Roughly half of cancer deaths in the United States could be prevented or forestalled if all Americans quit smoking, cut back on drinking, maintained a healthful weight and got at least 150 minutes of exercise each week.
These same measures would also reduce the number of new cancer diagnoses by 40% to 70%, according to a new report. (emphasis added)
For men, universal embrace of this lifestyle could avert or delay 67% of cancer deaths and prevent 63% of new malignancies each year, researchers calculated. If all of the nation’s women did the same, their yearly cancer mortality rates would fall by 59% and new cancers would drop 41%.
The findings, published online this week in the journal JAMA Oncology, underscore how extensively public health measures aimed at fostering healthful lifestyles could cut into a disease that will claim the lives of 600,000 Americans this year and upend the lives of 1.6 million by turning them into newly diagnosed patients.
The new analysis was based on cancer rates and health behaviors in two large and long-running studies of health professionals — the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. The researchers, from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health […]
In 2010, Nebraska passed the first state law banning abortions at 20 weeks of gestation and beyond. Tuesday, South Carolina became the 18th state to do so, although some of them effectively ban abortion at 18 weeks. The vote on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act passed the S.C. House of Representatives by a 79-29 vote. The state senate passed the bill in March by 36-9. Gov. Nikki Haley is certain to sign it into law.
Passage of these 20-week bans, another of the forced-birther tactics in the drive to ban all legal abortions, is predicated upon the view that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks gestation. Neurologists and other members of the medical community dispute that claim.
Like all but one of the other state 20-week bans, South Carolina’s includes no exceptions for rape or incest. The only exceptions are when the life of the mother is at risk and when fetal anomalies mean no chance of survival outside the womb. More than half the 20-week state bans have no exception for fetal anomalies whatsoever. South Carolina’s ban also includes an inadequate health exception for the mother. Physicians […]
The Bank of America building is shown in Los Angeles, California October 29, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Mike Blake
Five major banks and four traders were sued on Wednesday in a private U.S. lawsuit claiming they conspired to rig prices worldwide in a more than $9 trillion market for bonds issued by government-linked organizations and agencies. (emphasis added)
Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), Credit Agricole SA (CAGR.PA), Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN.S), Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) and Nomura Holdings Inc (8604.T) were accused of secretly agreeing to widen the “bid-ask” spreads they quoted customers of supranational, sub-sovereign and agency (SSA) bonds.
The lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court by the Boston Retirement System said the collusion dates to at least 2005, was conducted through chatrooms and instant messaging, and caused investors to overpay for bonds they bought or accept low prices for bonds they sold.
“Only through collusion could a dealer quote a wider spread than market conditions […]
The poor often spend more on all kinds of things. Households that have less money to spare in any given week, for example, are forced to buy toilet paper and similar goods in small packages, increasing the prices they pay. In addition, poor families must rely on a whole range of alternative financial services, which might charge exorbitant fees and expose customers to serious risks.
New research suggests that these disparities might only be getting worse.
Xavier Jaravel, a graduate student at Harvard University, has been studying the prices people pay in the retail sector — their everyday purchases at grocery and drug stores. He has found that prices are increasing by more than 2 percent a year on average for goods purchased by consumers with household incomes under $30,000, but by just 1.4 percent annually for those with incomes above $100,000.
While apparently small, that divergence — if it continues — would become hugely important in a relatively short period of time. After 20 years, for example, every dollar in the pocket of a poor consumer would be worth just 88 […]
Where do candidates for the Kansas Legislature stand on human-animal hybrids?
That’s something that Kansans For Life, the state’s leading anti-abortion group, wants to know.
A questionnaire that KFL’s political action committee sent out to legislative candidates this month asks candidates whether they oppose human cloning and the creation of human-animal hybrids, which the group refers to as chimeras.
The questionnaire is a way to show candidates “the range of the kinds of things that the pro-life movement is interested in,” said Kathy Ostrowski, the group’s legislative director.
That includes cloning and genetic research that uses cells from more than one species. “Am I aware of it happening (in Kansas)? At this moment, no. But does that mean it’s not happening somewhere? I can’t tell you that,” she said.
Scientists in Japan were able to grow a human ear on the back of a rat using human stem cells, according to Discovery News.
Some U.S. states have banned animal-human hybrid research in recent years, but an attempt to do so in Kansas in the mid-2000s failed to gain traction, Ostrowski said.
“It’s been a concern for over […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
