NEW YORK — Sewage treatment plants fail to remove artificial sweeteners completely from waste water. What’s more, these pollutants contaminate waters downstream and may still be present in our drinking water. Thanks to their new robust analytical method, which simultaneously extracts and analyses seven commonly used artificial sweeteners, Marco Scheurer, Heinz-Jürgen Brauch and Frank Thomas Lange from the Water Technology Center in Karlsruhe, Germany, were able to demonstrate the presence of several artificial sweeteners in waste water. Their findings1 are published online this week in Springer’s journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry. A range of artificial sweeteners are commonly used in food and drinks, as well as drugs and sanitary products. The potential health risks of artificial sweeteners have been debated for some time. Until now, only sucralose has been detected in aquatic environments. Through the use of a new analytical method, the researchers were able to look for seven different artificial sweeteners (cyclamate, acesulfame, saccharin, aspartame, neotame, neohesperidin dihydrochalcone and sucralose) simultaneously, and show, for the first time, that a number of commonly used artificial sweeteners are present in German waste and surface water. Scheurer and colleagues collected water samples from two sewage treatment plants in Germany – […]
A draft proposal in the Senate to overhaul the nation’s health-care system would require most people to buy health insurance, authorize an expansion of Medicaid coverage and create consumer-owned cooperative plans instead of the government coverage that President Obama is seeking. The document, distributed among members of the Senate Finance Committee yesterday afternoon, addressed none of the funding questions that have consumed House and Senate negotiators in recent days. But it included an array of coverage provisions that were drastically scaled back from earlier versions, as lawmakers seek to shrink the bill’s overall cost. The proposal, for instance, would reduce the pool of middle-class beneficiaries eligible for a new tax credit meant to make insurance more affordable. The absence of a ‘public option’ marks perhaps the most significant omission. Obama and many Democrats had sought a public option to ensure affordable, universal coverage, but as many as 10 Senate Democrats have protested the idea as unfair to private insurers. In its place, the draft circulated yesterday outlines a co-op approach modeled after rural electricity and telecom providers, subject to government oversight and funded with federal seed money. Yesterday, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) met with […]
In the United States, every person spends on average $6,714 for health care. That’s significantly higher than in the United Kingdom, where $2,760 per person is spent; or in France, where the cost is $3,449 per person; or in Canada, where medical costs are $3,678 per person, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. While some would argue that medical care is better in the United States than in these other countries, others would say the opposite is true. For example, the United States ranks 50th in life expectancy, and 44th in infant mortality rates, according to the CIA World Fact Book.
Executives of three of the nation’s largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive. The hearing on the controversial action known as rescission, which has left thousands of Americans burdened with costly medical bills despite paying insurance premiums, began a day after President Obama outlined his proposals for revamping the nation’s healthcare system. An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period. It also found that policyholders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses. ‘No one can defend, and I certainly cannot defend, the practice of canceling coverage after the fact,’ said Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-Tex.), a member of the committee. ‘There is […]
NEW YORK — U.S. employers will see healthcare costs rise 9 percent in 2010 and they expect their workers to pay a greater share of their health plans, consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers said on Thursday. PwC’s annual medical costs trends report also said more workers are likely to utilize their health insurance coverage because they fear they will lose their jobs, and more uninsured and underinsured people will turn to Medicaid for coverage. The cost increase will be offset in part by cost declines from expected U.S. health care reforms and the potential for high deductible health plans and wellness programs, PwC said. According to 500 employers surveyed by PWC, 42 percent will increase their workers’ share of healthcare costs in 2010 and 41 percent said they would change the design of health care plans to increase medical cost sharing. ‘Employers are squeezing dollars out of their programs to save money,’ Mike Thompson, principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers global human resource solutions group, said in a statement. ‘As the economy recovers, employers will refocus on more sustainable longer term approaches to medical cost containment based on an increasingly shared interest between employers and their workers.’
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
