America Walks is a national organization which fosters walkable communities by engaging, educating, and connecting walking advocates, http://americawalks.org/. The group has just released a report, Dangerous by Design, which provides an overview of the most dangerous metropolitan areas for pedestrians are based on state data for pedestrian fatalities that occurred from 2000 to 2009.
In spite of the fact that there are 93 million obese people in this country, a few ob-gyn doctors in South Florida now refuse to see otherwise healthy women solely because they are overweight. Fifteen obstetrics-gynecology practices out of 105 polled by a local newspaper said they have set weight cut-offs for new patients starting at 200 pounds or based on measures of obesity -- and turn down women who are heavier.
The Supreme Court's 5-to-4 vote in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion is a huge gift of non-accountability to America's corporations. By upholding the arbitration clause in AT&T's customer agreement requiring the signer to waive the right to take part in a class action, the court provided other corporations with a clear model of how to avoid class actions. But that was given even greater effect when the ruled out class-based arbitrations.
MRSA, a bacteria resistant to common antibiotics, has been discovered in supermarket meats, and the germ is apparently being introduced by human food handlers, a new study reports. The report was published in the May 11 online edition of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. The researchers purchased 289 raw meat samples, including 156 beef, 76 chicken and 57 turkey samples, from 30 grocery stores in Detroit from August 2009 through January 2010.
A federal judge on Tuesday awarded $1.95 million to the family of a young boy killed in a 2007 bear attack. Such a finding against the U.S. government is rare, but the facts of this case were compelling. Samuel Ives, 11, was camping in American Fork Canyon with his mother, step-father and brother when he was ripped from his family's tent and killed by a black bear on the night of June 17, 2007.
Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy among American men. But among the millions of men tested for prostate cancer around the world each year, doctors are detecting an alarming trend: An increasing number of patients are getting sick from potentially lethal, drug-resistant infections introduced during the needle biopsy procedure.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)cites about 15% of nursing homes each year for deficiencies in infection control, according to a study in the May issue of the American Journal of Infection Control. Infections contribute to more than 380,000 deaths annually among nursing home residents, and cost estimates associated with such infections can reach as high as $2 billion.
