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One of these kids is not like the other ..

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‘The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced results today of the investigation into the illegal promotion of OxyContin by The Purdue Frederick Company, makers of the widely abused, highly addictive pain pill.

“An investigation by OCI uncovered an extensive, long-term conspiracy by The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc. to generate the maximum amount of revenues possible from the sale of OxyContin through various illegal schemes,” according to an FDA statement.

FDA today informed healthcare professionals of criminal charges and civil liabilities brought against Purdue Frederick in connection with several illegal schemes to promote, market and sell OxyContin, the company’s powerful prescription pain reliever that has caused addiction problems of epidemic-promotions in cities and rural areas across the United States.’

‘iPods can cause cardiac implantable pacemakers to malfunction by interfering with the electromagnetic equipment monitoring the heart, according to a study presented by a 17-year-old high school student to a meeting of heart specialists on Thursday.

The study tested the effect of the portable music devices on 100 patients, whose mean age was 77, outfitted with pacemakers. Electrical interference was detected half of the time when the iPod was held just 2 inches from the patient’s chest for 5 to 10 seconds.

The study did not examine any portable music devices other than iPods, which are made by Apple Inc.

In some cases, the iPods caused interference when held 18 inches from the chest. Interfering with the telemetry equipment caused the device to misread the heart’s pacing and in one case caused the pacemaker to stop functioning altogether.’

‘Untreated sewage from factory discharges and urban centres now accounts for 10 per cent of the Yellow River’s flow, a prominent Chinese group says.

The volume of waste water flowing into the river, China’s second longest, doubled from 2 billion tonnes to 4.3 billion between 1980 and 2005, Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Beijing-based NGO, told the China Daily.

“It now accounts for about one-tenth of its total volume,” Ma said.

The 5,464-km river supplies water to more than 150 million people and irrigates 15 per cent of the country’s farmland, but has lost a third of its fish species and is 70 per cent unfit for drinking or swimming, state media have reported.’

‘Texas State University’s plan to build the nation’s largest “body farm” of cadavers is on hold after the school scrapped its proposed site amid concerns that buzzards could endanger nearby planes.

The university will now scout a new location for what will be only the third body farm in the nation. The school had hoped to begin burying bodies later this year.

By burying cadavers and studying human decomposition, researchers aim to help police better solve questions like time and manner of death at crime scenes.’

‘Queensland health authorities have told parents to use their common sense and not use pet products to treat head lice on their children.

The warning from Chief health officer Jeannette Young came after a child became sick from a pet flea and tick product used to kill head lice.

Queensland Health would not release more information about the child but said the poisons in pet treatments had serious side-effects on humans.

“Animal products are poisons and are not safe for human use,” Dr Young said.’

‘Groups of elderly Australians are reportedly setting up backyard laboratories to manufacture an illegal euthanasia drug so they can kill themselves when they have had enough of life.

One group has already succeeded in producing the drug nembutal, which is used by vets to put down animals, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday night.

At least four other backyard factories were planned for major cities across the country, with a total of some 800 elderly people prepared to become involved in producing the drug.

Dozens of older Australians were also engaged in illegally importing nembutal from the Mexican border town of Tijuana, close to the US city of San Diego, according to the report.’

‘A rare cancer in the back of the throat is “strongly associated” with a virus transmitted during oral sex, US researchers believe.

A study of 100 women diagnosed with cancers at the back of the throat, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has linked human papillomavirus (HPV) with throat cancer. It concluded oral HPV infection was associated with oropharyngeal cancer among people with or without the other risk factors of tobacco and alcohol use.

Infection with sexually transmitted HPV is a cause of virtually all cervical cancers.’

‘A college degree is fast becoming a necessity for anyone looking to maintain a comfortable middle-class living. Unfortunately for many college students, just paying for this degree is a struggle. The cost of tuition is rising, and two-thirds of all college graduates leave college with debt averaging close to $20,000 (Herbert). In some cases this figure is much higher, and in countless others students can’t even afford to finish college in the first place. According to Tamara Draut, the director of the Economic Opportunity Program for public policy group Demos, the problem is “rooted in the reality that our government no longer really helps people pay for college” (qtd in Herbert). If college students truly want to reap the benefits of their education, they need another source of assistance in paying for college. [..]

This is why I believe students should have the opportunity to sell their organs to the college they are attending in exchange for cash or financial credit.’

‘Spreading honey on a diabetic ulcer could prevent the need to amputate an infected foot, researchers say.

A doctor at the University of Wisconsin who helped about half a dozen of her diabetic patients avoid amputation has launched a controlled trial to promote the widespread use of honey therapy.

The therapy involves squeezing a thick layer of honey onto the wound after dead skin and bacteria have been removed.

The honey kills bacteria because it is acidic and avoids the complication of bacterial resistance found with standard antibiotics, Jennifer Eddy, a professor at the University’s School of Medicine and Public Health, told AFP.

“This is a tremendously important issue for world health,” Eddy said.’

‘This is what I found in someone’s stomach. Before surgery, I wasn’t quite sure what was going on until I found this big hairball in his stomach. He also had a small bowel obstruction from another hairball that had broken off and migrated downstream (aptly named Rapunzel syndrome). Post op I found he’d been eating hair, even sneaking it out of his mom’s hairbrush.’

‘Local artist and drag performer Jojo Baby thinks he’s fairly open minded, but what he saw inside a Wicker Park apartment this week blew him away.

Baby was at eBay seller Brian Sloan’s apartment to buy vintage mannequins for his studio, where he creates dolls and puppets.

But instead, Baby said he saw human skulls boiling inside Sloan’s apartment. [..]

Sloan has a law degree but makes a living selling various items on the Internet — including a batch of vintage mannequins that were on the steps of his back porch. Sloan said the skulls are imported legally, but police still confiscated them.’

‘These guys were not exactly Snap, Crackle and Pop.

What began as a faint popping in a 9-year-old boy’s ear — “like Rice Krispies” — ended up as an earache, and the doctor’s diagnosis was that a pair of spiders made a home in the ear.

“They were walking on my eardrums,” Jesse Courtney said. [..]

Dr. David Irvine said it looked like the boy had something in his ear when he examined him.

When he irrigated the ear, the first spider came out, dead. The other spider took a second dousing before it emerged, still alive. Both were about the size of a pencil eraser.’

‘A British man who went on a wild spending spree after doctors said he only had a short time to live wants compensation because the diagnosis was wrong and he is now healthy — but broke.

John Brandrick, 62, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer two years ago and told that he would probably die within a year.

He quit his job, sold or gave away nearly all his possessions, stopped paying his mortgage and spent his savings dining out and going on holiday.

Brandrick was left with little more than the black suit, white shirt and red tie that he had planned to be buried in when it emerged a year later that his suspected “tumor” was no more than a non-life threatening inflammation of the pancreas.

“When they tell you you’ve got a limited time and everything, you do enjoy life,” Brandrick, from Cornwall in the west of England, told Sky television.’

‘The international and Hong Kong authorities said Monday that they had received little information from mainland Chinese officials about a mysterious ailment killing pigs in southeastern China or about Chinese wheat gluten contaminated with plastic scrap, raising questions again about whether Beijing is willing to share data on global health issues.

The Chinese government, and particularly the government of Guangdong Province, next to Hong Kong, suffered heavy criticism in 2003 after concealing the SARS virus for the first four months after it first emerged in Foshan, 150 kilometers, or 95 miles, northwest of Hong Kong. After SARS spread to Hong Kong and around the world, top Chinese officials promised to improve disclosure.

But officials in Hong Kong as well as at the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization said Monday that they had received practically no information about the latest pig deaths and limited details about wheat gluten contamination.’

‘A Brazilian brewery has been ordered to pay $49,000 (£24,570) to an alcoholic beer taster who claims the company failed to prevent his condition.

The man, who has not been named, said the company, Ambev, did not provide him with adequate health care to stop him from developing alcoholism.

He said that for more than a decade he drank around one and a half litres of beer each day.

But Ambev says that the employee was an alcoholic before he took the job. [..]

But Judge Jose Felipe Ledur said the company was still negligent because an alcoholic should have never been employed as a beer taster.’

‘Scientists believe they have for the first time identified an ancient graveyard for gladiators.

Analysis of their bones and injuries has given new insight into how they lived, fought and died. [..]

“I’ve looked at quite a few hundred Roman skeletons. I’ve seen examples of head injuries, healed and unhealed. I’ve seen evidence of decapitations,” she says.

“But this (new find) is extremely significant; there’s nothing been found in the world at all like it. They’ve really dispelled quite a lot of myths about gladiators and how they fought.”‘

‘Brazilian and US scientists are looking into using spider venom as a possible treatment for male impotence.

Their investigation follows reports that men bitten by the Phoneutria nigriventer experienced priapism – long and painful erections.

A two-year study has found that the venom contains a toxin, called Tx2-6, that causes erections.

Further tests are being carried out in the US before the substance can be approved for human use.’

‘One compound, cannabidiol, or CBD, made people more relaxed. But even small doses of another component, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, produced temporary psychotic symptoms in people, including hallucinations and paranoid delusions, doctors said.

The results, to be presented at an international mental health conference in London on Tuesday and Wednesday, provides physical evidence of the drug’s damaging influence on the human brain.

“We’ve long suspected that cannabis is linked to psychoses, but we have never before had scans to show how the mechanism works,” said Dr. Philip McGuire, a professor of psychiatry at King’s College, London.

In analyzing MRI scans of the study’s subjects, McGuire and his colleagues found that THC interfered with activity in the inferior frontal cortex, a region of the brain associated with paranoia.

“THC is switching off that regulator,” McGuire said, effectively unleashing the paranoia usually kept under control by the frontal cortex.’

‘[..] That dogma went unquestioned until researchers actually looked at oxygen-starved heart cells under a microscope. What they saw amazed them, according to Dr. Lance Becker, an authority on emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “After one hour,” he says, “we couldn’t see evidence the cells had died. We thought we’d done something wrong.” In fact, cells cut off from their blood supply died only hours later.

But if the cells are still alive, why can’t doctors revive someone who has been dead for an hour? Because once the cells have been without oxygen for more than five minutes, they die when their oxygen supply is resumed. It was that “astounding” discovery, Becker says, that led him to his post as the director of Penn’s Center for Resuscitation Science, a newly created research institute operating on one of medicine’s newest frontiers: treating the dead.’

‘A Chinese judge charged with corruption died in his cell from “adult sudden death syndrome”, Xinhua news agency said today.

Investigators said Li Chaoyang, 38, had been unco-operative while in detention in Xing’an county in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southwestern China.

“Cuts on his face and other injuries” had been caused by a fall during an escape attempt, they said. [..]

“Li Chaoyang’s sudden death conforms with adult sudden death syndrome,” said Mr Shi, citing a forensic report.’

‘What they found surprised them — corkscrew-shaped oviducts, with plenty of potential dead-ends.

“Interestingly, the male phallus is also a spiral, but it twists in the opposite, counterclockwise, direction,” said Yale ornithologist Richard Prum in a statement.

“So, the twists in the oviduct appear designed to exclude the opposing twists of the male phallus. It’s an exquisite anti-lock-and-key system.”

Brennan believes females evolved convoluted oviducts to foil the male rapists.

“You can envision an evolutionary scenario that, as the male phallus increases in size, the female creates more barriers. You get this evolutionary arms race,” Brennan said.’

‘From the moment of birth, we begin the battle against death — against the inevitable. Statistics say that a newborn child can expect to live an average of 76 years. But averages may not be what they use to be.

In 1786, life expectancy was 24 years. A hundred years later it doubled to 48. Right now, it’s 76.

“Over half the baby boomers here in America are going to see their hundredth birthday and beyond in excellent health,” says Dr. Ronald Klatz of the American Academy of Anti-Aging. “We’re looking at life spans for the baby boomers and the generation after the baby boomers of 120 to 150 years of age.”‘

‘US researchers have simulated half a virtual mouse brain on a supercomputer.

The scientists ran a “cortical simulator” that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse brain on the BlueGene L supercomputer.

In other smaller simulations the researchers say they have seen characteristics of thought patterns observed in real mouse brains.

Now the team is tuning the simulation to make it run faster and to make it more like a real mouse brain.’

‘A Syrian-born airline pilot allegedly tricked a schoolteacher from Haverfordwest into having sex with him by pretending he had to administer ointment on the end of his penis, a jury heard yesterday (Tuesday).

Fadi Sbano, 38, even pretended to know a gynaecologist who advised him on how often to have intercourse with her and whether to thrust “slowly or quickly”. And, on the “doctor’s advice”, he kept a clock on the bedside table to time the sessions.

The teacher put up with the treatment for nine months before telling her doctor.’

‘The marijuana being sold across the United States is stronger than ever, which could explain a growing number of medical emergencies that involve the drug, government drug experts on Wednesday.

Analysis of seized samples of marijuana and hashish showed that more of the cannabis on the market is of the strongest grade, the White House and National Institute for Drug Abuse said.

They cited data from the University of Mississippi’s Marijuana Potency Project showing the average levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in the products rose from 7 percent in 2003 to 8.5 percent in 2006.

The level had risen steadily from 3.5 percent in 1988.’

‘As a rule, processed foods are more “energy dense” than fresh foods: they contain less water and fiber but more added fat and sugar, which makes them both less filling and more fattening. These particular calories also happen to be the least healthful ones in the marketplace, which is why we call the foods that contain them “junk.” Drewnowski concluded that the rules of the food game in America are organized in such a way that if you are eating on a budget, the most rational economic strategy is to eat badly — and get fat.’

‘A human rights watchdog group says that two Chinese provinces that have come under fire for forcing Christian women there to have abortions are continuing the campaign. The China Aid Association reports that a total of 61 women and their unborn children became victims of the campaign in Guangxi province.

The group tells LifeNews.com that 41 women were forced to have abortions on Tuesday and another 20 more pregnant women were forcibly aborted on Wednesday.’

‘The technological explosion is even bigger than the mobile phone explosion that preceded it. And, as with mobiles, it is being followed by fears about its effect on health – particularly the health of children. Recent research, which suggests that the worst fears about mobiles are proving to be justified, only heightens concern about the electronic soup in which we are increasingly spending our lives.

Now, as we report today, Sir William Stewart (pictured below right), the man who has issued the most authoritative British warnings about the hazards of mobiles, is becoming worried about the spread of Wi-Fi. The chairman of the Health Protection Agency – and a former chief scientific adviser to the Government – is privately pressing for an official investigation of the risks it may pose.’

‘Seven clusters of cancer and other serious illnesses have been discovered around mobile phone masts, raising concerns over the technology’s potential impact on health.

Studies of the sites show high incidences of cancer, brain haemorrhages and high blood pressure within a radius of 400 yards of mobile phone masts.

One of the studies, in Warwickshire, showed a cluster of 31 cancers around a single street. A quarter of the 30 staff at a special school within sight of the 90ft high mast have developed tumours since 2000, while another quarter have suffered significant health problems.’