Category Archives: Health

Planned Parenthood Rebukes HIV Disclosure Laws

In a guide for young people published by the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the organization says it opposes laws that make it a crime for people not to tell sexual partners they have HIV. The IPPF’s “Healthy, Happy and Hot” guide also tells young people who have the virus that they have a right to “fun, happy and sexually fulfilling lives.”

HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.  read more

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CANADIAN HEALTH CARE EARNS DISMAL FINISH IN INTERNATIONAL RANKING

For the second time in less than two weeks, the Canadian public health care system has flunked an international comparison test, says the Health Consumer Powerhouse HCP, a research organization. Canada’s health care system ranks 23rd among 32 nations surveyed for quality, access and innovation.The second annual Euro-Canada Health Consumer Index measures patients’ rights and information, waiting times for treatment, outcomes, the range and reach of services provided and access to pharmaceuticals. Out of the 1,000 points available, the Index ranked countries in the following manner: The Netherlands was in the top spot with 824 points. Austria was second with 813 points. Luxembourg and Denmark took third and fourth place with 795 and 794 points, respectively. Germany came in fifth with 769 points. Canada placed 23rd with a score of just 549 points. According to researchers, wait times to see a doctor and receive treatment dragged the Canadian ranking toward the bottom: Patients were waiting between 3-15 months for treatment, when they could have received the same quality of care in Germany, France or the Netherlands in two weeks. While Canada is one of the highest per capita spenders on health care, patients don’t get much for their money. On the so-called “bang for the buck scale,” that measured health care results for the number of dollars spent, Canada ranks dead.

via CANADIAN HEALTH CARE EARNS DISMAL FINISH IN INTERNATIONAL RANKING.

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Health Care Bill a Profound Bias Against Marriage

“The Senate health care bill sends a clear message: Married couples are second-class citizens. On the other hand, the bill establishes cohabiters as a privileged special interest, quietly channeling tens of thousands of dollars to them in preferential government bonuses.

Offering couples massive financial rewards on the condition they jettison their wedding vows, or decline to make them in the first place, is absurd social policy. But that would be the established policy of the U.S. government if Obamacare becomes law.”  read more

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Geneticists Link Gene to Lung Cancer

“ROCHESTER, Minn., March 23 (UPI) — U.S. medical geneticists say they’ve linked a gene to lung cancer development in people called “never smokers.”

The study — co-led by the Mayo Clinic, Harvard University, the University of California-Los Angeles and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center — found about 30 percent of never smoker patients who developed lung cancer had the same uncommon variant residing in a gene known as GPC5.

A never smoker is defined as a person who has smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes during his or her lifetime.”

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2010/03/23/Gene-linked-with-cancer-in-non-smokers/UPI-94511269355644/

http://snipurl.com/v0o9e

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