TV News LIES

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has entered the controversy over America's largest breast cancer advocacy group's cut in funding to Planned Parenthood by vowing to make up $250,000 of the missing funds out of his own pocket.

A furious row raged this week over a decision by Susan G Komen for the Cure, the group behind the Pink Ribbon campaign, to cut its long-term funding for a Planned Parenthood project to screen disadvantaged women for breast cancer.

Sugar is as damaging and addictive as alcohol or tobacco and should be regulated, claim US health experts. According to a University of California team, new policies such as taxes are needed to control soaring consumption of sugar and sweeteners.

Prof Robert Lustig argues in the journal Nature for major shifts in public policy. Industry body the Food and Drink Federation said "demonising" food was unhelpful.

In a decision that is inflaming passions on both sides of the abortion debate, the world’s largest breast cancer organization, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is cutting off its financing of breast cancer screening and education programs run by Planned Parenthood affiliates.

The move will halt financing to 19 of Planned Parenthood’s 83 affiliates, which received nearly $700,000 from the Komen foundation last year and have been receiving similar grants since at least 2005.

Pfizer Inc said on Tuesday it was recalling about 1 million packets of birth control pills in the United States because they may not contain enough contraceptive to prevent pregnancy.

Pfizer said the birth control pills posed no health threat to women but it urged consumers affected by the recall to “begin using a non-hormonal form of contraception immediately.”

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Half a world away, doctors in India are fighting outbreaks of bacterial infections that are resistant to more than 15 types of antibiotics. But closer to home, a similarly scary bug is making the rounds in intensive care and other long-term units of American hospitals.

Not only have the machines become more widespread, but some of them expose people to higher doses of radiation. And agencies have pushed the boundaries of acceptable use by X-raying people covertly, according to government documents and interviews.

It is difficult to estimate the long-term health risks of low levels of radiation. At higher levels, ionizing radiation -- the energy used in the scanners -- has been shown to damage DNA and mutate genes, potentially leading to cancer. A comprehensive study by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the more radiation a person gets, however little at a time, the greater their lifetime risk of dying from cancer.