Free Republic

Federal health regulators have approved an attention deficit disorder drug for a new use: A first-of-its kind treatment for binge-eating disorder. […] The Food and Drug Administration originally approved Vyvanse in 2007 as a once-a-day pill for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. On Friday, the agency cleared the drug for adults who compulsively overeat. Vyvanse, known chemically as lisdexamfetamine dimesylate, is part of a family of drugs that stimulate the central nervous system. The drug’s prescribing label warns that Vyvanse has a “high potential for abuse and dependence,” and doctors should monitor patients for signs of dependence. …

Biomaterial experts at Germany’s Bayreuth and Würzburg universities claimed a breakthrough in cultivating living cells while holding them in place with liquified spider silk. The research method mixed spider silk with connective fibroblast cells from mice to generate a so-called “bio ink” or gel. Fibroblasts typically begin wound repairs. When extruded from a 3-D printer, the silk molecules quickly wrapped those cells, giving them a porous matrix in which to flourish, the team said. …

With California gripped by a measles outbreak, Dr. Charles Goodman posted a clear notice in his waiting room and on Facebook: His practice will no longer see children whose parents won't get them vaccinated. It's a sentiment echoed by a small number of doctors who in recent years have "fired" patients who continue to believe debunked research linking vaccines to autism. They hope the strategy will lead parents to change their minds; if that fails, they hope it will at least reduce the risk to other children in the office.

In August 2013, the district announced — to the great dismay of the teachers union — a dress code that would require teachers to wear underwear. Every single day. Female teachers would have to wear bras, too. And the very worst of all: No spandex. (RELATED: Little Rock School District Will Now Make Teachers Wear Underwear) Now, a mere 18 months later, the Arkansas Department of Education has voted to assume control over management of the school district, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

"We don't know exactly how this outbreak started but we do think it was likely a person infected with measles overseas," Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters. "We assume that someone got infected with measles overseas, visited Disneyland park, and spread the disease to others."

Carl Krawitt has watched his son, Rhett, now 6, fight leukemia for the past 4 1/2 years. For more than three of those years, Rhett has undergone round after round of chemotherapy. Last year he finished chemotherapy, and doctors say he is in remission. Now, there's a new threat, one that the family should not have to worry about: measles. Rhett cannot be vaccinated, because his immune system is still rebuilding. It may be months more before his body is healthy enough to get all his immunizations. Until then, he depends on everyone around him for protection — what's known...

Scientists tracking the Ebola outbreak in Guinea say the virus has mutated. Researchers at the Institut Pasteur in France, which first identified the outbreak last March, are investigating whether it could have become more contagious. More than 22,000 people have been infected with Ebola and 8,795 have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Scientists are starting to analyse hundreds of blood samples from Ebola patients in Guinea. They are tracking how the virus is changing and trying to establish whether it's able to jump more easily from person to person. "We know the virus is changing quite a lot,"...

One in three, or 35.2 percent, of people getting federal disability insurance benefits have been diagnosed with a mental disorder, according to the latest data from the Social Security Administration (SSA). Washington, D.C., the seat of the federal government, ranked in the top-ten list of states where disabled beneficiaries were diagnosed with mental problems. In 2013, the latest data from SSA show there were 10,228,364 disabled beneficiaries, up 139,625 from 2012 when there were 10,088,739 disabled beneficiaries. Disabled beneficiaries have increased 49.7 percent from a decade ago in 2003 when there were 6,830,714 beneficiaries; and the number is up 14.3...

Representatives from Golden State Water Co. insist that Morita’s predicament is isolated. They also say they flushed the pipes last week and, since then, the water has been clear. Morita collected the water in a jar but Golden State says they couldn’t test the sample because it has to be collected in special containers. “The water meets all drinking water standards, so it should be considered safe to drink. I understand the concern, though. I was concerned when I saw the discolored water,” said Kate Nutting, the general manager of Golden State Water’s southwest division

BOSTON (CBS) — You may have noticed that Tom Brady didn’t look himself at Tuesday’s Media Day. No, it wasn’t his bed head. And it wasn’t from a lack of sleep thanks to an early morning fire alarm at the team’s hotel. As he prepares for the biggest game of the season, the Patriots quarterback is battling a cold. And if you thought he looked rough on Tuesday, he looked a bit worse on Wednesday as he addressed the media at the team hotel in Chandler, Arizona. “It’s been lingering,” Brady told reporters as he held court for nearly 45...

I hope this question is not too personal. Does anybody have Medicare Part D and take Victoza and if so how much does Medicare Part D cover????

People on both sides of the abortion debate had much to talk about when Republicans introduced a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. NARAL lobbied hard against it, and though the bill easily passed the House before and is supported by a majority of Americans, Obama promised to veto it. The bill was tabled due to debate over the rape exception, which is unfortunate for apparently both pro-lifers and pro-abortion advocates alike. A new poll shows that a whopping 84% of Americans want to ban abortion after the first trimester, and that includes 7 out of...

In the United States, one in four women are victims of domestic abuse, which is why some abortion advocates argue that women need “safe and legal abortion care.” In fact, they believe that abortion is a life-saving option because pregnancy can tether women to violent men. Tragically, a recent example of this argument appeared in the article, “I Gave Myself an Illegal Abortion after My Boyfriend Forced Me to Get Pregnant.” A woman named Kaity shared that she had an illegal abortion after her abusive boyfriend forced her to get pregnant. She writes, “Shane didn’t like to use condoms. He...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – A Nashville teen went to bed one day last week and woke up the next morning paralyzed from the waist down. Jessica Shainberg, 14, was experiencing tingling in her feet. Then, suddenly, she lost the use of her legs. She was rushed to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital and diagnosed with transverse myelitis, or inflammation of the spinal cord.

UC Irvine and Australian chemists have figured out how to unboil egg whites – an innovation that could dramatically reduce costs for cancer treatments, food production and other segments of the $160 billion global biotechnology industry, according to findings published today in the journal ChemBioChem. "Yes, we have invented a way to unboil a hen egg," said Gregory Weiss, UCI professor of chemistry and molecular biology & biochemistry. "In our paper, we describe a device for pulling apart tangled proteins and allowing them to refold. We start with egg whites boiled for 20 minutes at 90 degrees Celsius and return...

The group of scientists from the UK, France and Canada who studied the strange case of the man with "chronic deja vu" think one possible cause of the phenomenon could be anxiety. The man's condition was so persistent he avoided watching television, listening to the radio and reading newspapers because he felt he had "encountered it all before". Dr Chris Moulin, a cognitive neuropsychologist at the University of Bourgogne who worked on the study, says the man had a history of depression and anxiety, and had once taken the drug LSD whilst at university, but was otherwise completely healthy. "This...

FULL TITLE: West Virginia hospital sees many patients with abortion complications, says Doctor who supports admitting privileges for abortionists “We commonly (I personally probably at least weekly) see patients at Women’s and Children’s Hospital in our emergency room or ultrasound center with complications from abortions at the centers in Charleston: so much for “safe and legal.” These patients are told to come to our hospital because the abortion clinic providers do not have hospital privileges to care for their patients, so we must treat them as emergency “drop ins.… No other medical providers are allowed to care for patients, have...

FULL TITLE: Clarke D Forsythe describes at length why legal abortion deaths do not make it into CDC and other statistics Clarke D Forsythe, in his excellent book Abuse of Discretion: the inside Story of Roe Versus Wade (buy the book on Amazon here) explains at length why legal abortion deaths and injuries do not make it into the published statistics. “Abortion injuries and deaths are washed out of the US public health system through a series of filters. The first filter is the clinics. Clinics do not take responsibility for injuries if they can avoid it. Standard procedure for...

From a woman who had two abortions, one after rape: “Had I been told the truth about the risks that I was taking with my body and about the developing persons inside of me, I know that I would not have made the decision to destroy life. There are those people who can deliberately take the life of another person, but that is not my nature. Yet I must live with the truth, because that is what I have done. I still feel that I probably couldn’t have loved that child conceived of rape, but there are so many people...

Molly* – a beautiful girl with a sweet smile and an easy laugh – grew up in a Christian home. Taught to save sex for marriage, she changed her mind after she’d been dating Darren*. He said he loved her, and in her words, she “gave in.” Molly shares about the day she knew she was pregnant: One day I just knew I was pregnant and I told Darren I needed a test. We went to Target, and I went into the bathroom there and saw the positive test sign. Thoughts started swarming in my head and my heart. What...

From former clinic worker Catherine Adair:] One of my jobs as a medical assistant at Planned Parenthood was to clean the room in between abortions. I clearly remember how quickly we were required to work so that the doctors didn’t have to wait for the next abortion. I was never trained on OSHA regulations -speed was more important than being thorough. Blood spatter was often in the wall, floor and table when the next woman came in for her abortion. It disgusted me and I always wondered what the woman coming in thought and if she noticed it. Abortion clinics...

Vice President Joe Biden wrapped up his California visit on Friday by telling doctors that the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, had “ended the debate” about whether health care is a privilege or a right, according to the Orange County Register. Biden was speaking to the Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit, congratulating doctors on a rapid reduction in the rate of hospital-borne infections in recent years. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also spoke to the meeting. There is no provision in the Constitution or in the text of the Obamacare bill that refers to health care as a...

Millions of genetically modified mosquitoes could be released in the Florida Keys if British researchers win approval to use the bugs against two extremely painful viral diseases. Never before have insects with modified DNA come so close to being set loose in a residential U.S. neighborhood. […] Dengue and chikungunya are growing threats in the U.S., but some people are more frightened at the thought of being bitten by a genetically modified organism. More than 130,000 signed a Change.org petition against the experiment. Even potential boosters say those responsible must do more to show that benefits outweigh the risks. […]...

Radical abortion supporters are calling for a Ferguson type revolution against pro-lifers in an odd place, outside a rally organized by Black preachers in California. The event was organized by Rev. Walter Hoye, a Black pro-life minister , and took place Friday in Oakland. An page on Hoye’s website about the rally reads, “We walk because abortion in the Black community is a form of genocide, it is the Darfur of America. We walk because abortion in Black America is the civil rights issue of our day. We walk because abortion does violence, both physically and emotionally, to men and...

Forty-six years ago today (Jan. 22, 1969), Glen Campbell struck gold for the first time. It was on this day that the singer earned the first gold single of his career, signifying sales of 500,000 copies, with ‘Wichita Lineman.’ The song, which was the title track of Campbell’s 12th studio album, was written by Jimmy Webb, who got the inspiration for the tune while driving through Washita County, Okla., when he saw a lone telephone lineman working on the top of a telephone pole. “I’m a songwriter, and I can write about anything I want to,” Webb says of his...

Washington University School of Medicine researchers have found that those patients who suffer from inflammatory bowel diseases also had a greater variety of viruses contained within their digestive systems than they found in the bowels of health volunteers. This, they believe, suggests that viruses somehow play a role in the development of this condition. ... “This is the tip of the iceberg. A significant portion of the viral DNA we identified in these patients is unfamiliar to us—it comes from newly identified viruses we don’t know much about,” explains senior study author Herbert W. Virgin. “We have a great deal...

Privacy advocates say the Obama administration needs to make more changes to protect consumer privacy on the government’s health insurance website. The administration reversed course Friday and scaled back the release of personal information from HealthCare.gov, after The Associated Press reported that such details as consumers’ income and tobacco use were going to private companies with a commercial interest in the data.The episode could become a blemish on what’s otherwise shaping up as a successful open enrollment season for the second year of expanded coverage under President Barack Obama’s health care law. Lawmakers continue to insist on a full explanation....

(CNSNews.com) – For every black murder victim in 2011 there were 19 blacks killed by abortion, according to data from the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). 2011 is the latest year for which the data is available. The CDC’s Abortion Surveillance Report for 2011 shows that 117,293 black babies were aborted that year in the 32 states and the District of Columbia that report abortion numbers to the CDC. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2011, shows that 6,329 blacks were murder victims that year (5,416 males, 910 females, and 3 unknown gender).

We are what we think. These seven popularly held beliefs are causing you unnecessary misery 1. Lust and love are the same 2. The more money you have, the happier you will be 3. Any dream can come true, if you want it badly enough 4. Perfection is good 5. My happiness is more important than yours 6. Success is permanent 7. Hope is not a strategy (content snipped out, check article for explanations)

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A health warning. The extremely contagious measles virus is back. An outbreak that started at Disneyland is starting to sweep the country. Christie Ileto has the push for children to get vaccinated. Measles was thought to have been eliminated in the U.S. 15 years ago. Now its back, targeting those who haven’t been immunized. The outbreak that started in California’s Disneyland is expanding. At least 75 cases of measles span six states. “It’s scary to think the happiest place on Earth is infected with measles,” one Disney employee said. For this Disney employee, knowing co-workers are infected...

Marijuana-related calls to poison control centers in Washington and Colorado have spiked since the states began allowing legal sales last year, with an especially troubling increase in calls concerning young children. New year-end data show that the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center received 151 calls for marijuana exposure last year, the first year of retail recreational pot sales. That was up from 88 calls in 2013 and 61 in 2012, the year voters made marijuana legal for adults over 21. …

New Orleans passed a far-reaching smoking ban on Thursday that prohibits lighting up in bars, casinos, private clubs—even in the car while waiting in line at a drive-thru. Claiming there is no “constitutional right” to smoke, the New Orleans City Council unanimously voted to outlaw smoking and electronic cigarettes in indoor and outdoor public places.

A pro-choice feminist who observed abortions at a busy abortion clinic for her book Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic told the following story of a woman who came in for an abortion and did not speak English. When put on the operating table for her abortion, the woman struggled and tried to get up. However, she was not allowed to leave. Instead, she was held down on the table by three clinic workers while the doctor forcibly aborted her baby. Wendy Simonds, the author of the book, tells the story: The second woman was Japanese...

FULL TITLE: Girls as young as TEN are being given the contraceptive implant - sparking fears it puts them at risk of 'horrendous abuse' Girls as young as 10 have been given the contraceptive implant, potentially exposing them to ‘horrendous abuse’. The primary school age children are among thousands of minors given the slow-release contraceptive device since 2010 despite being far under the age of consent. The implants, which have never been tested on under-18s, were given to at least three 10-year-olds in the last five years, according to figures obtained by MailOnline. East Lancashire NHS Trust, University Hospitals of...

CNSNews.com) – At an invitation-only press conference on Tuesday at the National Press Club, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards told hand-picked reporters that her organization takes pride in the millions of abortions done at its affiliated clinics around the United States. “We proudly provide safe and legal abortion,” Richards said at the event. As CNSNews.com reported earlier, Planned Parenthood clinics did 327,653 abortions in its fiscal year 2014 (which ran from July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014), according to Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s latest annual report. That works out to an average of 37 abortions per hour or...

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“This is Africa”: Stowaways caught on Navy ebola missionThree stowaways managed to hide on the Karel Doorman, the largest ship of the Royal Marines. “I was speechless”, says the commander of the ship. “This is Africa.” The crew of the Karel Doorman did everything in their power to safely complete the Ebola mission to West Africa. During the past two months the marine vessel successfully delivered large amounts of relief supplies to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Libera. Numerous safeguards were set to ensure that the crew is not infected with the deadly virus. Though the safeguards managed to prevent...

Chicago tops the 2014 Bed Bug Cities List for the third year in a row. The list, released by pest control company Orkin, ranks the cities by the number of bed bug treatments Orkin performed from January to December 2014. Bed bugs were in the news throughout 2014 in the Windy City, with reports of the blood-sucking insects on public transit and inside several downtown office buildings, as well as in police headquarters, a fire station, school, library and movie theater. Seven cities made double-digit jumps on Orkin's Bed Bug Cities List compared to 2013, including Omaha, Neb. (+16), Lexington,...

And we all know that the debt is one of the three most important factors of The State Of The Union. Obama spoke of all of these wonderful things he wants to do over the next few years, mainly free stuff! Yet he never mentioned the overwhelming debt that will eventually collapse the system by 2016. He never brought up the success of his health-care plan. Never mentioned that thanks to him, every household has access to affordable health-care and every household is Saving $2500.00 a year !!

An Illinois pro-life group is calling for lawmakers to correct a wrong related to abortion clinics. Though state law requires the health department to inspect abortion mills anytime it deems necessary, Emily Zender of Illinois Right to Life tells OneNewsNow it is "appalling how the Illinois Department of Public Health can look the other way while Illinois' abortion clinics are providing substandard medical care." "We have found that on average, 40 percent of the clinics in Illinois have gone between 14 and 17 years without a health inspection," she reports. "And abortion clinics in Illinois are only being inspected an...

The NHS is ‘not fit for the future’ and unless it undergoes radical change it may be forced to abandon free healthcare for all, in the future, the service's top doctor has warned. Medical director of NHS England Professor Sir Bruce Keogh said the NHS must become far less reliant on hospitals and needed a ‘complete transformation’ of the way it operates. Sir Bruce told the Guardian: ‘If the NHS continues to function as it does now, it’s going to really struggle to cope because the model of delivery and service that we have at the moment is not fit...

One of the most promising new treatments for Alzheimer's disease may already be in your kitchen. Curcumin, a natural product found in the spice turmeric, has been used by many Asian cultures for centuries, and a new study indicates a close chemical analog of curcumin has properties that may make it useful as a treatment for the brain disease. "Curcumin has demonstrated ability to enter the brain, bind and destroy the beta-amyloid plaques present in Alzheimer's with reduced toxicity," said Wellington Pham, Ph.D., assistant professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences and Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt and senior author of the...

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — Ever since he was a two-year-old boy, Dylan Johnson has had a passion for vacuum cleaners. Dylan, who has autism, was never into “normal” toys, his mother Jodie said. The Swift Creek Middle School student turned 14 years old over the weekend and celebrated his birthday with a party that included close friends, family and a vacuum salesman.

(CBS SF) — A new study finds kids are gobbling up pizza at an alarming rate. The Journal of Pediatrics study found nearly a quarter of all American kids are eating pizza on any given day and that pizza makes up nearly a quarter of their calories. The study found kids and teens are getting more calories from pizza than anything else they eat — besides dessert. For many, it’s a wake-up call to reevaluate how parents feed their kids.

When it comes to beverages with benefits, wine always seems to get the credit. If you're a brew lover, that might make you want to cry in your beer. But before you do, you'll be glad to learn that, like wine, beer delivers some decided perks as well. "A cold beer is the perfect way to relax at the end of the day, it tastes great and, in moderation, it can even be good for you," says Ethan A. Bergman, PhD, RD, CD, FADA, past president of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Here are five ways your favorite brew...

A British doctor performed female genital mutilation on a young mother after she gave birth in hospital, a court has heard. Dhanuson Dharmasena, 32, is accused of carrying out the illegal procedure at the Whittington Hospital in north London. The junior registrar, of Ilford, Essex, denies the charge in what is the first prosecution of its kind in the UK. A second man, Hasan Mohamed, 41, denies encouraging and abetting the offence. Female genital mutilation, often abbreviated to FGM and also known as female circumcision, involves procedures that include the partial or total removal of the external female genital organs...

Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists examining the intricate network of brain cells that underlie sight, thought, and psychiatric disease had a running joke in the laboratory: let’s just make everything bigger. If they could simply enlarge brain cells, they reasoned, the task of mapping the circuits would be easier. Now, they have found a way to do just that, using a technique that has shades of a 1950s science fiction movie. But instead of spawning killer ants or a 50-foot giantess, the researchers have found a controlled way to cause a tissue sample swell to roughly four and a half...

A senior Cabinet minister in Ireland says he’s gay, becoming the first openly homosexual government figure in the history of the traditionally conservative Catholic country. Sunday’s announcement on state radio by Health Minister Leo Varadkar received widespread praise for its straightforward honesty. Analysts said his decision was likely to be viewed with hindsight as a landmark of social change in a country that, until 1993, outlawed homosexual acts. Varadkar said he decided to declare his sexuality in advance of government moves this year to advance gay rights. These include plans to legalize gay marriage, permit homosexual men to donate blood,...

Abortion clinic workers often try to hide the reality of the abortion procedure from the patients they meet. In one particular abortion clinic, the counselors avoided using the word “baby.” Wendy Simonds, a pro-choice feminist who interviewed clinic workers and watched abortions at the clinic, said the following: Center staff members commonly said “the pregnancy,” “the tissue,” “the products of conception.” “Fetal tissue” was the most explicit term I heard health workers use with clients.(1) But sometimes the woman, deep down, knew that there is more to abortion than the removal of “tissue.” A worker at that same clinic describes...

Patricia Launneborg’s book Abortion: a Positive Decision is a difficult book for a pro-lifer to read. As the title indicates, it presents abortion in the most positive light possible, sugarcoating the decision and praising women who have abortions. One especially eye-opening quote comes from a clinic worker who says (emphasis mine): In Spain every single abortion is done under local [anesthesia]. It’s walk in, walk out. They come in at 4 clock, by 5 o’clock they have had the operation, the consultation, and are back home. And I was so impressed by it. I said, it’s not possible! I wouldn’t...