TV News LIES

A scientific panel that shaped the federal government’s policy for testing the safety and effectiveness of painkillers was funded by major pharmaceutical companies that paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the chance to affect the thinking of the Food and Drug Administration, according to hundreds of e-mails obtained by a public records request.

The e-mails show that the companies paid as much as $25,000 to attend any given meeting of the panel, which had been set up by two academics to provide advice to the FDA on how to weigh the evidence from clinical trials. A leading FDA official later called the group “an essential collaborative effort.”

Dr James Reilly has defined a "tobacco-free Ireland" as a state where less than 5% of the population smoke.

According to the latest figures, 22% of people aged 15 and over regularly smoke cigarettes in the Republic of Ireland.

The plan makes 60 recommendations to significantly reduce smoking over the next 12 years. Tobacco would still be available, but at an increased cost.

Ten U.S. children with cancer won't be able to begin their clinical trials due to the government shutdown, officials at the National Institutes of Health said.

John Burklow, a spokesman for the NIH, told ABCNews.com more than 1,400 ongoing clinical trials will continue at the NIH Clinical Center, which is the largest research hospital in the world, but it won't be able to add new patients or start any new trials during the shutdown.

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After his eighth round of chemo, Trai Nguyen is exhausted, his body ravaged. The 60-year-old has a rare and aggressive form of cancer that he believes resulted from his contact with the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

His doctors believe his cancer may now be in remission, but that is little comfort. “My hands shake violently. I can’t do anything,” he says, sitting on a mattress in the two-bedroom apartment he shares with relatives.

Interim San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said he is resuming enforcement of a ban on medical marijuana dispensaries but would like to see the law changed.

The city filed its first civil suit against a dispensary since the retirement last month of Mayor Bob Filner, who had adopted a hands-off approach to the pot shops. San Diego's official policy is that dispensaries are not allowed to operate anywhere under the city's zoning ordinance.

In spite of concerns about “sticker shock,” rates for individual coverage on the new health insurance marketplaces appear to be lower than expected in most states due mainly to robust competition among insurers, the Obama administration reported Wednesday.

With prices all but finalized in most states, a new report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that monthly premiums in 47 states and the District of Columbia, on average, will be 16 percent lower next year than the Congressional Budget Office projected they would be in 2016 – when the marketplaces are at full capacity.