Free Republic

A man from Ayrshire had to be hospitalised after eating too many Brussels sprouts last Christmas, it has emerged. The traditional Christmas vegetable contain lots of vitamin K which promotes blood clotting. However, this counteracted the effect of anticoagulants the man was taking because he had a mechanical heart. Doctors at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank eventually realised too many sprouts were to blame.

BAY MINETTE, Alabama – The family of a Daphne woman who received a lethal dose of medicine due to an error made by workers in India hired to save money on the preparation of medical records has won a $140 million judgment. The verdict, handed down this week in Baldwin County Circuit Court, holds Thomas Hospital and three other firms responsible for the 2008 death of Sharron Juno. It may be the richest civil verdict in the history of Baldwin County, renowned for its conservative juries. George “Skip” Finkbohner, an attorney who represented Juno’s son, attributed the large jury award...

Sage Stallone -- Sylvester Stallone's son -- has died and sources tell us the cause was an overdose of pills. The details surrounding the death are still unclear .. but we're told he was found in his L.A. home by either a maid or his girlfriend. Paramedics were called to the home and pronounced him dead at the scene. Sources tell us authorities are trying to determine if the death was intentional or accidental. We're told Sylvester is a "wreck." Sage famously made his film debut alongside his father in the 1990 movie "Rocky 5" -- playing the role of...

Paramedics called to Occupy Eugene for alleged heroin overdoseReported by: Chris McKee EUGENE, Ore. (KMTR) - Tense moments for Occupy Eugene protesters Saturday afternoon when police and paramedics were called for a reported heroin overdose. **SNIP** Protesters say two occupiers may have helped save the man's life. A registered nurse and a doctor came to the man’s aid shortly after he passed out, giving him CPR before on-duty paramedics arrived.

Drug overdose reported at Occupy Toronto site11/09/2011 | Shawne McKeown, CityNews.ca A man was rushed to hospital after he suffered a reported drug overdose Tuesday at Occupy Toronto’s home base at a downtown park. The incident happened after a 23-year-old woman was found dead at the Occupy Vancouver site Friday after an overdose. Paramedics in Toronto were called to St. James Park, at King and Church streets, late Tuesday morning to take the man, said to be in his 20s, to hospital, according to published reports. His condition wasn’t said to be life-threatening.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Police say a man has been found dead inside his tent at a protest at a park in downtown Oklahoma City. Police Lt. Kevin Barnes says the death isn't considered suspicious, but authorities have not determined how the man died. Barnes says someone called 911 about 2:40 p.m. Monday after he was found dead inside his tent at Kerr Park.

The parents of 15-year-old Sasha Rodriguez, who died of an ecstasy overdose after attending a rave, have filed a claim against the management of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The parents are seeking $5 million in damages from the Coliseum Commission. The claim, filed Dec. 23 with both the city and county of Los Angeles, is a necessary step before suing in court. The claim says the commission, a joint state, city and county board, did not fulfill its "duties and was negligent in creating and/or allowing others to create a dangerous condition of public property" during the two-day Electric...

A British man died after poisoning himself with two spoonfuls of caffeine powder bought over the internet, local media reported Friday. Michael Lee Bedford, 23, from Mansfield, central England, was at a party in April when he swallowed caffeine powder that a friend bought online for £3.29 ($5.26), Nottingham Coroner’s Court heard Thursday. He washed the powder down with an energy drink, and around 15 minutes later began sweating and vomiting blood. He later died at King’s Mill Hospital in Nottinghamshire, central England, the Nottingham Post reported. The court heard that Bedford ignored the product's recommendation to take no more...

SALT LAKE CITY -- Financial problems, a history of substance abuse and mental illness are factors strongly connected to prescription drug overdose deaths in Utah. According to a study released Monday by the Utah Department of Health, the new figures could benefit doctors when screening patients to identify who is more at risk of suffering a fatal unintentional overdose. "We found out there was a high proportion of people who were unemployed or had financial problems," said Dr. Robert Rolfs, director of the Utah Division of Disease Control and Prevention. "Lack of health insurance was one characteristic that we hadn't...

Actor Alec Baldwin was rushed to a New York City hospital last night after his daughter called 911 claiming the “30 Rock” star was unresponsive, NBC News reported Thursday. After 14-year-old Ireland called 911, medics rushed to the actor’s apartment before taking him to Lenox Hill hospital. He was reportedly released after an hour of treatment at around 1 a.m.

It was a sad Christmas for the friends and family of singer/songwriter Vic Chesnutt, as the artist passed away on Friday (December 25) after spending two days in a coma thanks to an overdose of muscle relaxers. Chesnutt was 45 years old. The Athens, Georgia-based Chesnutt was something of an icon in the indie rock community who wrote spare, darkly comic tunes about love and death. His famous fans included R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe (another Athens native), Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and former Throwing Muses frontwoman Kristin Hersh. When he was 18, Chesnutt was in a car accident that...

Did the Nation Overdose on Debt? Thu, Nov 5 2009, 18:36 GMT by John Silvia Wells Fargo Investments, LLC Long-term Repercussions of Swelling Government Indebtedness “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” – Abraham Lincoln Fiscal year 2009 for the United States government drew to a close on Sept. 30, when the closing bell sounded to the sour tune of a $1.417 trillion deficit (Figure 1). Some perspective: 1.4 trillion is equal to 13 times the number of people who have ever lived, or $4,500 for each and every person living in the United States. The...

A 46-year-old Burlington woman accused of teaching her teenage son how to shoot heroin was charged Monday in connection with his death from an overdose. Patricia L. Strosina was charged with intentionally contributing to the delinquency of a child resulting in death in connection with the death of her 16-year-old son Raymond Strosina, according to a criminal complaint. The boy was found by his father in the father's home in the Town of Waterford on Sept. 14, slumped over a desk in a basement computer room, according to the complaint. A syringe, a burned spoon and other drug paraphernalia were...

A Houston man found asleep with a corpse inside a closet of a vacant home has been charged with misdemeanor drug offenses, authorities said Monday. Cody Jean Plant, 21, was discovered Sunday after the owner of the house reported hearing voices and seeing signs of forced entry at the home in Cypress, about 25 miles northwest of Houston, according to a Harris County Precinct 4 Constable official. Authorities did not immediately release the dead man's identity. "There were two guys in the closet. They appeared to be sleeping, one was snoring and the other was deceased," said Assistant Chief Deputy...

U.S. court tells FDA to rethink Plan B contraceptive Mon Mar 23, 2009 3:06pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. court on Monday ordered the Food and Drug Administration to reconsider its decisions on the sale of the Plan B emergency contraceptive and ordered its producer to make the pills available to 17-year-olds without a prescription. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, in a 52-page ruling, said its order to make Plan B available to 17-year-olds under the same conditions it is currently available to older women must be complied with within 30 days....

The hatred from supposedly compassionate and open-minded Hollywoodans is something to behold, isn't it? After all, just imagine despising a radio talk show host so much that you would suggest, on national television, that he should die of a drug overdose. Alas, such was the case Friday evening when HBO's Bill Maher actually asked guest P.J. O'Rourke, who was talking about Rush Limbaugh's use of the prescription drug OxyContin (video available here courtesy our friend Ms Underestimated): Why couldn't have he croaked from it instead of Heath Ledger? Honestly, can you imagine? MSNBC's David Shuster was suspended on Friday for...

Just broke on Fox - details to come.

AP Medical Writer WASHINGTON --Improper use of patches that emit the painkiller fentanyl is still killing people, the government said Friday - its second warning in two years about the powerful narcotic. Some of the deaths came after doctors prescribed the patches to the wrong patients, the Food and Drug Administration said. The drug is only for chronic pain in people used to narcotics, such as cancer patients, and can cause trouble breathing in people new to this family of "opioid" painkillers. Yet the FDA found cases where doctors prescribed it for headaches or post-surgical pain. The FDA said patients...

"Paulo Melo, 29, has been in a coma at the Royal Darwin Hospital for two weeks, after severing his spinal cord in a car crash." - read more below: doctor requested, family objected, court granted

Even on a gray day in Paris last week, there was one place you could find a crowd of tourists from places as varied as Rome, Tokyo and Orlando, Florida — gathered at the Pere Lachaise cemetery, around the graveside of Jim Morrison. Forget Chopin, Oscar Wilde, and the hundreds of other luminaries interred among its chestnut trees, the frontman of The Doors has long been the cemetery's headline draw. Part of the attraction is the almost mystical magnetism he exuded in life; part is the macabre mystery of his demise: How did one of the legends of the rock...