Public Health News Brief
- The Health News Review posted a story about health care fear mongering taking place on the radio. They referred to a clip from Mark Levin’s show in which someone claiming to be a brain surgeon called in and suggested that “Obama’s new health care plan” included “death panels” for people over the age of 70.
- Over 50% of the alcohol consumed by adults and 90% of the alcohol consumed by young people is consumed during a binge.
- A study of risk factors for cardiovascular disease looked at the lung function of over 5000 people over 20 years. It was found that marijuana use was as common as cigarette smoking. The lung function of marijuana smokers increased over the years, while that of cigarette smokers declined. There were a few hypotheses about why this happened, for example because smoking marijuana exercised the lungs (smokers generally take a long drag and hold it in as long as they can) or because a typical marijuana smoker lights up fewer times than a typical cigarette smoker.
- The US Food Safety blog posted about an Asian woman who was angry when she looked at her Papa Johns receipt and noticed that the cashier had entered “lady chinky eyes” as her name.
- Drug company Novartis recalled some popular over the counter medications because the bottles may contain stray pills from other medicines or broken pills.
