Hundreds of people may have been told they tested positive for syphilis when they didn't actually have the disease, health officials say. A study of five U.S. labs shows about 18 percent of the positive results from a test method used since the 1980s were actually negative, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
Experts previously thought the statistic was much lower - under 7 percent. The CDC recommends additional testing when this particular test gives a positive result. But even if most doctors retest, the new research suggests that some people have unnecessarily worried they were infected with an infamous sexually transmitted disease.
Test gets almost 1 in 5 syphilis cases wrong
Egypt's Mubarak refuses to quit
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has said he will stay in office and transfer power only after September's presidential election. His comments confounded reports he was preparing to stand down immediately. He said he would ignore "diktats from abroad".
President Mubarak said he would delegate some powers to Vice-President Omar Suleiman.
Egypt's military earlier said it was standing ready to "protect the nation".
FOX NEWS INSIDER: “Stuff Is Just Made Up”
Asked what most viewers and observers of Fox News would be surprised to learn about the controversial cable channel, a former insider from the world of Rupert Murdoch was quick with a response: “I don’t think people would believe it’s as concocted as it is; that stuff is just made up.”
Indeed, a former Fox News employee who recently agreed to talk with Media Matters confirmed what critics have been saying for years about Murdoch’s cable channel. Namely, that Fox News is run as a purely partisan operation, virtually every news story is actively spun by the staff, its primary goal is to prop up Republicans and knock down Democrats, and that staffers at Fox News routinely operate without the slightest regard for fairness or fact checking.
GM cotton has not improved yields, but it has ruined sustainable agriculture
Remember the promises made by Monsanto that genetically-modified (GM) crops would bring higher yields and a better quality of life to the world? A recent study put forth by anthropologists from Washington University (WU) in St. Louis has revealed that Bt cotton, a type of GM cotton that produces its own insecticide, is causing significant problems for sustainable farm management, while offering little to no actual increases in yield.
Guantanamo detainee gets 2-year sentence in Pentagon deal
A former al Qaeda cook who pleaded guilty to war crimes at Guantánamo could go home to Sudan in the summer of 2012, under a secret deal just approved by a senior Pentagon official and made public Wednesday by the Defense Department.
Ibrahim al Qosi, 50, is the first Guantánamo captive to reach a war court settlement during the Obama administration.
Diet soda may be tied to heightened risk of stroke, study claims
DIET soda drinkers are probably doing their waistlines a favor, but may also be boosting their risk of having a stroke, according to research released by researchers from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
Soft drinks of any kind, diet or sugary, are linked to several health problems.
US Air Force sells sensor-fuzed Textron bombs to India
Textron Defense Systems of Massachusetts will provide sensor-fuzed weapons to India through a U.S. Air Force contract. The Foreign Military Sale agreement for 512 CBU-105 sensor-fuzed bombs is worth $257 million. The company said $126 million of the total amount is funded immediately.
"We believe that SFW is truly the best area attack weapon in the world," said Ellen Lord, senior vice president and general manager of Textron Defense Systems. "Through a process of rigorous research, testing and analysis, we have created a weapon that is reliable, safe and meets current clean battlefield standards."
A Birth-Defect Breakthrough: Prenatal Spinal Surgery
It's a landmark in the controversial, 30-year-old field of fetal surgery: Surgeons are reporting success in treating a common, serious birth defect called spina bifida — before birth.
Spina bifida is a hole in the spine that sometimes allows a loop of the naked spinal cord to protrude outside the body. Such neural-tube defects are down 30 percent because more expectant mothers are taking folic acid pills and dietary supplements. But about 1,500 babies are born with spina bifida every year, and many are destined to have severe lifelong disabilities.
At CIA, grave mistakes, then promotions
In December 2003, security forces boarded a bus in Macedonia and snatched a German citizen named Khaled el-Masri. For the next five months, el-Masri was a ghost. Only a select group of CIA officers knew he had been whisked to a secret prison for interrogation in Afghanistan. But he was the wrong guy.
A hard-charging CIA analyst had pushed the agency into one of the biggest diplomatic embarrassments of the U.S. war on terrorism. Yet despite recommendations by an internal review, the analyst was never punished. In fact, she has risen to one of the premier jobs in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, helping lead President Barack Obama's efforts to disrupt al-Qaida.
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