TV News LIES

Most reports about seasonal influenza cite an average of about 36,000 deaths in a typical season, but that number is both too high and grossly misleading, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

The actual average is a little over 23,000, the agency reported in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. But even that figure is misleading, the report added, because the actual numbers have ranged from as low as 3,300 deaths up to nearly 50,000 over the last 30 years. The period covered in the analysis goes up to 2007 and does not include last year's H1N1 influenza pandemic.

Artificial corneas grown in the laboratory have been transplanted into patient's eyes for the first time in an operation that offers hope to millions of partially sighted people. Scientists hope the breakthrough will also slash the cornea transplant waiting list which every year falls short by more than 500 in Britain alone.

The new technique involves growing human tissue or collagen in the laboratory and then shaping it using a contact lens mould. Damaged and scarred tissue from the front of the eye is then removed and the "biosynthetic" replacement is stitched in its place.

Faced with a crisis more than a decade ago in which thousands of people were sickened from salmonella in infected eggs, farmers in Britain began vaccinating their hens against the bacteria. That simple but decisive step virtually wiped out the health threat.

But when American regulators created new egg safety rules that went into effect last month, they declared that there was not enough evidence to conclude that vaccinating hens against salmonella would prevent people from getting sick. The Food and Drug Administration decided not to mandate vaccination of hens — a precaution that would cost less than a penny per a dozen eggs.

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked Obama administration regulations expanding stem cell research. The nonprofit group Nightlight Christian Adoptions contends that the government's new guidelines will decrease the number of human embryos available for adoption.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that the plaintiffs are entitled to bring their lawsuit in the courts.A federal appeals court had ruled that two doctors who were among those bringing the lawsuit, adult stem cell researchers James Sherley of the Boston Biomedical Research Institute and Theresa Deisher of AVM Biotechnlogy, had the authority to do so, prompting Lamberth to reverse a decision he made last October.

Researchers found a protein triggered by rheumatoid arthritis could undo the "tangles" in the brain that are thought to cause Alzheimer's. Memory loss associated with the disease was partially reversed by the protein, GM-CSF, which also lowered the risk of getting the illness.

Scientists at the University of South Florida even found that in some cases the memory impairment was completely reversed after treatment. The protein is commercially available and known as Leukine. As people with rheumatoid arthritis suffer swollen joints, the protein stimulates scavenger cells in the body. In tests on mice, these cells removed deposits left by Alzheimer's in the brain.

When the world's largest pharmaceutical company was found to have engaged in a massive illegal marketing campaign, federal prosecutors decided the company was too big to punish -- so they let it set up a shell corporation to take the blame.

Yet when the government threatened Pfizer with prosecution for off-label marketing fraud, it realized that a conviction would, under federal law, require that Pfizer be excluded from Medicare and Medicaid -- and that this would probably put the company out of business.