with public insurance — even those with urgent and severe health problems,” says senior author Dr. Karin Rhodes, director of Emergency Care Policy Research in Penn’s department of Emergency Medicine and a senior fellow in the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. “This study shows a failure to care for our most vulnerable children.”

The study also found that Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)-insured children who received an appointment faced longer wait times to be seen. Their average wait to see a specialist was 44 days, while privately-insured children with similar urgent conditions waited 20 days. Federal law, however, requires that Medicaid recipients have the same access to medical care as the general population in their community.

Full Story Here: The Washington Current: Physicians Turn Away Two-Thirds Of Kids With Public Insurance, Study Shows.

The GOP’s Medicare Lies

In an astonishing observation, Rep. Paul Ryan recently declared: “Washington has not been honest with you.”

Jim Hightower :-:

Gosh, Paul, that possibility never occurred to us!

What makes the Wisconsin lawmaker’s observation astonishing is the fact that he is Washington — a seven-term Republican insider, House budget chairman, and author of the GOP’s ideologically contrived budget-whacking plan that kills America’s enormously popular Medicare program.

But Ryan didn’t mean to point his finger at himself. No, no. He meant those dastardly Democrats who’ve dared to tell the public about his proposal to replace Medicare with a privatized voucher scheme. Understandably, the public is now angry with Ryan and his Republican cohorts. Hence, he is scurrying around in a shamefully dishonest PR campaign to accuse the Democrats of — what else? — dishonesty. Ryan’s plan, he asserts, would give seniors “the same kind of (health insurance) system members of Congress enjoy today.”

Full Story Here: The GOP’s Medicare Lies – OtherWords.

HOT PARTICLES FROM JAPAN TO SEATTLE VIRTUALLY UNDETECTABLE WHEN INHALED OR SWALLOWED

Original estimates of xenon and krypton releases remain the same, but a TEPCO recalculation shows dramatic increases in the release of hot particles. This confirms the results of air filter monitoring by independent scientists. Fairewinds’ Arnie Gundersen explains how hot particles may react in mammals while escaping traditional detection. Reports of a metallic taste in the mouth, such as those now being reported in Japan and on the west coast, are a telltale sign of radiation exposure.

Paul Ryan: Town Hall Protesters Say ‘Keep Your Hands Off My Medicare’

With reporting by Paige Lavender.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) headed to the Newseum in downtown D.C. on Monday to participate in a town hall meeting with fellow Republicans. But while the participants inside focused their talk on the economy and jobs, a line of protestors outside the museum took aim at Ryan’s proposed changes to Medicare and Medicaid.

Among them was Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), who led a mix of progressives and union members in chants of “No to Ryan; yes to Medicare.” Asked what question she would lob Ryan’s way if she were inside the town hall, Edwards told HuffPost, “I’d ask Rep. Ryan why he wants to put forward a plan to end Medicare.”

Full Story Here: Paul Ryan: Town Hall Protesters Say ‘Keep Your Hands Off My Medicare’ (VIDEO).

Medicare Saves Money

Paul Krugman :-:

Every once in a while a politician comes up with an idea that’s so bad, so wrongheaded, that you’re almost grateful. For really bad ideas can help illustrate the extent to which policy discourse has gone off the rails.

And so it was with Senator Joseph Lieberman’s proposal, released last week, to raise the age for Medicare eligibility from 65 to 67.

Like Republicans who want to end Medicare as we know it and replace it with (grossly inadequate) insurance vouchers, Mr. Lieberman describes his proposal as a way to save Medicare. It wouldn’t actually do that. But more to the point, our goal shouldn’t be to “save Medicare,” whatever that means. It should be to ensure that Americans get the health care they need, at a cost the nation can afford.

Full Story Here: Medicare Saves Money – NYTimes.com.

‘Fukushima media cover-up – PR success, public health disaster’

Residents of the Fukushima district, and those who lived near-by have not only faced radiation exposure but also social exclusion… That’s according to Dr. Robert Jacobs, Professor of nuclear history, at the Hiroshima Peace Institute.