Methadone cited in 30 percent of painkiller deaths

Posted: July 3, 2012

(Reuters) - Methadone use contributed to more than 30 percent of U.S. overdose deaths from prescription painkillers, even though it is rarely prescribed for that purpose, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Tuesday.

Methadone was developed in Germany in 1937, and has been used by U.S. doctors since the 1960s to treat drug addiction. Its use for chronic pain relief has been on the rise since the mid-1990s, largely due to its relatively low cost, and the drug now accounts for about 2 percent of prescriptions in the country.

The CDC report analyzed national data from 1999 to 2010, which showed six times as many methadone-related deaths in 2009, compared with 1999 -- making it a leading killer in what the CDC has previously described as a prescription overdose epidemic. More frequently prescribed drugs include highly addictive ingredients such as oxycodone and codeine.

Read the full story here: http://www.reuters.com

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San Jose cops schooled on private property rights, kicked out of garage sale

Posted: July 3, 2012

Private citizens have RIGHTS? Huh?

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Crazy cat lady explained? Cat parasite drives owners to suicide

Posted: July 3, 2012

Women who own cats are more likely to have mental health problems and commit suicide because they can be infected by a common parasite that can be caught from cat litter, a study has found.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

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FDA blasted for approving latest obesity drug while ignoring safety concerns

Posted: July 3, 2012

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today recklessly approved another diet drug, lorcaserin, the latest in a series of obesity-related pharmaceuticals that pose serious health threats. We expect that as with many of the other drugs, this one will be withdrawn from the market after the agency is forced to confront the many serious adverse health effects, such as heart valve damage, that will be reported.

In a last-ditch effort to keep yet another of these dangerous drugs off the market, Public Citizen on Tuesday wrote to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, warning her of the very negative consequences associated with lorcaserin (Belviq, manufactured by Arena Pharmaceuticals), and urging her not to approve it. Marketing this drug to a population besieged by obesity and desperate for relief is irresponsible and a mistake that will benefit only the company that makes it.

http://www.citizen.org

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It's official: NOAA denies existence of mermaids

Posted: July 3, 2012

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which usually deals with environmental matters like tsunamis and hurricanes, recently took the strange step of posting a statement on their website denying that mermaids exist.

In a post titled, "No Evidence of Aquatic Humanoids Has Ever Been Found," NOAA notes that:

The belief in mermaids may have arisen at the very dawn of our species. Magical female figures first appear in cave paintings in the late Paleolithic (Stone Age) period some 30,000 years ago, when modern humans gained dominion over the land and, presumably, began to sail the seas. Half-human creatures, called chimeras, also abound in mythology - in addition to mermaids, there were wise centaurs, wild satyrs, and frightful minotaurs, to name but a few. But are mermaids real? No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.

http://news.discovery.com

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12 incredible quotes about Obamacare

Posted: July 2, 2012

You might as well stick a fork in the U.S. healthcare system because it is finished. Even before Obamacare, Americans paid far more for healthcare than anyone else in the world. Now thanks to Obamacare we will be faced with much higher health insurance premiums, much higher taxes, much longer waits to see doctors and more government bureaucrats involved in our lives than ever before. As I have written about previously, the U.S. healthcare industry is a horrible mess, and now Obamacare is going to take the entire system directly into the toilet. All over America today, families are going broke because of outrageous health insurance costs and suffocating medical debt, doctors are going broke and leaving the profession because they can't make a living, and sick people are dying because they cannot get the care that they need. So what solution does Obama give us? A nearly 3,000 page monstrosity that will destroy what is left of our crumbling healthcare system and that will unleash 16,000 new IRS agents to hunt down the millions of Americans that do not currently have health insurance. For those that love Big Brother socialist totalitarianism, Obamacare is a dream come true. For the rest of us it is a total nightmare.

Continue reading:

http://endoftheamericandream.com

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How the Global War on Drugs Drives HIV and AIDS

Posted: July 1, 2012

The war on drugs is driving much of the global AIDS pandemic, increasing new infections among injection-drug users in the U.S. and elsewhere, according to a new report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

The commission - led by a distinguished panel including the former presidents of Mexico, Poland, Colombia, Brazil and Switzerland, along with Virgin Airlines entrepreneur Richard Branson, the former chair of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, and former Secretary of State George Schulz, among others - finds in its report that about one-third of all new infections outside of sub-Sarahan Africa occur in injection-drug users.

Read more here: http://healthland.time.com

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Science proves early human ancestors ate bark and leaves - now known as medicinal herbs

Posted: July 1, 2012

Analysis of food trapped in the teeth of the two-million-year-old "southern ape" suggests it existed on a unique diet of forest fruits and other woodland plants.

Teeth from two individuals were analysed in the latest research, focussing on patterns of dental wear, carbon isotope data and plant fragments from dental tartar.

The evidence suggests the ape-like creature ate leaves, fruit, bark, wood and other forest vegetation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk

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"Leap second" time glitch brings down big websites

Posted: July 1, 2012

After an extra second was added to the clock on Saturday to better align it with the Earth's rotation schedule, a whole slew of websites from LinkedIn, Foursquare and Reddit to Mozlila, Yelp and Gawker sites experienced technical issues.

Known as a "leap second," which is a basic one-second adjustment applied to the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to keep it up-to-date with solar time, the additional second added didn't sit well with various web servers.

http://mashable.com

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Feeling lonely can shorten your life

Posted: July 1, 2012

Is loneliness lethal? According to two new studies published online Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, living alone or feeling lonely can increase your chances of disability and early death.

In one study, researchers at Harvard Medical School followed nearly 45,000 people who had heart disease or were at high risk of developing it. Over four years, the study authors tracked the participants' health and found that those who lived alone were more likely to die from heart attack, stroke or other heart-related problems than those who lived with others.

Read the full article here: http://healthland.time.com

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Gastric bypass surgery for weight loss doubles alcoholism risk

Posted: July 1, 2012

Gastric bypass surgery for weight loss doubles the risk of alcohol problems two years later, compared with bariatric surgery using the banding technique, according to new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study of nearly 2,000 patients at 10 American hospitals was the first to directly examine the risk for alcohol use disorders before and after different types of obesity surgery, including Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, the most commonly performed weight-loss surgery in the U.S. The procedure involves stapling off most of the stomach and rerouting food directly to a lower part of the intestine, making eating large meals difficult and uncomfortable, and limiting the amount of calories absorbed.

Read the full article here: http://healthland.time.com

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New Detergent Pods Pose Poisoning Risk

Posted: July 1, 2012

Childhood poisonings from a new type of detergent packet have soared in recent weeks, experts say, with the total climbing to more than 1,200 this week from about 200 in late May.

Health authorities have been concerned since late March, when poison control centers around the country noted a small number of reports from parents whose children had opened and swallowed the brightly colored laundry detergent products, which are small enough to fit in a child's palm and may be mistaken for candy. The detergent packets were introduced by a various companies over the winter as a convenience that can be easily dropped into a washing machine.

But because of their bite-size shape and candylike colors, many toddlers and small children have been eating them. Poison control centers first starting putting out alerts about two to three months ago, not long after the products were introduced in the United States. By late May, the number of reported cases had reached 200 to 250 nationwide, prompting widespread news media attention and an announcement from Tide, which makes one of the most popular forms of the products, that the company would change its packaging to make the packets more difficult for children to tamper with.

Read the full story here: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com

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Mississippi's only abortion clinic being forced to stop accepting patients

Posted: July 1, 2012

Barring a last minute legal reprieve, Mississippi's only abortion clinic will be forced to turn away patients starting Monday, a move it says will push some vulnerable women into the hands of backstreet operators.

Owners of the Jackson Women's Health Organization say they intend to open up like any other day. But under new rules seemingly designed to make Mississippi an abortion-free state, physicians will not be able to carry out terminations without first being registered as a practitioner with privileges to admit patients to a local hospital.

Read the full story here: http://www.rawstory.com

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Eating rice contributes to arsenic exposure

Posted: July 1, 2012

U.S. women who reported eating average-sized portions of rice had higher levels of arsenic exposure compared to women who didn't eat rice, indicating that food may provide potentially harmful levels of arsenic.

Eating even relatively modest levels of rice - about a half a cup of cooked rice a day - can significantly contribute to arsenic exposure in the U.S. population, reports a study of pregnant women who live in New Hampshire.
Women who were exposed through both eating rice and drinking water had on average twice the level of arsenic in their urine than women who did not eat rice and were exposed only through water.

The results show the rice portions reported in the study contributed about the same levels of arsenic as drinking a liter of water containing 10 micrograms of arsenic. Ten micrograms per liter (µg/L) is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) upper limit for arsenic in drinking water.

It is unclear whether these levels of arsenic exposure would affect the health of the pre

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BPA exposure linked to brain tumors

Posted: July 1, 2012

Exposure to bisphenol A may be a risk factor for a common type of brain tumor called meningioma, reports a study from China. This is the first study to suggest a link between brain cancer and the chemical, which is widely used in consumer products.

Those with the highest urine BPA levels were about 1.6 times more likely to be diagnosed with meningioma compared to those with lower concentrations.

This link was observed even after accounting for other factors associated with meningioma. More research is needed to confirm the findings.

Researchers examined the relationship between BPA exposure and the diagnosis of meningioma. They followed 247 patients with the brain cancer and 258 patients with no history of cancer who were getting medical exams at the Union Hospital in Wuhan, China.
Meningioma was confirmed with a brain scan or a biopsy - a tissue sample. BPA concentrations were measured in participants' urine samples.

Read the full article here: http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org

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We have a right to know if our food has been genetically engineered

Posted: July 1, 2012

92 percent of Americans want the FDA to label genetically engineered foods. Watch the new video from Food, Inc. Filmmaker Robert Kenner to hear why we have the right to know what's in our food. Will you join these individuals - and over half a million Americans - in contacting the FDA to require the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods?

Check out the petition here: http://justlabelit.org/

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Be careful what you wish for: 75% of Obamacare tax to fall onto those making less than $120k

Posted: July 1, 2012

Stephen Moore, Senior Economics Writer with the Wall Street Journal, told FOX and Friends this morning that nearly 75% of Obamacare costs will fall on the backs of those Americans making less than $120,000 a year.

http://www.humanevents.com

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Rand Paul calls for nationwide revolt against lawlessness after Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare

Posted: July 1, 2012

"Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be 'constitutional' does not make it so," Mr. Paul said in his written statement after the ruling. "The whole thing remains unconstitutional."

He also suggested Americans should revolt. "The Stamp Act was a direct tax imposed on the colonies by King George III. This act inevitably led to the American Revolution," Mr. Paul wrote. "Just as the Stamp Act did in 1765, Obamacare should act as a wake-up call. Chief Justice Roberts provides us with a similar call to action."

At the end of the article, he made it clearer he was calling for the election of a new president and Senate, not an armed insurrection.

http://blogs.wsj.com

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Google Shopping to censor all self-defense items related to firearms

Posted: July 1, 2012

You will no longer see any shopping results related to firearms, not even tools, ammo pouches, holsters or other gear used by law enforcement to help keep the peace and protect innocents.

http://www.thefirearmblog.com

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Tax implications of Supreme Court decision on Obamacare are enormous... and liberty-crushing

Posted: July 1, 2012

On June 28, Chief Justice John Roberts appropriated to himself...in the name of the Supreme Court, of course...the power of taxation granted to Congress under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution. He did so by saving the entire, massive regulatory edifice of Obamacare from constitutional challenge on the pretext that the constitutional power to tax was in fact exercised by Congress in creating that edifice, even though Congress consistently denied that was the case. The result is that the Court's Commerce Power jurisprudence, previously the critical source of most federal regulation of nationwide import, appears now to be subsumed under the taxing power; and worse, that the taxing power is viewed by the supreme law of the land as having no clear limits, or even a defined class of limitations. A tax is what the Court says is a tax, and a tax may be used for any conceivable regulatory end: not buying health insurance, not buying broccoli, not installing energy-efficient windows (Mr. Roberts' own example), failing to patronize public television (not that far-fetched an example, really)

http://www.forbes.com

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