Environmental News Network

Antidepressant Dangers Scaring Parents, Doctors
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Highly publicized government warnings that antidepressants could cause suicidal thoughts in adolescents may have scared off parents and doctors alike, meaning fewer depressed children are being diagnosed, U.S. psychiatrists say. The warnings, starting in 2003, were followed by the biggest one-year spike in suicide rates in 15 years among U.S. children and young adults, according to figures released last week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. >> Read the Full Article
Beyond 2 Hours Of TV, Kids' Risk Attention Problems
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young children who watch more than a couple of hours of television a day are more likely to have attention problems as adolescents, researchers from New Zealand have found. "The two-hour point is very, very clear with our data, very consistent with what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends," Carl Erik Landhuis of the Dunedin School of Medicine at the University of Otago, the study's first author, told Reuters Health. "We're not saying don't watch TV, just don't watch too much TV," he added. >> Read the Full Article
Imagined Milk Intolerance Causes Problems For Girls Bones
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young girls who believe they are lactose-intolerant take in less calcium and have thinner bones than their peers who don't think they had any trouble consuming dairy products, a new study shows. But when these girls were tested to determine if they actually did have difficulty digesting lactose, many did not. "It's a little concerning that you have young girls during this period of time when they actually obtain their peak bone mass...that they have already been influenced that they are intolerant to milk for whatever reason," said Dr. Carol J. Boushey of Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana, the study's lead author. >> Read the Full Article
Strength Training And Spirituality Mix, In Iran
TEHRAN (Reuters) - (Video) For the men who practice it, it's about not just fitness but a connection with God. Zurkhaneh, an ancient Persian sporting ritual whose name means "House of Strength", is a historic breeding ground for wrestlers in Iran, and now enjoying something of a comeback. It looks to a Western eye like an exotic mixture of body-building and aerobics. But for the men whirling like dervishes to frenetic drumbeats, juggling heavy wooden clubs and doing push-ups in the pit of a "House of Strength" in northern Tehran, the ritual is about much more. "It is a holy thing," said Nader Ghasemi, wearing traditional embroidered trousers with a German Bayern Munich soccer shirt. "It makes me feel close to God," said Ghasemi, preparing to step into the octagonal pit at the center of the hall to perform a series of coordinated routines together with about 20 others. >> Read the Full Article
Human Ecology: Bin Laden Video May Signal New Attacks
LONDON (Reuters) - Abandoning his Kalashnikov and dyeing his beard from grey to black, Osama bin Laden presents a new image to the world in a video that makes no specific threats but may be a signal for new al Qaeda attacks. In a half-hour address released four days before the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, bin Laden lurched between history lesson and sermon, urging Americans to ditch capitalist democracy and embrace Islam if they want to end the war in Iraq. >> Read the Full Article
Congress Looks Into Mattel After Toy Recalls; Toymakers Call For Safety Tests
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress is looking into Mattel Inc's procedures for alerting federal regulators about hazardous toys, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition on Friday. Senior Democrats in the Senate and the House have launched separate probes, which are expected to focus on Mattel's dealings with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the report said. Mattel said on Tuesday that it would recall more than 800,000 toys for excessive lead levels, its third such recall this summer. The CPSC has disagreed sharply with the toy company over the investigation of reports of dangerous products. >> Read the Full Article
MIT works toward safer gene therapy
In work that could lead to safe and effective techniques for gene therapy, MIT researchers have found a way to fine-tune the ability of biodegradable polymers to deliver genes. >> Read the Full Article
U.S. is now free of canine rabies virus
Federal health experts declared a small victory against a fatal and untreatable virus on Friday, saying canine rabies has disappeared from the United States. While dogs may still become infected from raccoons, skunks or bats, they will not catch dog-specific rabies from another dog, the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. >> Read the Full Article
Treating Cancer Yet Protecting Fertility: Study Launched
CHICAGO --- Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine has been awarded a $21 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for a landmark national research, clinical and education program that targets fertility threats posed to women by cancer treatment. >> Read the Full Article
U.S. and China to hold product safety talks
Chinese officials will visit Washington next week for product safety talks with their U.S. counterparts, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Wednesday as Americans faced another recall of Chinese-made toys. The long-scheduled Biennial Sino-US Consumer Product Safety Summit, which follows an inaugural 2005 round in Beijing, comes after months of product recalls and discoveries of unsafe imports from China. >> Read the Full Article