WASHINGTON (AP) - Many babies at 9 months old are just starting to stand up. Some take their first steps. But, reading? At 9 months? Really?
The Federal Trade Commission doesn't think so.
The agency has filed a complaint against the man behind the "Your Baby Can Read" program, Robert Titzer. The FTC accuses him of false and deceptive advertising for promoting his program in ads and product packaging as a tool to teach infants as young as nine months to read.
The "Your Baby Can Read" program used a combination of videos, flash cards and pop-up books and was advertised extensively on television, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. It cost about $200 and was sold nationwide at retails stores, including Walmart and Babies R Us.
(Reuters) - The New York State Attorney General issued subpoenas in July to three firms that make energy drinks, including PepsiCo Inc, seeking information on the companies' marketing and advertising practices, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
Besides Pepsi, maker of AMP, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman also sent subpoenas to Monster Beverage Corp and Living Essentials LLC, maker of the 5-Hour Energy drink, said the source, who declined to be identified, citing lack of authorization to speak to the media.
A spokeswoman for Schneiderman declined to comment, as did PepsiCo.
Living Essentials also declined to comment beyond its July offering memorandum in which it said that it had recently received an inquiry from a state attorney general asking for documents relating to its product and marketing.
(Reuters) - Yosemite National Park is warning 1,700 people that they may have been exposed to a potentially deadly rodent-borne lung disease while staying in the famous California park, and said that two visitors had died from the illness known as hantavirus.
The tourists who died had stayed in Curry Village, a popular camping area tucked below the park's sheer granite walls, a Yosemite spokesman said on Tuesday. A third visitor was sickened by the virus but recovering.
Investigators were looking into whether a fourth visitor was suffering from the illness, which is carried by wild rodents. All four stayed in the area's tent cabins on overlapping days in mid-June, spokesman Scott Gediman said.
This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on August 27, 2012 15:54 (UTC). The next check for changes will be August 28, 2012 17:30
Lack of sleep is linked to more aggressive breast cancers, according to new findings published in the August issue of Breast Cancer Research and Treatment by physician-scientists from University Hospitals Case Medical Center's Seidman Cancer Center and Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at Case Western Reserve University.
Led by Cheryl Thompson, PhD, the study is the first-of-its-kind to show an association between insufficient sleep and biologically more aggressive tumors as well as likelihood of cancer recurrence. The research team analyzed medical records and survey responses from 412 post-menopausal breast cancer patients treated at UH Case Medical Center with Oncotype DX, a widely utilized test to guide treatment in early stage breast cancer by predicting likelihood of recurrence.
All patients were recruited at diagnosis and asked about the average sleep duration in the last two years. Researchers found that women who reported six hours or less of sleep per night on average before breast cancer diagnosis had higher Oncotype DX tumor recurrence scores. The Oncotype DX test assigns a tumor a recurrence score based on the expression level of a combination of 21 genes.
British Columbia has become the first province to implement a policy requiring health-care workers to get a flu shot or wear a mask to protect patients.
Provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall said the measure is being implemented this season for staff at publicly funded facilities including long-term care homes because less than half of health-care workers get vaccinated.
Kendall said the flu causes more deaths every year than all other vaccine-preventable diseases combined and hospitalized patients and seniors are more at risk of complications from it than the rest of the population.
New research confirms that acupuncture enhances slow wave sleep (SWS). Slow wave sleep, commonly referred to as deep sleep, is both the third and fourth stage of non-rapid eye movement sleep. Delta brain waves are dominant during SWS and deep sleep occurs in longer periods in the first three hours of sleep. Children tend to have longer periods of deep sleep while the elderly often experience nights without deep sleep.
The research findings confirm that 100 Hz electro-acupuncture applied to acupoint Anmian (N-HN-54) increases deep sleep but does not affect rapid eye movement sleep (REM). Experimental models used in the deep sleep study demonstrated that k-opiod receptors mediate 100 Hz electro-acupuncture and u-opioid receptors mediate 10 Hz electro-acupuncture. These findings demonstrate that differing electro-acupuncture frequencies activate distinct opiod r
1. Corn - Corn has been modified to create its own insecticide. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has declared that tons of genetically modified corn has been introduced for human consumption. Monsanto has revealed that half of the US's sweet corn farms are planted with genetically modified seed. Mice fed with GM corn were discovered to have smaller offspring and fertility problems.
2. Soy - Soy has also been genetically modified to resist herbicides. Soy products include soy flour, tofu, soy beverages, soybean oil and other products that may include pastries, baked products and edible oil. Hamsters fed with GM soy were unable to have offspring and suffered a high mortality rate. Canola
3. Cotton - Like corn and soy, cotton has been designed to resist pesticides. It is considered food because its oil can be consumed. Its introduction in Chinese agriculture has produced a chemical that kills cotton bollworm, reducing the incidences of pests not only in cotton crops but also in neighboring fields of soybeans and corn. Incidentally, thousands of Indian farmers suffered severe rashes upon exposure to BT cotton.
4. Papaya - The virus-resistant variety of papaya was commercially introduced in Hawaii in 1999. Transgenic papayas comprised three-fourths of the total Hawaiian papaya crop. Monsanto bestowed upon Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore technology for developing papaya resistant to the ringspot virus in India.
5. Rice - This staple food from South East Asia has now been genetically modified to contain a high amount of vitamin A. Allegedly, there are reports of rice varieties containing human genes to be grown in the US. The rice will create human proteins useful for dealing with infant diarrhea in the 3rd world. China Daily, an online journal, reported potential serious public health and environment problems with genetically modified rice considering its tendency to cause allergic reactions with the concurrent possibility of gene transfers.
6. Tomatoes - Tomatoes have now been genetically engineered for longer shelf life, preventing them from easily rotting and degrading. In a test conducted to determine the safety of GM tomatoes, some animal subjects died within a few weeks after consuming GM tomatoes.
7. Rapeseed - In Canada, this crop was renamed canola to differentiate it from non-edible rapeseed. Food stuff produced from rapeseed includes rapeseed oi (canola oil) l used to process cooking oil and margarine. Honey can also be produced from GM rapeseed. German food surveillance authorities discovered as much as a third of the total pollen present in Canadian honey may be from GM pollen. In fact, some honey products from Canada were also discovered to have pollen from GM rapeseed.
8. Dairy products - It has been discovered that 22 percent of cows in the U.S. were injected with recombinant (genetically modified) bovine growth hormone (rbGH). This Monsanto created hormone artificially forces cows to increase their milk production by 15 percent. Milk from cows treated with this milk inducing hormone contains increased levels of IGF-1 (insulin growth factors-1). Humans also have IGF-1 in their system. Scientists have expressed concerns that increased levels of IGF-1 in humans have been associated with colon and breast cancer.
9. Potatoes - Mice fed with potatoes engineered with Bacillus thuringiensis var. Kurstaki Cry 1 were found to have toxins in their system. Despite claims to the contrary, this shows that Cry1 toxin was stable in the mouse gut. When the health risks were revealed, it sparked a debate.
10. Peas - Peas that have been genetically modified have been found to cause immune responses in mice and possibly even in humans. A gene from kidney beans was inserted into the peas creating a protein that functions as a pesticide.
Major retailers like Target and Walmart may be able to keep the connection between their products and a war-torn African country under wraps.
Thanks to their lobbying efforts, big retailers will likely be exempt from a rule, finalized by the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday, which requires public companies to disclose whether their products contain "conflict minerals" from the Democratic Republic of Congo, theWall Street Journal reports.
An earlier version of the proposal, part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, would have mandated that retailers selling products under their own brand nameabide by the rule, according to the WSJ, but the final version allows a loophole for companies that don't directly manufacture their products. Goods ranging from smartphones to light bulbs may be made with conflict minerals.
(Reuters) - U.S. health regulators said cantaloupe from Chamberlain Farms in Indiana may be one source of a multi-state outbreak of salmonella that has killed two people and sickened some 178 in the past month.
The farm in Owensville in southwest Indiana decided to recall all its melons, which were first shipped within the state and to Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin. The melons may have later been shipped to other states, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said late on Wednesday.
The FDA and others are still trying to figure out if there are other sources of the salmonella outbreak, which has spread to 21 states so far and sent 64 people to the hospital. Last week, they said they are also looking at watermelons as a possible source of a smaller outbreak.
(Reuters) - If you had a chronic and potentially debilitating condition such as rheumatoid arthritis or Crohn's disease, and swallowing the eggs of a pig parasite could help, would you do it?
The team at Coronado Biosciences Inc is betting you would.
The Burlington, Massachusetts, company is developing what it hopes will be the first in a new class of treatments for autoimmune conditions. Each dose of the drug consists of thousands of microscopic parasite eggs, culled from pig feces, suspended in a tablespoon of saline solution to be swallowed.
In a pig, the eggs would grow into mature whipworms and reproduce, without harming their host. In humans, the same eggs barely survive two weeks. Yet in that short period they appear to modulate a patient's immune system and prevent it from attacking the body's own tissues and organs.
A pack of pit bulls ripped through the front of a Southern California man's minivan in a stunning display of force that would make Cujo cringe.
So what drove the dogs to such destruction? A kitty stuck in the bumper area, Palm Springs police Sgt. Mike Kovaleff said Tuesday.
The unidentified owner of the Dodge minivan was parked at his home in Banning when he saw the damage to his vehicle Monday morning, according to CBS affiliate KESQ in Palm Springs.
"He discovered that his vehicle had been significantly damaged by his four pit bull dogs, in an attempt to attack an unknown animal or rodent while his vehicle was parked overnight,"' Kovaleff told the station.
Aug 22 (Reuters Health) - Contaminated tattoo ink caused at least 22 skin and soft tissue infections last fall in four U.S. states, according to an analysis released on Wednesday.
The infections prompted an investigation by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that uncovered 22 confirmed cases, 4 probable cases and 27 possible cases of contamination-related infections in New York, Washington, Iowa and Colorado.
Products from four companies were implicated during the probe. None of the companies is identified in a CDC report, released in conjunction with a New England Journal of Medicine study of the New York cases.
A Georgia Health Sciences University lab tech was recently discovered in a campus locker room engaging in unusual behavior.
Authorities said 32-year-old Coley Mitchell was jailed after he was found intoxicated with his pants down in a locker room in the Sanders Research and Education Building while two lab monkeys were found roaming free, outside their cages, the Augusta Chronicle reported.
Mitchell was booked into Richmond County jail on charges of public intoxication. The monkeys were examined and found to be unharmed.
After four years of college, many graduates are ending up in jobs that only require the ability to operate a cash register with a smile.
After commencement, a growing number young people say they have no choice but to take low-skilled jobs, according to a survey released this week.
And while 63% of "Generation Y" workers - those age 18 to 29 - have a bachelor's degree, the majority of the jobs taken by graduates don't require one, according to an online survey of 500,000 young workers carried out between July 2011 and July 2012 by PayScale.com, a company that collects data on salaries.
A genetic study has added to evidence that the increase in some mental disorders may be due to men having children later in life.
An Icelandic company found the number of genetic mutations in children was directly related to the age of their father when they were conceived.
One prominent researcher suggested young men should consider freezing their sperm if they wanted to have a family in later life.
The research is published in Nature.
According to Dr Kari Stefansson, of Decode Genetics, who led the research, the results show it is the age of men, rather than women, that is likely to have an effect on the health of the child.
HOUSTON (AP/CBSDFW.COM) - A dog returning to the United States with a soldier's family was euthanized after suffering heat stroke in Houston while in the care of United Airlines.
Rachel Estes tells the Houston Chronicle that she and her 5-year-old daughter were returning to North Carolina from South Korea, where her husband was completing a tour of duty. She says the family's two cats arrived in Charlotte, N.C., a day after the family's arrival, but their 14-pound terrier had to be euthanized at a veterinary clinic near Bush Intercontinental Airport.
The dog's medical chart at Animal Emergency clinic Northeast in Humble showed the dog arrived collapsed in its carrier, had been "tangled up in harness," and suffered heat stroke.
(CBS/AP) DALLAS -- Dallas County launched an aerial assault on the mosquito population for the first time in 45 years Thursday as part of an emergency measure to stem the nation's worst outbreak of West Nile virus, which has killed 10 people and sickened at least 230 others.
Two twin engine planes began targeting 49,000 acres in Dallas County late Thursday night, flying at an altitude of 300 feet, according to CBS station KTVT-TV. At least a dozen cities in the county will be part of the aerial spraying program, reports CBS News correspondent Manual Bojorquez.
Although commonplace in other major cities, the efforts have provoked a debate in the Dallas area between health officials trying to reduce the risk of disease and people concerned about insecticidal mist drifting down from above.
"I cannot have any more deaths on my conscience because we did not take action," Mayor Mike Rawlings said.
The home of former President George W. Bush is an area that was scheduled to be sprayed, but it is one of several places pilots were told to avoid, it, according to KTVT.
PORTLAND -- Mayor Sam Adams announced on twitter Friday afternoon that he would support fluoride in Portland's drinking water.
It's been 32 years since Portland voters decided to keep fluoride out of their water. In just a few weeks city council will most likely change all that.
Portland is the largest city in the U.S. without fluoride in its drinking water. A coalition of 70 local organizations and groups is lobbying commissioners on the issue. Friday morning the Everyone Deserves Healthy Teeth coalition had a planning meeting.
