TV News LIES

Huge numbers of American children have a liver disease that used to be seen mainly among adult alcoholics—and most of them don't know it, researchers warn.

Around 10% of children are now believed to have fatty liver disease, which can lead to cirrhosis and liver failure in some cases, the Wall Street Journal reports. Around 40% of obese children have the condition, but its prevalence is rising even as obesity rates level off; the number of normal-weight children with fatty livers has also surged over the last 20 years, studies show.

The U.S. is facing a crisis in how to deliver cancer care, as the baby boomers reach their tumor-prone years and doctors have a hard time keeping up with complex new treatments, government advisers reported Tuesday.

The caution comes even as scientists are learning more than ever about better ways to battle cancer, and developing innovative therapies to target tumors.

Want a smoker to quit? Scare, shock or disgust him. That's what the U.S. government did with its first federally funded anti-smoking ad campaign and, new data suggest, it worked.

An estimated 1.6 million Americans tried to quit and at least 100,000 likely succeeded as a result of graphic ads that showed how real ex-smokers had suffered paralysis, stroke, lung removal, heart attacks and limb amputations, according to a study Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Taking a drag from an e-cigarette may be just as safe and effective as slapping on a nicotine patch for smokers struggling to quit, according to the first physician-run trial to compare the two products.

About one in 20 people who used either patches or e-cigarettes managed to quit completely six months after the test started, according to research published today in The Lancet.

The European patent for aspartame is now available online, and it confirms the artificial sweetener is made from the waste products of genetically modified E. coli bacteria.

Though this fact was reported as early as 1999, not much attention was paid at the time to aspartame and its maker Monsanto, which was allegedly adding GM aspartame to soft drinks in Britain.

The national drug overdose epidemic has been steadily on the rise for nearly 20 years. From 1999 to 2010, deaths surged a colossal 102 percent. And while overdoses kill more people each year than either cars or guns, the debate over what can be done to address the disturbing trend often gets overshadowed by noisier killers.

On Saturday, the 13th annual International Overdose Awareness Day, drug policy reform advocates and those affected by overdoses will gather around the world, putting solutions front and center.