Thursday, May 15th
Last update06:39:47 AM GMT
Health Glance
Researchers presented new findings Saturday at a breast-cancer symposium here suggesting that the risks associated with anthracyclines, a class of chemotherapy drugs widely used to treat the disease, outweighed their benefits in some patients.
Here's how it's happening:
Tobacco use kills at least 5 million people every year, a figure that could rise if countries don't take stronger measures to combat smoking, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
The Food and Drug Administration said some patients received up to eight times the normal amount of radiation. High doses of radiation can cause cataracts and increase the risk of some forms of cancer.
In October, the FDA said it was investigating 206 cases of patients being overexposed to radiation during CT perfusion scans of the brain at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles during an 18-month period.
Imagine being watched by two undercover cops as you engage in an illicit deal in a deserted parking lot. The buyer hesitantly hands you some cash. You flash a look over your shoulder, just to make sure the coast is clear, then you hand over the contraband. Neither of you says a word. You just nod, acknowledging the deal is done, then you head back to your car and buckle up for the drive home.
In fact, a new study just presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), concludes the low-dose radiation from annual mammography screening significantly increases breast cancer risk in women with a genetic or familial predisposition to breast cancer. This is particularly worrisome because women who are at high risk for breast cancer are regularly pushed to start mammograms at a younger age -- as early as 25 -- and that means they are exposed to more radiation from mammography earlier and for more years than women who don't have breast cancer in their family trees.
Soon after the US State Department published the Global 2000 Report for the President in 1980 advising that the world population must be reduced by 2 billion people by the year 2000, Thomas Ferguson of the Office of Population Affairs elaborated in the Executive International Review that “the quickest way to reduce population is through famine, like Africa, or through disease, like in the Black Death . . . population reduction is now our primary policy objective”.
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