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Police in southern Germany warned this week of a dangerous new form of alcohol abuse among teens – using tampons soaked in vodka to get drunk quickly and hide the smell. The practice poses grave health risks, they said. Police in the Baden-Württemburg city of Tuttlingen responded Tuesday to growing online chatter among teenagers that they could become intoxicated using the vodka tampons without having alcohol on their breath. This is not true, police said, denying that it was an effective way to get drunk. They also warned girls that the alcohol could damage vaginal walls and increase the risk...

Health risks from Japan's quake-hit nuclear power reactors seem fairly low and winds are likely to carry any contamination out to the Pacific without threatening other nations, experts say. Tokyo battled to avert a meltdown at three stricken reactors at the Fukushima plant in the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, triggered by Friday's tsunami. Radiation levels were also up at the Onagawa atomic plant. "This is not a serious public health issue at the moment," Malcolm Crick, Secretary of the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, told Reuters. "It won't be anything like Chernobyl....

Wikileaks continues to rock the political world by shedding light on conspiracies, corruption and cover-ups. The latest batch of diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks reveals what can only be characterized as a U.S.-led conspiracy to force GMOs onto European countries by making those countries pay a steep price if they resist. The cable reveals the words of Craig Stapleton, the US ambassador to France, who was pushing the commercial interests of the biotech industry by attempting to force GMOs into France. In his own words (below), he expresses his frustration with the idea that France might pass environmental laws that...

WASHINGTON - A top government health official said Wednesday that climate change is expected to have a significant impact on health in the next few decades, with certain regions of the country — and the elderly and children — most vulnerable to increased health problems. Howard Frumkin, a senior official of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gave a detailed summary on the likely health impacts of global warming at a congressional hearing. But he refrained from giving an opinion on whether carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, should be regulated as a danger to public health. "The CDC...

The state Health Department investigated conditions at Metropolitan Medical Associates in Englewood. State health officials have shut down one of New Jersey's largest abortion centers after finding violations at an Englewood clinic that posed "immediate and serious risk of harm to patients."  Metropolitan Medical Associates will remain closed until it corrects the deficiencies that prompted the closure, state officials said. State reports show the clinic performs more than 10,000 abortions a year.The shutdown order cited problems "including but not limited to infection control, instruments, equipment used for sterilization of patient care use items and the processing of equipment."  The...

It was raining in Washington last week, and vendors selling $5 and $10 umbrellas appeared on the streets.They had Hispanic accents, and were undoubtedly some of the unskilled immigrants that Steven Malanga referred to in his recent City Journal article, "How Unskilled Immigrants Hurt Our Economy." I already had an umbrella. But the many purchasers of the umbrellas did not seem to notice that the economy was being hurt. Rather, they were glad of the opportunity to stay dry before their important meetings. The City Journal article is worth a look because it reflects an attitude becoming more common these...

New Yorkers and Californians breathe in the dirtiest air in the nation and face higher cancer risks than the rest of the nation, according to the latest data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Oregon, Washington, D.C. and New Jersey had the third, fourth and fifth worst air in the nation, respectively, the EPA said. Rural residents of Wyoming, South Dakota and Montana breathed the cleanest air. New York's cancer risk is estimated to be 68 residents per million. In California, the risk is 66 residents per million.

Birth Control Patch Claims 23 Lives and Counting NEW YORK, July 15, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Federal drug safety reports obtained by The Associated Press under a Freedom of Information Act request, "indicate that in 2004 -- when 800,000 women were on the patch -- the risk of dying or suffering a survivable blood clot while using the device was about three times higher than while using birth control pills." AP points out that the majority of the women were young and in otherwise good health and at low risk for blood clots - "women like Zakiya Kennedy, an 18-year-old Manhattan...

Study Will Examine Genes, Environment Several federal agencies have teamed up to launch one of the most ambitious biomedical projects in history -- a massive study to identify the biggest threats to children's health. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency are working together to plan the project, the National Children's Study. The study would examine a vast array of factors that may affect physical, mental, emotional and developmental health by following more than 100,000 children across the country...

Cheers, tears as prostitution bill passes 26 June 2003 Parliament erupted in cheers last night, as a landmark law to decriminalise prostitution passed by a single vote. Christchurch MP Tim Barnett's Prostitution Reform Act will become law next Monday and soliciting for sex and brothelkeeping will no longer be illegal in New Zealand from that day. In one of the closest votes in Parliament's history, the Act passed 60-59, on the abstention of Labour's Muslim MP Ashraf Choudhary. Had Mr Choudhary, who opposed the bill, not abstained the bill would have fallen because a 60-60 tie is counted as a...