Free Republic

NEW YORK -- It may sound too good to be true, but researchers now say indulging in that piece of chocolate is actually the best cure for your cough. A research group from a university in England randomly prescribed more than 160 patients either regular cough medicine or a chocolate-based medicine. Patients on the chocolate-based medication reported improving more quickly than those on regular cough syrup.

Kitty Dukakis, the wife of former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, showed up to the Hingham polls today, but not to vote. Dukakis stood near the voting area of all three of the town's polling stations, greeting voters on their way in, a tactic that angered many sign holders and voters. “I had one of the candidates ask me about it, and some other people said something to police, saying they didn’t think it was right,” said Eileen McCracken, the Hingham town clerk who was at the Hingham High School polling station.

It’s been 13 years since Maty Harrington arrived in the world, a 10-pound baby girl with a major heart defect, misplaced spleen and stomach on the wrong side of her body. As her parents took her from one doctor to another, they vowed to do whatever it took to get their daughter healthy. That vow has lead to the creation of Maty’s Quiet Relief Cough Syrup, a new all-natural cough syrup that is sold in some 3,000 American stores, including Market Basket and Hannaford supermarkets in Massachusetts. “My father always said, ‘Every problem is an opportunity,’ ” said Bob Harrington,...

Panama relatives say hundreds poisoned By JUAN ZAMORANO, Associated Press Writer Thu Feb 14, 6:29 PM ET Panama's government has vastly underestimated the number of people who died from taking medications tainted with a chemical commonly found in antifreeze and brake fluid, family members and a lawyer for the victims said Thursday. The official death toll, set late last month in a report by the attorney general's Legal Medicine and Forensic Science Institute, is 115. But victims' families dispute the methodology used to produce that figure and estimate the number of poisoning deaths at up to 300. "We do not...

A top Panamanian prosecutor said tests show at least 94 people have died from taking medicine contaminated with diethylene glycol since July 2006 and that 293 more deaths are under investigation. Prosecutor Dimas Guevara said Wednesday that people have continued to die this year even though the tainted medicine was pulled from shelves in October. Previously Panamanian authorities had confirmed only 51 deaths from the medicine. A chemical commonly found in antifreeze and brake fluid, diethylene glycol was used in cough syrup, antihistamine tablets, calamine lotion and rash ointment made in a Panama government laboratory. Investigations revealed the chemical was...

AP Medical Writer ATLANTA U.S. health officials this week cracked the case of what caused the mysterious deaths of 21 people in Panama since midsummer _ an industrial chemical in red cough syrup. Officials continue to investigate how the medicine became contaminated. The Panamanian government has ordered the syrup removed from store shelves and the government factory that manufactured it shut down. But U.S. health officials are tentatively counting the investigation as a success story in rapid investigation and international collaboration that may have prevented additional deaths. "It was really a mystery illness that had everybody stumped," said Dr. Scott...