Free Republic

First lady Michelle Obama and school lunch ladies used to be on the same team, but now they’re locked in a political war against each other. For the first three years of Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign, the School Nutrition Association, a powerful group that represents 55,000 cafeteria professionals, was a close ally in the White House push to get kids to eat healthier. The group helped lobby for the legislation at the center of the debate: the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, a law championed by the first lady that mandates more fruits and vegetables, whole grains and less sodium...

When most people think of diseases such as measles and tuberculosis, they imagine Dickensian images of a bygone era before the advent of widespread vaccinations and disease ridden slums. After all, tuberculosis did to Doc Holliday what so many others were unable to, kill him. While we may associate these as being a dangerous threat from a simpler time, there are alarming new trends that suggest they are making a comeback. In the year 2013, the Center for Disease Control recorded the highest number of both tuberculosis and measles in the last twenty years, which begs the question, in the...

Saudi Arabian doctors say they've identified camels as one source of MERS infections in humans. The scientists report they matched genetic samples from the virus that killed a Saudi man last November to virus samples present in one of nine camels that he owned. (snip) The health risk from MERS to the American public is low, U.S. officials have said, because the virus is only passed through close contact.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is creating a $2 million research center to study how the government can “nudge” Americans toward making healthier eating habits.The agency is currently accepting grant applications to establish a “Center for Behavioral Economics and Healthy Food Choice Research,” which will facilitate studies such as how breaking up combo meals at fast food restaurants would influence customers.“The USDA Center will facilitate new and innovative research on the application of behavioral economics theory to healthy food choice behaviors that would contribute to enhancing the nutrition, food security, and health of American consumers,” the USDA’s grant announcement...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A huge new paperwork headache for the government could also be jeopardizing coverage for some of the millions of people who just got health insurance under President Barack Obama's law. A government document provided to The Associated Press indicates that at least 2 million people enrolled for taxpayer-subsidized private health insurance have data discrepancies in their applications that, if unresolved, could affect what they pay for coverage, or even their legal right to benefits. The final number affected could well be higher. According to the administration the 2 million figure reflects only consumers who signed up through...

Centenarians have found a way to beat the common diseases of old age, such as cancer and heart disease, research suggests. The study by King's College London found they were more likely to die of infections such as pneumonia, unlike younger groups of elderly people. Researchers said 28% of 100- to 115-year-olds died of "old age" and a fifth of pneumonia. Cancer claimed the lives of fewer than 5% and heart disease fewer than 9%. The study was based on an analysis of 36,000 death certificates. By comparison, these diseases were the most common reasons for death among the 80-...

Laboratory tests have confirmed a diagnosis of variant CJD (a fatal brain disorder) in a patient who recently died in Texas. The confirmation was made when laboratory results from an autopsy of the patient’s brain tested positive for variant CJD. First described in 1996 in the United Kingdom, variant CJD is a rare, degenerative, fatal brain disorder in humans. It is believed to be caused by consumption of products from cows with the disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or "mad cow" disease). Worldwide, more than 220 variant CJD patients have been reported, with a majority of them in the United...

These cases, caused by nontuberculous Mycobacterium (NTM), are the first of this kind reported in San Diego Two San Diego residents who recently got tattoos were diagnosed with infections caused by a family of bacteria called nontuberculous Mycobacterium (NTM) – the first cases of this kind detected in San Diego, according to county health officials. The County Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) said both San Diegans required medical care due to their infections. NTM has been found IN contaminated tattoo ink and in the water used to dilute ink to create gray areas of a tattoo. Contamination can also...

Photos and Video: Karen Doyle is the owner of Georgiatown Farm, a 10-acre livestock farm in White Stone, Va. Although most commercial agricultural operations make mass production a top priority, Doyle takes a different approach by raising heritage livestock breeds that are now threatened with extinction in the U.S. Doyle, a member ofThe Livestock Conservancy, raises numerous heritage breeds, including Red Wattle hogs, Bourbon Red turkeys and Clun Forest sheep. Fight Against Factory Farming Doyle said she hopes to conserve endangered livestock breeds and help diversify the food market, which she said is negatively influenced by factory farming. “Factory farming...

By the time the illness was diagnosed Jill Goodrum, 46, was terminal - yet she refused to criticise medical staff A mum-of-five has lost her fight with breast cancer after the disease was wrongly diagnosed for two years as tennis elbow. By the time it was discovered that Jill Goodrum, 46, had the condition, it had spread to her lymph nodes and liver – and it was terminal. Her family said she had not criticised doctors for failing to spot the cancer earlier because it would have been so hard to detect. Jill’s daughter Lyndsey Todd, 27, said: “Mum never...

About two years ago, Brian Turner took a job as a scheduling clerk at a Veterans Affairs health clinic in Austin. A few weeks later, he said, a supervisor came by to instruct him how to cook the books. “The first time I heard it was actually at my desk. They said, ‘You gotta zero out the date. The wait time has to be zeroed out,’ ” Turner recalled in a phone interview. He said “zeroing out” was a trick to fool the VA’s own accountability system, which the bosses up in Washington used to monitor how long patients waited to...

DALLAS-Thirteen needles are simultaneously zinging in and out of Adam Metzger’s shoulder. The 27-year-old is unruffled. He stares unblinkingly out the storefront window of Taboo Tattoo, a studio in the Bishop Arts District. To his right, Cody Biggs shades blue into a square of the Texas state flag. His movements are sure, even. The buzzing suddenly falls silent. Biggs pauses to dunk the handpiece into a thimble-sized plastic cup of ink, then turns back to his canvas. Metzger’s shoulder is pink and puffy, weeping streams of ink and blood. “How are you doing, buddy?” Biggs asks, rubbing on ointment in...

It seems like every other week someone gets ill from raw milk. The most recent incident occurred last month in West Michigan, when a 31-year-old woman and a six-year-old girl from different counties fell ill after drinking raw milk from a farm called Green Pastures. The Centers for Disease Control have released updated information on the link between raw milk and outbreaks of E. Coli infections, warning that a record number of such outbreaks were reported between 2010 and 2012. We have a fraught relationship with raw milk in the US, but elsewhere the routine consumption of raw milk is...

RIYADH - Saudi Arabia's Health Ministry says 13 people have died over the last two weeks from the Middle Eastern respiratory virus. The ministry says 186 people in total have died from the virus since it was discovered in 2012. The ministry said late Wednesday another 565 people had contracted the virus

I am a Vietnam era vet and will be visiting my local Veterans Out Patient clinic on Thursday morning for my initial evaluation. The out patient clinic contacted me last week to set up this first visit after having applied for it over seven month ago. I have a couple of health Issues; one is my right hip is giving me some serious problems and the other is a dental problem. My question is what can I expect from this initial visit? They have me in their computer system and all the info I submitted. Do I need to bring...

British women are officially the fattest in Europe. Well, hoorah for us. Of all the labels we could have picked up – the drunkest, the laziest, the most promiscuous – this one can't be that bad, can it? And what about those people who actually choose to be fat? A growing group of overweight activists claim it's OK and healthy to be overweight. Fat activism, as they call it – yes that's a thing now – is about recognising that all bodies are fine. Nowadays, the 'fat movement' is all about challenging prejudices. Except, we should be worried. Accepting obesity...

Continuing series on small farms in Virginia from Virginia Free Citizen: Photos/Video Karen Doyle, a small livestock farmer in White Stone, Va., made a conscious decision to keep her livestock free of GMOs and antibiotics when she started Georgiatown Farms almost five years ago. This requires Doyle to embark on a two and a half hour road trip to Maryland to buy the special feed from the Amish. She said most farmers aren’t willing to put in that much effort, but for her, it’s a matter of health safety and animal welfare. GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, are genetically engineered...

Eva Longoria's female-focused steakhouse has closed less than two years after opening in a swanky shopping center on the Las Vegas Strip. Officials with parent company Landry's say SHe by Morton's - which served petite steaks for the ladies at around $36 - shut down effective Sunday. Company executives did not immediately return messages seeking further explanation of the closure. The steakhouse, located at 3720 Las Vegas Boulevard, ran into trouble last month, when the Southern Nevada Health District temporarily closed it. April 22, health inspectors found 32 food safety violations, mostly related to keeping food at proper temperatures and...

Stephanie Nebehay and Saliou Samb, ReutersMay 28, 2014, 10:49 AM Guinea's capital Conakry has recorded its first new Ebola cases in more than a month, while other previously unaffected areas have also reported infections in the past week, according to the World Health Organization. The spread of the two-month-old outbreak, which Guinean authorities had said had been contained, risks further complicating the fight against the virus in a region already struggling with weak healthcare systems and porous borders. "The situation is serious, you can't say it is under control as cases are continuing and it is spreading geographically," Dr Pierre...

By Andrew M. SeamanMay 26, 2014, 12:41 Pregnant women should take an iodide-containing supplement to protect the brain development of their babies, according to the leading U.S. group of pediatricians. Iodine, which the body can get from iodide, is needed to make the thyroid hormones that are required for children’s brain development before and after birth. “Women who are childbearing age need to pay attention to this topic as well, because about half of the pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned,” Dr. Jerome Paulson said. “Women in the early part of the pregnancy may not realize they’re pregnant.” Paulson is...