Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in 1997, pharma's credo has been When The Medication Is Ready, The Disease (and Patients) Will Appear. Who knew so many people suffered from restless legs?
8 Invented Diseases Big Pharma Is Banking on
El Al sued for racial profiling
Two Palestinian citizens of Israel have won $8,000 in damages from Israel’s national carrier, El Al, after a court found that their treatment by the company’s security staff at a New York airport had been “abusive and unnecessary.”
25 Years for Leader of Argentine Dictatorship
The last leader of Argentina’s dictatorship on Tuesday was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his involvement in the kidnapping, torture and murder of 56 people in a clandestine concentration camp.
The official, Reynaldo Bignone, 82, was convicted along with six other former military and police officers for ordering beatings and electrocutions of dissidents of the military regime, which governed from 1976 to 1983
German Bishop Mixa issues apology after beatings claim
A German bishop accused of physically abusing children in his care has issued an apology and asked for forgiveness. Bishop Walter Mixa said in a statement that he was "sorry for causing many people grief" without specifying exactly what he meant.
Brazil awards rights to develop Belo Monte dam
A consortium of nine companies has won the right to build a hydroelectric dam on a tributary of the Amazon in Brazil. Brazil's electricity regulator said the Norte Energia consortium would build the Belo Monte dam, to which indigenous groups and environmentalists object.It is led by the state-owned Companhia Hidro Eletrica do Sao Francisco. Officials say the dam on the Xingu River is crucial for development, but critics argue thousands of people will be displaced and an ecosystem damaged.
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D.C. Council approves medical marijuana
The D.C. Council unanimously approved a bill Tuesday to allow chronically ill patients to receive a doctor's prescription to use marijuana and buy it from a city-sanctioned distribution center.
Under the bill, which passed without debate, a patient who suffers from HIV, glaucoma, cancer or a "chronic and lasting disease" may receive a doctor's recommendation to possess up to 2 ounces of marijuana in a 30-day period.
U.S. warns Pfizer after children overdosed in study
U.S. health regulators have warned Pfizer Inc over a series of failures that led to the overdosing of at least 13 children in a clinical trial of its antipsychotic drug Geodon, according to a letter made public on Tuesday.
The FDA, in an April 9 warning letter to the world's largest drugmaker, said Pfizer "failed to ensure proper monitoring" of the trial in which several children given overdoses experienced tremors, restless legs and other complications.
German court drops Afghan air raid probe
German prosecutors dropped a criminal case against a Bundeswehr colonel who ordered an air raid in Afghanistan that killed 142 people, many of them civilians. The prosecution office in Karlsruhe concluded Col. Georg Klein and his fellow officers didn't know civilians were at the target site.
Microbes galore in seas; "spaghetti" mats Pacific
The ocean depths are home to myriad species of microbes, mostly hard to see but including spaghetti-like bacteria that form whitish mats the size of Greece on the floor of the Pacific.
The survey, part of a 10-year Census of Marine Life, turned up hosts of unknown microbes, tiny zooplankton, crustaceans, worms, burrowers and larvae, some of them looking like extras in a science fiction movie and underpinning all life in the seas.
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