Gleeman’s Daily News—04/09

MA students will receive “fat report cards”

Being weighed in front of the school can be a nightmare for kids; having their measurements sent home as a report card can’t be any less traumatizing. But perhaps the consolation is at least it won’t happen every year—only first, fourth, seventh and tenth graders will be subjected to body-mass report cards. Those who don’t like it can always move to another state—other than Arkansas, that is, which has already adopted a similar practice.

Image: Flickr / Elrenia_Greenleaf

Here is one state taking obesity very seriously, but it is still left to the parents to solve the problem, and that probably won’t work.

Older medical devices must now be FDA approved

A nurse monitors fluids in this undated handout photo.  REUTERS/Newscom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Makers of 25 types of medical devices including metal hip joints and spinal screws must supply safety and effectiveness data so the government can decide if the products need a more thorough review, U.S. regulators said on Wednesday.

The order addresses complaints that the Food and Drug Administration had allowed some devices sold before 1976 without agency approval to remain on sale without adequate evaluation.

The work of the FDA gets larger each day, now they have to go back in time and approve all the older devices from before 1976.

CA hospitals accused of dumping up to 150 mental patients on Skid Row

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A $1.6 million settlement has been reached with two Southern California hospitals accused of improperly discharging and dumping psychiatric patients on Skid Row in Los Angeles, the city attorney's office said Wednesday.

The settlement also bars College Hospitals in the Orange County cities of Costa Mesa and Cerritos from transporting homeless psychiatric patients to downtown shelters, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's office said.

I have heard of this sort of “patient dumping” before, even saw film of it, but did not really believe it until today.

C.I.A. accused of medically-assisted torture

The International Committee of the Red Cross have reported that medical staff assisted with the interrogation of terrorist suspects, who were tortured at Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prisons. The examples of violation of medical ethics came to light during interviews held with prisoners in Guantanamo Bay in 2007.

Doctors have to cause pain sometimes, but what do our readers think about doctors helping to torture suspects?

Study points to “good fat” as a way to fight obesity

A Hungarian man cooks pork lard in Makad

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Calorie-burning fat may seem like science fiction, but a study released found that adults have small blobs of metabolism-regulating brown fat previously believed to exist only in babies and children.

This "good" fat, researchers said, unlike white fat that makes up most body fat, is active in burning calories and using energy.

May we all grow lots of good fat, the kind that makes a person thin and healthy.

Pistachio recall is expanded to many other products

In another food scare sure to rattle consumers who watched the national salmonella outbreak in peanuts unfold, federal food officials are now warning people not to eat pistachios, which could carry contamination from the same bacteria.

(Getty Images/AP)

I am very curious as to why, all of a sudden, there is a problem making safe nuts. Never in my life was it a problem before.

“Silent” acid reflux doesn’t have a role in poor asthma control

Asthma patients using powerful acid reflux drugs even though they don’t have heartburn should stop taking them, lung experts say. It turns out the medicine doesn’t improve asthma symptoms, as had been thought.

Medicine goes through so much change every day, I am amazed that doctors can even begin to keep up with information.