Yogurt’s good for you -- but apparently not quite as good as Dannon says it is. The yogurt maker will pay out $21 million to settle charges of deceptive advertising that it overstated health benefits for Activia and DanActive yogurt products, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
The settlement refers to unproven health claims. As Julie Deardorff of the Julie's Health Club blog explains: "Under a proposed settlement, Dannon has agreed, among other things, not to say its yogurt, dairy drink, or probiotic food or drink products reduce the likelihood of getting a cold or the flu, unless the claim is approved by the Food and Drug Administration."
Activia yogurt to pay $21 million to settle charges of deceptive advertising
Hidden History of Polio Vaccine
At the 11th hour, a bacteriologist at NIH was told to safety-test the new polio vaccine. Her name was Bernice Eddy. When she injected the vaccine into her monkeys, they fell paralyzed in their cages. Eddy realized that the virus in the vaccine was not dead as promised, but still alive and ready to multiply. It was time to sound the alarm. She sent pictures of the paralyzed monkeys to NIH's management and warned them of the upcoming tragedy. A debate erupted in the corridors of power. Was the polio vaccine really ready? Should the mass inoculation proceed on schedule?
Health Care Law Ruled Unconstitutional
A federal district judge in Virginia ruled on Monday that the keystone provision in the Obama health care law is unconstitutional, becoming the first court in the country to invalidate any part of the sprawling act and ensuring that appellate courts will receive contradictory opinions from below.
Judge Henry E. Hudson, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, declined the plaintiff’s request to freezeimplementation of the law pending appeal, meaning that there should be no immediate effect on the ongoing rollout of the law.
Cells Reprogrammed to Treat Diabetes
Sperm-forming stem cells in the testes can be converted to insulin-producing cells that could replace diseased ones in the pancreas, researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., reported December 12 at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology. The new technique is edging closer to producing the amount of insulin needed to cure diabetes in humans.
Ian Gallicano, a developmental biologist at Georgetown, and his colleagues isolated sperm-producing stem cells from the testes of organ donors. These cells could easily revert to an embryonic state, capable of making nearly any cell in the body.
Autism Research: Breakthrough Discovery on the Causes of Autism
The big debate that ranges in autism circles is about whether or not autism is a fixed, irreversible brain-based genetic disorder, or a systemic, reversible body-based biological condition that has identifiable causes, measurable abnormalities, and treatable dysfunctions. In other words is autism a life sentence or a reversible condition?
Many studies have illuminated the causes and possible treatments for autism, but mainstream physicians or scientists ignore most of this data. This new study, breaks new ground because it was published in one of the world's major medical journals.
Myths and Facts: Study Verifies That There Is No Value In Any Flu Vaccine
A remarkable study published in the Cochrane Libary found no evidence of benefit for influenza vaccinations and also noted that the vast majority of trials were inadequate.
The authors stated that the only ones showing benefit were industry-funded. They also pointed out that the industry-funded studies were more likely to be published in the most prestigious journals...and one more thing: They found cases of severe harm caused by the vaccines, in spite of inadequate reporting of adverse effects.
WikiLeaks cables: Pfizer used dirty tricks to avoid clinical trial payout
The world's biggest pharmaceutical company hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general in order to persuade him to drop legal action over a controversial drug trial involving children with meningitis, according to a leaked US embassy cable. Pfizer was sued by the Nigerian state and federal authorities, who claimed that children were harmed by a new antibiotic, Trovan, during the trial, which took place in the middle of a meningitis epidemic of unprecedented scale in Kano in the north of Nigeria in 1996.
Last year, the company came to a tentative settlement with the Kano state government which was to cost it $75m.
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