Health News Articles
Excerpts of Key Health News Articles in Major Media
Below are many highly revealing excerpts of important health news articles from the mainstream media suggesting a cover-up. Links are provided to the full articles on major media websites. If any link fails to function,
click here. These health news articles are listed by order of importance. For the same articles by date posted,
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Note: For an index to revealing excerpts of news articles on several dozen engaging topics,
click here.
Former Marine Claims Illness From Mystery Vaccine
2007-05-07, WLWT-TV (Cincinnati, Ohio's NBC affiliate)
http://www.wlwt.com/news/13271378/detail.html
An alarming number of U.S. troops are having severe reactions to some of the vaccines they receive in preparation for going overseas.
"This is the worst cover-up in the history of the military," said an unidentified military health officer who fears for his job. A shot from a syringe is leaving some U.S. servicemen and women on the brink of death. Lance Corporal David Fey, 20, has dialysis three days a week. His kidneys are failing, his military career is over, and he feels like his country abandoned him. Fey said he loved every minute of boot camp and combat training at 29 Palms in California. But on Nov. 28, 2005, his life would change forever. Fey was one of a group of Marines who lined up for an undisclosed shot. "They asked us our name. We stood on these yellow footprints, and they gave us this shot, and we got the rest of the day off," he recalled. "After that shot, I started swelling up. I gained 30 pounds of water. My eyes swelled up where I couldn't see. I started snoring. I developed a rash on my hand." Three weeks later, Fey was back in Clermont County on his death bed at Clinton Memorial Hospital. His kidneys were failing, and his body was so swollen that it left stretch marks. Fey is one of a growing number of U.S. servicemen and women who are getting sick after receiving vaccines. And the ... Department of Defense medical officer who spoke with [WLWT] said that the number is up in the thousands. The symptoms range from joint aches and pains and arthritic symptoms to death. The officer said those who have claimed to have had adverse reactions to shots are treated like it is all in their heads. Asked whether servicemen and women are receiving experimental vaccines, the officer said, "I would hope to God not. But from what I've seen, I would have to say yes."
Doctors' Ties to Drug Companies Called Commonplace
2007-04-25, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR20070425022...
The ties between doctors and drug manufacturers are close indeed. Most physicians (94 percent) reported some type of relationship with the pharmaceutical industry ... according to [a] study, published in the April 26 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Most of these relationships involved receiving food in the workplace (83 percent) or receiving drug samples (78 percent). More than one-third of the respondents (35 percent) were reimbursed for costs associated with professional meetings or continuing medical education, while more than one-quarter (28 percent) were paid for consulting, delivering lectures or enrolling patients in clinical trials. Over the past two decades, physician-industry relationships have attracted increasing scrutiny. One review found that, on average, physicians meet with industry representatives four times a month, and medical residents accept six gifts annually from industry representatives. "We know that these relationships have benefits and risks, and we know that they benefit the companies that are involved, and we know from our data that they benefit doctors," said study author Eric G. Campbell, an assistant professor of health care policy at the Institute for Health Policy at Harvard Medical School. "The real question is to what extent do these relationships benefit patients, and the answer is, we don't know." Campbell said that he found it hard to believe that free football tickets for a doctor would trickle down to benefit patients.
Note: For an excellent article by one of the foremost doctors in the nation on how the pharmaceutical industry has corrupted politics and damaged our health, click here.
F.D.A. Warns of Sleeping Pills’ Strange Effects
2007-03-15, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/business/15drug.ready.html?ex=1331611200&en...
The most widely prescribed sleeping pills can cause strange behavior like driving and eating while asleep, the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday, announcing that strong new warnings will be placed on the labels of 13 drugs. Use of those medications and other similar drugs has soared by more than 60 percent since 2000, fueled by television, print and other advertising. Last year, makers of sleeping pills spent more than $600 million on advertising aimed at consumers. Sales in the United States of Ambien and Lunesta alone last year exceeded $3 billion. Last year ... some users of the most widely prescribed drug, Ambien, started complaining online and to their doctors about unusual reactions ranging from fairly benign sleepwalking episodes to hallucinations, violent outbursts, nocturnal binge eating and — most troubling of all — driving while asleep. Sleep-drivers reported frightening episodes in which they recalled going to bed, but woke up to find they had been arrested roadside in their underwear or nightclothes. The agency also received reports of people making phone calls, purchasing items over the Internet, or having sex under the influence of sleep medication. In each case the consumers had no recollection of the events, which they said had occurred after they took their pills and headed for bed. "Hopefully this will make doctors think twice before blindly giving patients a prescription," said Dr. Mahowald. He also criticized marketing of the products. "I personally think the extent of advertising has just been unconscionable," he said.
Note: A reliable insider told us of a harrowing story where his company and the FDA made a secret agreement not to report numerous deaths resulting from one test drug so that it would pass and bring major profits. For lots more reliable, verifiable information on major corruption in the drug companies affecting your health, click here.
USDA Backs Production of Rice With Human Genes
2007-03-02, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/01/AR20070301014...
The Agriculture Department has given a preliminary green light for the first commercial production of a food crop engineered to contain human genes, reigniting fears that biomedically potent substances in high-tech plants could escape and turn up in other foods. The plan ... calls for large-scale cultivation in Kansas of rice that produces human immune system proteins in its seeds. The proteins are to be extracted for use as an anti-diarrhea medicine and might be added to health foods such as yogurt and granola bars. Critics are assailing the effort, saying gene-altered plants inevitably migrate out of their home plots. In this case, they said, that could result in pharmacologically active proteins showing up in the food of unsuspecting consumers. Although the proteins are not inherently dangerous, there would be little control over the doses people might get exposed to, and some might be allergic to the proteins, said Jane Rissler of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "This is not a product that everyone would want to consume," Rissler said, adding that other companies grow such plants indoors or in vats. "It is unwise to produce drugs in plants outdoors."
Note: For a detailed analysis of the dangers of this genetically-modified rice program, click here.
Texas Governor Defends Vaccine Order
2007-02-22, MSNBC/Associated Press
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=AP&Date=2...
Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday angrily defended his relationship with Merck & Co. and his executive order requiring that schoolgirls receive the drugmaker's vaccine against the sexually transmitted cervical-cancer virus. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Perry's chief of staff had met with key aides about the vaccine on Oct. 16, the same day Merck's political action committee donated $5,000 to the governor's campaign. In issuing the order, the governor made Texas the first state to require the vaccine Gardasil for all schoolgirls. But many lawmakers have complained about his bypassing the Legislature altogether. The executive order has inflamed conservatives, who said it contradicts Texas' abstinence-only sexual education policies and intrudes into families' lives. Critics have previously questioned Perry's ties to Merck. Mike Toomey, Perry's former chief of staff, now lobbies for the drug company. And the governor accepted a total of $6,000 from Merck during his re-election campaign. Merck has waged a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to get state legislatures to require girls to get the three-dose vaccine to enroll in school. But on Tuesday the pharmaceutical company announced it was suspending the effort because of pressure from parents and medical groups. The Kentucky House on Thurday passed a bill that would require the vaccination for middle school girls unless their parents sign a form opposing it. Virginia lawmakers have also passed legislation requiring the vaccine, but the governor has not decided if he will sign it.
Note: The drug company lobby is the most powerful in the U.S., as reported by the former editor-in-chief of one of the most respected medical journals in the U.S. Click here for more.
Journals 'regularly publish fraudulent research
2006-05-03, The Guardian (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,1766642,00.html
Fraudulent research regularly appears in the 30,000 scientific journals published worldwide, a former editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) said today. Even when journals discover that published research is fabricated or falsified they rarely retract the findings, according to Richard Smith, who was also chief executive of the BMJ publishing group. Writing in the latest edition of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Dr Smith called on editors to blow the whistle on bad research and to use their clout to pressure universities into taking action against dodgy researchers. The former BMJ editor said it was likely that research fraud was "equally common" in the 30,000 plus scientific journals across the globe but was "invariably covered up". His call for action comes in the wake of several high profile cases of fraudulent research, including the Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk who fabricated stem cell research that it was claimed would open up new ways to treat diseases like Parkinson's. Dr Smith criticised the failure of scientific institutions, including universities, to discipline dodgy researchers even when alerted to problems by journals. "Few countries have measures in place to ensure research is carried out ethically," he said. "Most cases are not publicised. They are simply not recognised, covered up altogether or the guilty researcher is urged to retrain, move to another institution or retire from research."
Note: For reliable information on the collusion of industry, government, and research facilities who place profits above advances in public health: http://www.WantToKnow.info/healthcoverup
Exposed: the secret corporate funding behind health research
2006-02-07, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1703694,00.html
Academics and the media have failed dismally to ask the crucial question of scientists' claims: who is paying you? In the 1990s...[Arise] was one of the world's most influential public-health groups. It described itself as "a worldwide association of eminent scientists who act as independent commentators". Its purpose...was to show how "everyday pleasures, such as eating chocolate, smoking, drinking tea, coffee and alcohol, contribute to the quality of life". "Scientific studies show that enjoying the simple pleasures in life, without feeling guilty, can reduce stress and increase resistance to disease". Between September 1993 and March 1994,...[Arise] generated 195 newspaper articles and radio and television interviews, in places such as the Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, the Independent, the Evening Standard, El País, La Repubblica, Rai and the BBC. In 1998...[tobacco] firms were obliged to place their internal documents in a public archive. Among them...is a memo from...Philip Morris - the world's largest tobacco company. The title is "Arise 1994-95 Activities and Funding". This showed that in the previous financial year Arise had received $373,400: ...over 99% - from Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, RJ Reynolds and Rothmans. The memo suggests Arise was run not by eminent scientists but by eminent tobacco companies. How much more science is being published in academic journals with undeclared interests like these? How many more media campaigns...have been secretly funded and steered by corporations?
Note: If you want to understand how corporate interests secretly manipulate both scientific results and public perception, this excellent article is well worth reading.
GM: New study shows unborn babies could be harmed
2006-01-06, Independent (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article337253.ece
Women who eat GM [genetically modified] foods while pregnant risk endangering their unborn babies, startling new research suggests. The study...found that more than half of the offspring of rats fed on modified soya died in the first three weeks of life, six times as many as those born to mothers with normal diets. Six times as many were also severely underweight. The research - which is being prepared for publication - is just one of a clutch of recent studies that are reviving fears that GM food damages human health. Italian research has found that modified soya affected the liver and pancreas of mice. Australia had to abandon a decade-long attempt to develop modified peas when an official study found they caused lung damage. The World Trade Organisation is expected next month to support a bid by the Bush administration to force European countries to accept GM foods. The Monsanto soya is widely eaten by Americans.
Note: Though the European press provides good coverage, the US media is amazingly quiet on the issue of GMOs, which is so vital to our health. For an excellent overview: http://www.wanttoknow.info/deception10pg
DuPont Stuck With Big Teflon Fine
2005-12-14, CBS/Associated Press
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/14/business/main1124537.shtml
DuPont Co. has agreed to pay $10.25 million in fines and $6.25 million for environmental projects in a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency over the company's alleged failure to report the dangers of a toxic chemical used to make Teflon. EPA officials said the settlement represents the largest civil administrative penalty the agency has ever obtained under any federal environmental statute. The EPA alleged that DuPont withheld information for more than 20 years about the health effects of PFOA. DuPont faced a potential fine of more than $300 million for not reporting that the chemical posed a substantial risk of injury to health or the environment. "The settlement allows us to put this matter behind us and move forward," said [DuPont general counsel Stacey] Mobley, who noted that the company has cut PFOA emissions from U.S. plant sites by 98 percent and hopes to reduce emissions even further by 2007. DuPont...still faces a federal criminal investigation of its actions concerning PFOA. In a draft report released in June, the majority of members on a scientific advisory board that reviewed the EPA's draft risk assessment concluded that the chemical is "likely" to be carcinogenic to humans.
Experts dismiss scare over bird flu
2005-11-01, Gainesville Sun
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051101/LOCAL/51101021...
[Gary] Butcher has been an extension veterinarian at the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine since 1988. He was trained as a veterinarian specializing in avian diseases, and has a Ph.D. in poultry virology. Butcher begins his presentation with a slide that shows a "news flash" from the British press agency Reuters reporting that avian flu "poses the single biggest threat to the world right now." So far, however...no one has yet been proven to have given avian influenza to someone else. "The emphasis of all my work has changed to dealing with this madness," Butcher said Friday. "Realistically, avian influenza is not a threat to people, but everywhere you go, it has turned into a circus." Millions of chickens and waterfowl have been slaughtered in Asia...but Butcher said that of the billions of people who have probably been exposed, only about 120 have been reported to have fallen ill with avian flu. They were people who worked closely with chickens and came into contact with the birds' blood and feces. Not all health officials are sounding a warning about avian influenza, either. Dr. Marc Siegel, a practicing internist and associate professor of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine...isn't buying into the scare scenario. "If anything is contagious right now, it's judgment clouded by fear," Siegel said. [Butcher] said that although there is a potential that the virus could mutate, as it exists, it could not become an important disease in humans. "For it to become dangerous to humans, it has to go through a pretty significant genetic change. If you put this in perspective, it's not going to happen.
Note: When major corruption threatens to be exposed, those threatened know that by creating massive fear (such as a global pandemic), they can divert attention and keep money flowing into corrupt coffers. For more on this, click here and here.
Bush lifts wage rules for Katrina
2005-09-09, CNN/Reuters
http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/08/news/economy/katrina_wages.reut
President Bush
issued an executive order Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding
in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage. In
a notice to Congress, Bush said the hurricane had caused "a national
emergency" that permits him to take such action. Bush's action came as
the federal government moved to provide billions of dollars in aid. The administration is using the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to cut the wages of people desperately trying to rebuild their lives and their communities.
Merck CEO Resigns as Drug Probe Continues
2005-05-06, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/05/AR20050505011...
Merck & Co.'s longtime leader Raymond V. Gilmartin abruptly resigned yesterday on the same day congressional investigators released a slew of documents detailing how the company continued to aggressively promote its arthritis drug Vioxx after it knew of potentially serious safety concerns. The documents...showed that Merck directed its 3,000-person Vioxx sales force to avoid discussions with doctors about the cardiovascular risks identified in a major clinical trial of the drug in 2000. Sales representatives were told instead to rely on a "Cardiovascular Card" that said Vioxx was protecting the heart rather than potentially harming it. They were [also] trained how to smile, speak and position themselves most effectively when talking with doctors, and were exhorted to sell Vioxx and other Merck drugs using the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Vioxx was withdrawn from the market last September after another clinical trial found that people who had taken the drug for 18 months were five times more likely to have heart attacks and strokes than those on a placebo. Merck was sharply criticized in a hearing into how the company and the Food and Drug Administration had handled the safety concerns surrounding Vioxx.
EPA Mercury Rule Omits Conflicting Data
2005-03-22, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55268-2005Mar21.html
When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule last week to limit mercury emissions from U.S. power plants, officials emphasized that the controls could not be more aggressive because the cost to industry already far exceeded the public health payoff. What they did not reveal is that a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion. That analysis estimated health benefits 100 times as great as the EPA did, but top agency officials ordered the finding stripped from public documents.
Silver Bullet: Depleted Uranium
2000-02-07, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - Canada's PBS)
http://web.archive.org/web/20000903222100/http://www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgmin...
Jerry Wheat and the other Gulf vets were never told of the risks of being exposed to a DU campaign. Awarded a Purple Heart after being wounded in combat, Wheat came home with pieces of shrapnel embedded in his body and with mysterious body pains. A year after war's end, Wheat got startling evidence from his father -- a technician at the famous Los Alamos Nuclear Research Centre, who just out of curiosity tested the shrapnel that came from his son's body and gear. The shrapnel was radioactive. Today, eight years after the Gulf War, that shrapnel still lights up a Geiger counter. Jerry's great fear is that whatever he brought back with him from the Gulf is now afflicting his family. His older son Joe was hospitalized with breathing problems the day after Wheat dragged his contaminated gear into the house. Derrick, his youngest son, who was born after the war, suffers strange blisters on his hands. His wife suffered a miscarriage. Jerry himself recently had a tumour removed from his shoulder. He now worries continually about cancer. Jerry says the military has never shown any interest in his shrapnel. The military said Jerry's health problems are due to post traumatic stress. If the lessons from past eras are anything to go by, there is often great ignorance about the path being charted when new weapons come along. For example when atomic testing was all the rage in the '50s, or when Agent Orange was used in Vietnam. When revolutionary new technology is introduced on the battlefield, no one at the time has any real idea of the consequences.
Note: BBC has a webpage listing 10 of their articles both pro and con regarding depleted uranium at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/europe/2001/depleted_uranium/default.stm
Closely Guarded Secrets: Some Islands You Can't Get to Visit
1998-05-17, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/17/nyregion/closely-guarded-secrets-some-islan...
Standing on the shores of the East End, you can see across the water to some of Long Island's greatest treasures, tantalizingly close yet forbiddingly inaccessible. They are off limits to the public. A mystique ... envelops the islands, and it is well earned. These islands -- Gardiners, Great Gull, Little Gull, Plum and Robins -- have been the setting of some of Long Island's most exciting historical chapters. Captain Kidd buried pirate treasure there. One Island woman was tried for witchcraft decades before Salem's trials. Another was so beautiful that she dazzled Washington society [and] married the President. And during the cold war, one island was used for secret research for a germ warfare attack on the Soviet Union. Plum Island ... is strictly controlled and it has the tightest security of all the islands. Unlike the secret germ warfare project in the 1950's, the first Federal project on Plum Island was quite open and ordinary. In 1826, the Government belatedly bought 3 of its 800 acres for a lighthouse. About the time of the Spanish-American War, the Government bought the rest of Plum and built Fort Terry as the headquarters for artillery batteries at Montauk. Federal officials ... converted the site to the Animal Disease Center in 1954. Since 1929, the country's only outbreak of the dreaded foot-and-mouth disease was in 1978, when it spread to animals outside the laboratory buildings. For decades, officials denied rumors of biological warfare experiments. But in 1993, Newsday unearthed previously classified documents on plans to disrupt the Soviet economy by spreading diseases to kill its pigs, cattle and horses.
Note: At the northernmost tip of Long Island, Plum island sits directly across from the town of Lyme, Conn., famous as the epicenter of the Lyme disease outbreak. This is one of many pieces of evidence suggesting that Lyme disease escaped from government labs there, as described in the book Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Germ Laboratory.
Morgellons Mystery: No Medical Explanation for ‘Crawling Skin’ Disease
2012-01-26, Time Magazine
http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/26/morgellons-mystery-no-medical-explanati...
The symptoms of the bizarre illness known as Morgellons are enough to make your skin crawl. For patients who say they are suffering from the condition, that sensation is all too real. Sufferers report feeling that bugs are crawling all over their skin or just under it. They have fatigue and painful sores. They also say that they’ve pulled “fibers” and other solid materials ... through their skin, leaving lesions, according to new research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The new study — a $600,000 project launched in 2008 in response to a massive swell of interest and inquiries about the condition from lawmakers and patients — sought to determine how common Morgellons is. The new findings suggest that their symptoms may exist only in their minds. CDC researchers took skin biopsies and urine and blood samples to look for infectious diseases, including bacteria or fungus, that could explain the illness. There were none. They looked for environmental causes too, and couldn’t find any. Although the CDC report concluded that no medical explanation for Morgellons can be found, the paper “confirms what anybody who has ever seen a patient with this knows, which is that these patients are suffering greatly and their suffering is real; they shouldn’t be dismissed,” Jason Reichenberg, director of dermatology at the University of Texas Southwestern-Austin, told USA Today.
Note: Remember that the Feds also insisted Lyme disease was a delusion for many years. For a list of FAQ on Morgellons, click here. For more on this intriguing phenomenon, click here and here.
F.D.A. Finds Short Supply of Attention Deficit Drugs
2012-01-01, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/health/policy/fda-is-finding-attention-drug...
Medicines to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are in such short supply that hundreds of patients complain daily to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that they are unable to find a pharmacy with enough pills to fill their prescriptions. The shortages are a result of a troubled partnership between drug manufacturers and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), with companies trying to maximize their profits and drug-enforcement agents trying to minimize abuse by people. Shortages, particularly of cheaper generics, have become so endemic that some patients say they worry almost constantly about availability. The DEA sets manufacturing quotas that are designed to control supplies and thwart abuse. Every year, the DEA ... allots portions of the expected demand to various companies. How each manufacturer divides its quota among its own ADHD medicines — preparing some as high-priced brands and others as cheaper generics — is left up to the company. Officials at the FDA say the shortages are a result of overly strict quotas set by the DEA, which, for its part, questions whether there really are shortages or whether manufacturers are simply choosing to make more of the expensive pills than the generics, creating supply and demand imbalances.
Note: This curious story reveals an astonishing level of government manipulation of the manufacturing and availability of medications, and corporations appear to go along with it because it keeps profits high. For lots more on government and corportate corruption from reliable sources, click here and here.
Europe Bans Airport X-Ray Scanners that U.S. Still Uses
2011-11-17, Time Magazine
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/11/17/europe-bans-airport-x-ray-scanners-that-u...
The European Commission adopted new rules Nov. 14 regarding X-ray, or backscatter, body scanners at all airports in Europe. A press release ordered members of the European Union to remove X-ray scanners from its airports to avoid risking “citizens’ health and safety.” The news [brings] into question the continued use of the very same X-ray scanners in U.S. airports. While the Transportation Security Administration also employs millimeter-wave scanners in U.S. airports, X-ray scanners are the ones that have received more criticism from public-safety advocates. While ... the amount of radiation exposure from X-ray machines is very low, several studies have shown that a small number of cancer cases could result from scanning millions of passengers every year. Some critics of the scanners say that any small amount of cancer is too much to tolerate. Although the TSA doesn’t show signs of budging on the use of X-ray scanners, Europe will instead use machines that rely on radio frequency waves, which have not been linked to cancer.
Note: For key reports from reliable sources on government and corporate threats to privacy, click here.
Rick Perry battles charges of 'crony capitalism'
2011-09-15, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/15/MNNP1L4QHO.DTL
The political tempest created by Rick Perry's response to questions about his 2007 executive order requiring immunization of young girls is the wrong debate at the wrong time for the Texas governor's front-running presidential campaign. The heated political exchange over Perry's program to vaccinate all Texas school girls to protect them from cervical cancer caused by a sexually transmitted disease opens the door for critics to declare it an example of intrusive, big government to require such immunization, particularly for a sexually transmitted virus, even if, as Perry says, there was an opt-out provision for parents. The fact that Perry tried to implement the policy with an executive order, rather than proposing legislation mandating the vaccinations, spooks libertarians who don't want to see another president implementing policy through executive orders, as George W. Bush and Barack Obama have done on a wide range of social and security issues. The issue also highlights what [has been] dubbed "crony capitalism" - how big contributors and longtime friends of the Texas governor have been named to key state positions and won important policy victories in Rick Perry's Texas. Perry's former chief of staff, Mike Toomey, was a lobbyist for Merck, the manufacturer of the drug Gardasil, the vaccine that Perry sought to require for girls.
Note: Another media article points out that Perry grossly underestimated the amount of political contributions he received from Merck, the manufacturer of the drug Gardasil, the vaccine that Perry required for young girls.
Want to Live Longer? Turn Off Your TV
2011-08-17, Time Magazine
http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/17/want-to-live-longer-try-turning-off-you...
Sitting in front of the television may be a relaxing way to pass an evening, but spending too much time in front of the tube may take years off your life. That's what Australian researchers found when they generated life-expectancy tables for people based on mortality information from the Australian Bureau of Statistics as well as participants' survey responses about how much TV they had watched in the past week. The TV-viewing data from more than 11,000 participants older than 25 years showed that Australian adults watched an estimated 9.8 billion hours of television in 2008. People who watched an average six hours of TV a day lived an average 4.8 years fewer than those who didn't watch any television, the study found. Even more humbling: every hour of TV that participants watched after age 25 was associated with a 22-minute reduction in their life expectancy. The findings suggest that watching too much TV is as detrimental to longevity as smoking and lack of exercise.
Note: How about the health impacts of hours daily online or working at a computer screen? Might they be similar to the health effects of watching TV? For lots more on important health issues from reliable sources, click here.
Key Health News Articles in Major Media