Wednesday, September 6, 2006

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), in the September 2006 issue of its journal Pediatrics, supports the use of dairy by lactose intolerant children.

Dr. Melvin B. Heyman, author of the article, says that just because a child is lactose intolerant, does not mean that they should avoid dairy altogether. Many lactose intolerant people can consume small amounts of dairy.

Heyman says that dairy consumption is important, especially for children, because of its high calcium content. The calcium is, in turn, important for stengthening growing bones. “If dairy products are eliminated,” the article says, “other dietary sources of calcium or calcium supplements need to be provided.”

Lactose intolerance is a condition, present in the majority of human population above the age of infancy, due to which the body cannot tolerate lactose, a sugar present in milk and other dairy products. Lactose intolerance causes a range of unpleasant abdominal symptoms, including stomach cramps, bloating, flatulence and diarrhea.

As lactose intolerance is inherent, its prevalence varies by ethnic group. For example, while only 12% of American Caucasians have it, its prevalence is 75% among African Americans, 93% among Chinese, 60%-80% among Ashkenazi Jews,and 100% among American Indians. Many people do not realize that they have this condition simply because they have eaten dairy all their lives and view the symptoms of lactose intolerance as “normal”.

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has long stated that the risks of consuming dairy far outweigh the benefits. According to PRCM’s fact sheet, called “Parents’ Guide to Building Better Bones”, there are many healthy ways of getting enough calcium and promoting bone health. Many foods contain calcium, not just dairy. Also, it is important to consider the amount of calcium absorbed, not just the amount of calcium present in a food. For example, more than three times as much calcium is absorbed from one serving of Total Plus cereal as from one serving of 2% milk.

PCRM promotes a strictly vegetarian diet. Despite its name, it claims only 5 percent of its members as physicians. PCRM has also been accused of having links with animal rights “extremists”, in particular Jerry Vlasak, a former PCRM spokesman who called for the murder of scientists who use animals in research.

The report in News-Medical.Net says that Ann Marie Krautheim, with the National Dairy Council, a dairy lobbying group, says

she hopes the report will educate parents on how to continue to include dairy in the diets of children sensitive to lactose and also help improve their nutrient intake. Krautheim says calcium-fortified beverages and other foods which seek to provide an alternative source of calcium, do not provide an equivalent nutrient package to dairy foods such as milk, cheese and yogurt.

This last statement, however, that dairy products are superior to calcium-fortified foods, is not supported by the article in Pediatrics.

Friday, December 30, 2005

The Australian Centre for Languages, a company which has a multi-million dollar contract with the Australian government to provide refugee services, has been accused of breaching its duty of care following the death of a chronically ill child and allegations of failing to provide three women in their care with food.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

The bodies of two of the four Alabama children allegedly thrown off a bridge by their father have been found. On Saturday, Danny Luong, the youngest of the children at four months old, was discovered by a duck hunter in a marshy area near Bayou la Batre, about 5 miles west of the 80 foot high Dauphin Island Bridge. A second child, 3-year-old Ryan Phan, was found near Barton Bay by a search and rescue team today at 10:30 am local time. Barton Bay is about 10 miles northwest of the bridge.

The father, Lam Luong, a 37 year old shrimp fisherman, has been charged with four counts of capital murder. If convicted, he faces either the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole.

“The inevitable nightmare we have feared has now been confirmed. We believe, certainly now, that the father of these children threw these children off the Dauphin Island bridge,” Mobile County sheriff Sam Cochran said on Saturday.

Luong and his wife, Kieu Ngoc Phan, reported the children missing on Monday. When questioned, Luong claimed responsibility for the act, saying that he threw the children into the river after an argument with his wife. However, he later retracted his confession, instead claiming that two women, one of whom is named “Kim”, took the children and drove off in a van.

Kieu Ngoc Phan was informed of the body’s discovery on Saturday. “Why didn’t he kill me instead of the children? It’s too much hurting,” Phan said through an interpreter while weeping. She was being comforted by an associate pastor from a Vietnamese church.

According to the family, Luong called from jail and told them he wanted to be “more famous than the 9/11 hijackers” and that he “wasn’t afraid of the electric chair“.

The search continues for the other two children – Hannah Luong, 2, and Lindsey Luong, 1. The search area has been expanded across the state border towards Pascagoula, Mississippi, as authorities believe the strong currents may have moved the bodies westward. Mobile County Commissioner Steve Nodine reports that the search is costing an estimated $100,000 per day.

Monday, June 7, 2010

An acrobatic group known by the name of Spelbound has been declared as the winner of Britain’s Got Talent 2010, a televised variety talent show competition broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom. As the winning act of the show, Spelbound have won £100,000 (US$144,580, €120,313, A$175,079) and a place at The Royal Variety Performance, an annual gala evening that is attended by senior members of the British Royal Family.

In no particular order, the top three acts were revealed to be two dancers known by their stage name of Twist and Pulse, gymnastic group Spelbound and Kieran Gaffney, whose act involves playing on the drum kit. After Kieran Gaffney was revealed to be in third place, Anthony McPartlin, who hosts Britain’s Got Talent with Declan Donnelly, said to Kieran: “Well done Kieran. Kieran, you’re a star, you came back, you got all the way to the final. I know you’ve loved this. You’ve loved this, haven’t you?” In response to this, Kieran Gaffney stated: “Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone for supporting me. Thank you.”

Shortly afterwards, on the episode that was broadcast live on ITV1 on Saturday, Anthony announced: “After tens of thousands of auditons, five semi-finals and an amazing final, this…this is it. One of you is about to walk away with £100,000 and a place at this year’s Royal Variety Performance. The winner of Britain’s Got Talent 2010 is…Spelbound!” Glen Murphy from Twist and Pulse commented about finishing in second place, stating: “Yeah, it’s amazing. I can’t even believe it. I can’t believe it at all.”

Alex Uttley, a 24-year-old member of Spelbound, commented on the gymnastic group’s victory, commenting: “Oh, my god. This is unbelieveable. We just want to say thank you to everyone out there. It just shows that all our hard work has paid off.” One of the coaches of Spelbound, named Neil Griffiths, stated about Spelbound: “Oh, they’ve worked so hard over the last few weeks. Um, since the semi-final, we…we really had to pull out the stops to try and up the game. They’ve not known they’ve worked in the gym from six in the morning till twelve…twelve o’clock of the night. I couldn’t have asked for more. Um, it’s a team of coaches. I don’t take all the credit myself. There’s, uh, two people up there that know who they are who’ve been fantastic.”

Spelbound consists of 24-year-old Alex Uttley, Nicholas Illingworth, aged 24, Adam Buckingham, aged 21, 20-year-old Adam McAssey, 19-year-old Douglas Fordyce, 18-year-old Edward Upcott, 18-year-old Leighanne Cowler, 17-year-old Katie Axten, 17-year-old Lauren Kemp, 15-year-old Jonathan Stranks, Abigail Ralph, aged 15, 13-year-old Hollianne Wood and Amy Mackenzie, aged 12. Bookmakers had previously predicted that Spelbound would be the most likely act to become the winner of the series.

The running order for the final started with Twist and Pulse. The second act to perform was Liam McNally, a 14-year-old singer. The running order subsequently continued with 40-year-old impressionist Paul Burling, singer Christopher Stone, aged 28, Tina & Chandi, a woman and dog dancing act, Connected, a five-piece singing group, Kieran Gaffney, aged 12, 22-year-old Tobias Mead, a dancer, 80-year-old singer Janey Cutler and Spelbound in that particular order.

Earlier on in the final, Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden has stated to Spelbound: “We are hosting the 2012 Olympics and I think ‘what a brilliant opening act’.” Fellow judge Piers Morgan also commented that “[t]he purpose of this show is to identify hidden great British talent. You are that act.” After Spelbound won in the final, another judge, named Simon Cowell, stated that “the right boys and girls won on the night” and that he could “only say on live TV that that was one of the most astonishing things I have ever seen. Seriously.”

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Saturday, November 25, 2006

Traces of radioactive material that apparently killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko were found at restaurants where he met other spies just before falling ill and at his home, Scotland Yard said Friday.

Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who was investigating the death of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya suddenly fell ill on November 1. In interviews, he stated that he had met with two former KGB officials earlier in the day, and then had had lunch at Itsu, a sushi restaurant on Piccadilly in London. He died two days later at the age of 44.

“Traces of Polonium-210 were found at the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly, the Millennium Hotel, Grosvenor Square, and at Mr. Litvinenko’s home in Muswell Hill, London,” Scotland Yard said in a statement. “We are not prepared to discuss further.”

Roger Cox, head of the HPA’s radiation protection branch, confirmed that the radiation was found in Litvinenko’s body.

“A large quantity of alpha radiation from polonium-210 was found in the urine of Mr. Litvinenko”, Cox said, adding that it was “unlikely” that the radioactive material came from natural sources.

Litvinenko, in a statement written before his death and read Friday, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being behind his murder, a charge Putin denied.

“You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life,” Litvinenko said in his statement.

Doctors all around the world have been explaining to the media how harmful Polonium-210 can be to a person.

“Only a very, very small amount of polonium would need to be ingested to be fatal, but that depends on how pure the polonium is,” said Dr. Mike Keir, a radiation protection adviser at the Royal Victoria Infirmary.

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Concerns about water quality at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games have expanded to include the inside training pool: top Australian swimming coach Michael Bohl moved his Olympic athletes from the main training pool on Thursday citing fear of infection.

The team had a pre-booked session in the training pool where they would have practiced uninterrupted. However, during the session the water in the pool turned, as Bohl described, “cloudy” and “soupy looking”. Concerned about his athletes’ health, he moved them from the training pool to the busier, but cleaner, main competition pool.

Bohl took his concerns to officials and was told the matter would be looked into.

This comes off the back of other water concerns in Rio, particularly in the Guanabara Bay venue for outdoor water events. An Associated Press-commissioned study found Rio’s Olympic waterways contained as much as 1.7 million times worse viral levels than the emergency threshold in Europe or the US. As a result, athletes were advised to keep their mouths closed and avoid putting their heads underwater or risk falling ill.

Swimming events at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games are to begin today.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Victoria Wyndham was one of the most seasoned and accomplished actresses in daytime soap opera television. She played Rachel Cory, the maven of Another World‘s fictional town, Bay City, from 1972 to 1999 when the show went off the air. Wyndham talks about how she was seen as the anchor of a show, and the political infighting to keep it on the air as NBC wanted to wrest control of the long-running soap from Procter & Gamble. Wyndham fought to keep it on the air, but eventually succumbed to the inevitable. She discusses life on the soap opera, and the seven years she spent wandering “in the woods” of Los Angeles seeking direction, now divorced from a character who had come to define her professional career. Happy, healthy and with a family she is proud of, Wyndham has found life after the death of Another World in painting and animals. Below is David Shankbone’s interview with the soap diva.

Saturday, November 28, 2015

A gunman attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic yesterday in Colorado Springs, Colorado, killing three people, including one police officer, and injuring nine more, before he surrendered to police hours later. He exchanged fire with police in a standoff lasting around five hours.

There were a grocery store and a shopping mall nearby; police told those who were there to take “shelter in place”.

Colorado Springs police lieutenant Cathrine Buckley said the police doesn’t “have any information on [the suspect’s] mentality, or his ideas or ideology”.

Authorities said they received a report of shots fired at 11:38 a.m. local time (1838 UTC); the gunman was possibly carrying a “long gun” and maybe even propane tanks. Lieutenant Buckley said officers who entered the building “were able to shout to the suspect and make communication with him and that point they were able to get him to surrender and he was taken into custody”. Buckley said police only made contact and communicated with the suspect hours into the ordeal. The suspect was arrested at 4:52 p.m. after he surrendered to police.

At a press conference yesterday afternoon, police said searching through and investigating the “huge crime scene” could take hours or even days. Explosives teams checked the scene for traps.

Vicki Cowart, president of the Rocky Mountains chapter of Planned Parenthood, said some staff hid in “safe rooms” in the clinic as a part of Planned Parenthood’s security protocol. Many anti-abortion protests have focused on the Colorado Springs clinic; it moved to its current location, which critics have called a “fortress”, a few years ago.

Police evacuated the clinic, and cordoned off the clinic and nearby medical offices.

“Our hearts go out to everyone involved in this tragic situation”, Cowart said in a statement released on Planned Parenthood’s website. “We don’t yet know the full circumstances and motives behind this criminal action, and we don’t yet know if Planned Parenthood was in fact the target of this attack. We share the concerns of many Americans that extremists are creating a poisonous environment that feeds domestic terrorism in this country.”

The National Abortion Federation says at least eight murders have been committed in the US against abortion providers since 1977.