Both legal and illegal drugs are polluting streams in and around at least 1 major U.S. city, a new study reveals. This includes amphetamines, which are biologically active and highly addictive. [1]
The pollution comes at a high cost, ecologically. Areas in some streams have high enough concentrations of amphetamines to alter the bottom of the aquatic food chain.
Study author Sylvia Lee said:
Scientists have identified a gene that may explain why some people have undeniable coffee cravings and hit the coffee pot multitudinous times a day. [1]
For the study, researchers looked at a population of people in villages in Italy, and conducted a genome-wide association study in which they examined markers in DNA and identified a gene called PDSS2 that could play a role in caffeine metabolism.
Drug companies don’t need to give doctors thousands of dollars in kickbacks to sway them to prescribe their medications and implant their devices. A new study published online in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that doctors who received a free meal from a pharmaceutical company were more likely to prescribe the drug the company was promoting than doctors who received no such meals.
Before coming to write for Natural Society, I worked for a national law firm. I primarily wrote about lawsuits, the majority of them concerning prescription drugs. It was there that I began to learn how dangerous many drugs can be, and how desperately the pharmaceutical industry wants the public to place blind trust in its products.
For the past several months, I’ve been writing about a superbug that is resistant to all antibiotics, including “last resort” drugs. Experts first found it in China, and believed it would take about a decade to cross over into Europe. However, they were wrong; it only took a few months. It also arrived in Canada, and now it’s here, too.
There’s a vicious presidential campaign going on, while Americans play tug-o-war over transgender bathrooms and other social issues. So maybe you haven’t heard that our antibiotics are failing, and we need to do something about it if we’re to beat future disease.
Source: Nova
Australian health experts are warning that antidepressants are not as effective as previously thought. As a result, physicians in that nation are being told to scale back on prescribing the drugs.
Earlier this year the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) responded to the growing opioid addiction epidemic in the U.S. by issuing new recommendations for health care providers who prescribe the painkillers for chronic pain.
The guidelines were published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
A strange birth defect is on the rise in the United States, and scientists are at a loss to explain it.
Gastroschisis is a birth defect that causes a baby’s intestines to protrude outside of his/her body, through a hole in the abdominal wall beside the belly button. Sometimes this hole is very small, but it can also be quite large, and other organs such as the stomach and liver can extend from the baby’s body.
Antibiotic resistance is a real and growing threat, with some scientists warning that if we don’t get a handle on the problem, modern medicine could be thrust back to the Dark Ages.
