Health News

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether drug makers can be sued by parents who claim their children suffered serious health problems from vaccines.

The justices have agreed to hear an appeal from parents in Pittsburgh who want to sue Wyeth over the serious side effects their daughter, six months old at the time, allegedly suffered as a result of the company's diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled the parents, saying a 1986 federal law bars their claims. That law set up a special vaccine court to handle disputes -- shielding companies from most lawsuits to help ensure a steady vaccine supply.

Only one state appeals court, the Georgia Supreme Court, has ruled that families can sue in a vaccine case. The vaccine industry has fiercely opposed the Georgia ruling, in which a couple alleged that their son suffered neurological damage after receiving vaccine booster shots that contained the preservative thimerosal.

There's an epidemic in progress -- and it has nothing to do with the flu. A ground-breaking study found an astonishing 59 percent of study subjects had too little Vitamin D in their blood. Nearly a quarter of the group had serious deficiencies (less than 20 ng/ml).

The study was also the first to show a clear link between Vitamin D levels and the accumulation of fat in muscle tissue -- a factor in muscle strength and overall health. Scientists have known for years that Vitamin D is essential for muscle strength.

Studies in the elderly have showed bedridden patients quickly gain strength when given Vitamin D.

The National Sleep Foundation has releases its annual "Sleep in America Poll," which reveals how much sleep Americans are getting, what their bedtime habits are, and who's taking medications when sleep is elusive. This year, for the first time, the report explored differences in the sleep habits of different ethnic groups.

And overall, no one's getting enough sleep. Fewer than half of respondents from each ethnic group say they get a good night's sleep on most nights.

African Americans reported the least amount of sleep.  Inadequate sleep is starting to be associated with obesity, heart disease and diabetes -- all diseases that are more prevalent among African Americans.

According to the Gizmodo article linked below, Sony has lost its spirit, spending too much time telling you it's the greatest electronics company in the world and not nearly enough time showing you.

Time and again, Sony took an excellently engineered solution and held it tightly, the better to extract big profits. But each time, Sony's need to control the format became more and more of a liability. As a result, today's Sony is an also-ran that wants to be respected like a market leader.

There's no better example of the arrogance of the modern Sony than the launch of the PlayStation 3. It was the last of the current generation of game consoles to market. It cost more than all its competitors. Sony president and CEO Kaz Hirai said infamously, "The next generation doesn't start until we say it does." Sony spent the next three years struggling in a videogame market they once dominated.

As the U.S. taste for bottled water grows, environmentalists have been trying to sell people on tap water. Bottled water is a drain on the environment -- the U.S. public goes through about 50 billion water bottles a year, and most of those plastic containers are not recycled.

But switching to tap water could be a bad idea in some schools where the risk of lead contamination from old pipes -- known to affect physical and mental development -- is high, particularly in large urban areas such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.

A nationwide investigation showed that the drinking water in schools in 27 states is contaminated with lead and other toxic substances from lead-soldered pipes installed before 1985.  In 2007, Baltimore City public schools switched their entire system to bottled water after a study of 84 randomly selected water fountains found 10 with lead levels high than the EPA's cutoff of 20 parts per billion.

The school district decided it would be cheaper to provide bottled water than testing and remediation efforts.