WHO’s Pandemic Chief, Dr. Keiji Fukuda and pharmaceutical industry chief Dr Luc Hessel faced tough questions on WHO’s controversial decision to declare a pandemic emergency over the mild swine flu during a 2-hour public hearing at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg this morning in a heated session that ran... » read this article

The less you use your brain's frontal lobes, the more you see yourself through rose-colored glasses, a University of Texas at Austin researcher says. Those findings are being published in the February edition of the journal NeuroImage. "In healthy people, the more you activate a portion of your frontal lobes,... » read this article

01/17/2010 PIH has been working on the ground in Haiti for over 20 years. We urgently need your support to help those affected by the recent earthquake. More About PIH In today’s earliest hours, Dr. Evan Lyon recounted his reactions to PIH staff in Boston. He spent his first twelve... » read this article

Scientists have once again found that people with higher levels of bisphenol A (BPA) in their urine are more likely to have heart disease than those with lower urinary BPA levels. Used to make some plastic drinks bottles and the inner coatings of food cans, BPA can mimic the effects... » read this article

ASUNCIÓN, Jan 6 (IPS) - "Did you have to pay for anything?" is the obligatory question these days in the waiting room at the Mother and Child Hospital in Fernando de la Mora, on the outskirts of the Paraguayan capital, where people still have doubts that the public health services... » read this article

The death threats keep coming this fine morning.  I guess the Tea Party crew is determined to have “death panels” one way or another.  The dustup started because of this cartoon: “Learn to Speak Tea Bag” ran on my usual client sites, including NPR, which really set off the guys... » read this article

Scientists have successfully tested a system that translates brain waves into speech, raising the prospect that people left mute by stroke, Lou Gehrig's disease and other afflictions will one day be able to communicate by synthetic voice. The system was tested on a 26-year-old man left paralyzed by a brain... » read this article

Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, is quoted as warning two centuries ago: “Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an underground dictatorship. . . . The Constitution of this republic should make special privilege for... » read this article

Brinjal (eggplant, aubergine) is one of the most traditional vegetables in India and probably its land of origin. "Bt Brinjal, the first ever such Genetically Modified (GM) food crop anywhere in the world with the toxin-producing Bt gene in it." (Countercurrents, Devinder Sharma: India's GM Scandal: Bt Brinjal Approval Rigged)... » read this article

22 December 2009 A study by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), Northwestern University and the Chicago Tribune, published in the newspaper Sunday, found that health care lobbyists have spent more than $396 million this year to influence senators and congressmen engaged in passing the health care restructuring legislation, and... » read this article

Part One Part Two Olbermann: Ruined Senate healthcare Bill Unsupportable Finally, as promised, a Special Comment on the latest version of H-R 35-90, the Senate Health Care Reform bill. To again quote Churchill after Munich, as I did six nights ago on this program: "I will begin by saying the... » read this article

Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers - skin and lung - a move they say could revolutionise cancer care. Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumours far earlier, they will also yield new drug... » read this article

The treacheries of war are undoubtedly painful to all who experience them. In particular are the unacceptable pains that afflict the mothers and sisters of all warring parties, regardless of who they are. The grief of a Jewish mother is no greater than that of a Palestinian mother, both are... » read this article

Today the Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT) launched a new website, www.nonGMOShoppingGuide.com, that takes the guesswork out of how to avoid genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and gene-spliced food products. With polls indicating that 9 out of 10 Americans want GMOs labeled, the site's brand vs. brand comparison is expected to have... » read this article

Wading through the endless debate over health care has exhausted the patience of most Americans — the zigzags, obscure language, and long-winded discussion is inherently repulsive. But now the dust is starting to settle, and the Congressional vision for health care in the U.S. is emerging. Instead of being “progressive,”... » read this article

Wading through the endless debate over health care has exhausted the patience of most Americans — the zigzags, obscure language, and long-winded discussion is inherently repulsive. But now the dust is starting to settle, and the Congressional  vision for health care in the U.S. is emerging. Instead of being “progressive,”... » read this article

Editor's Note: Lindsey de Stefan's article on the status of health care services in the United States demonstrates that the states are not-so-united. At Axis of Logic, we have consistently avoided the internicine battles among the Democrat and Republican parties which we view to be simply two faces of the... » read this article

When Roger Benimoff arrived at the psychiatric building of the Coatesville, Pennsylvania veterans’ hospital, he was greeted by a message carved into a nearby tree stump: “Welcome Home.” It was a reminder that things had not turned out as he had expected. In Faith Under Fire, a memoir about Benimoff’s... » read this article

A Canadian guy walks into his doctor’s office. He says “I’ve got a pain right here” and points to his hip. An American guy walks into his doctor’s office. He says “I’ve got a pain right here” and points to his hip pocket.   Heard that one? Of course you... » read this article

AP - CARACAS, VENEZUELA — Venezuela's trade minister says the government plans to annul the pharmaceutical patents for an antibiotic produced by Bayer HealthCare. The Venezuelan Trade Ministry said in a statement that the government has begun a process to invalidate the patents after being alerted by the country's generic drug... » read this article