Blood tests designed to detect active TB are inaccurate and should be banned, the World Health Organization has said. More than two million such tests are carried out annually, but the WHO says they are unethical and lead to misdiagnosis and the mistreatment of patients.
The organisation's review of these tuberculosis test kits says they give wrong results in around 50% of cases. The kits are mainly sold in the developing world. However, most of the 18 kits on the market are produced in Europe and North America.
World Health Organization calls for TB blood test ban
Military-Industrial Journalism
Murdoch isn’t just a sleaze peddler. He’s one of the wealthiest and most powerful people on the planet — and he has a political agenda that matters more to him, I imagine, than a random billion in cash here or there. The silent virulence of his influence on public events, more than the sensational headlines and lurid scandal-mongering he inflicts on us, is my real concern.
Big as Murdoch is in the U.S., with his 24-7 rightwing propaganda network called Fox News, in Great Britain he’s bigger than the royal family. “He’s often referred to as the country’s permanent Cabinet member,” Beth Fouhy wrote recently for Associated Press. Since the days of Margaret Thatcher, he’s been the godfather of British prime ministers, able to make them offers they can’t refuse.
Video shows IDF officer pointing loaded gun at unarmed Palestinian
A video uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday showed an IDF officer pointing a loaded gun at an unarmed Palestinian in the West Bank village of Beit Ummar, near Hebron, last month.
According to B'Tselem, a human rights organization that uploaded the video, on June 18 IDF forces came to arrest a youth from the village for allegedly throwing stones when his cousin stopped the IDF officer to try to prevent the arrest.
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Environmental groups release top 10 list of fracking concerns
Taking a page straight from David Letterman’s book, a coalition of environmental groups released today a top 10 list of its most pressing concerns with the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s latest proposed regulations for mitigating the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas.
Five groups—Environmental Advocates of New York, Earthworks, Earthjustice, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, and Riverkeeper—were part of the list, ranking the issues while calling on the DEC to triple the public comment period on the document, which is scheduled to start in August, from 60 days to 180 days.
Scientists spot Pluto's fourth moon
Astronomers looking for rings around Pluto have instead made an unexpected find: a fourth moon circling the dwarf planet.
The object, temporarily designated P4, is probably the most dwarvish of Pluto's moons: It's estimated to be just 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 kilometers) in diameter. In comparison, Pluto's diameter is about 1,400 miles, and its other three moons range in diameter from 648 miles (for Charon) to between 20 and 70 miles (for Nix and Hydra, discovered in 2005). The newfound moon orbits in a region between Nix and Hydra, and makes a complete circuit roughly every 31 Earth days.
Murdoch's media malpractice and the genetic altering of human beings through DNA vaccines
Rupert Murdoch's media empire News Corp., which represents the second largest media conglomerate in the world behind the Walt Disney Company, is taking a severe beating as Murdoch himself is having to address various criminal allegations, including that his News of the World tabloid illegally hacked private phone lines and committed various other crimes
But Murdoch's media malpractice runs even deeper as his strong connections to the pharmaceutical industry also fueled his media machine's fabrication of lies against Dr. Andrew Wakefield, as well as hid from the public the true dangers of DNA vaccines that permanently corrupt human genes and cause autism.
Audits show health violations in drinking water
Environmental Protection Agency audits show that many states are failing to accurately note health violations such as elevated levels of arsenic and chlorine in drinking water, according to a new report .
The U.S. Government Accountability Office reviewed EPA audits of 43 states, including Virginia and Maryland, conducted between 2007 and 2009. In 2009, 84 percent of monitoring violations noted by states were not reported to the EPA. That same year, 26 percent of health violations were not reported or were inaccurately reported, undermining the reliability of data collected by the EPA under the Safe Drinking Water Act as well as its ability to conduct oversight, according to the GAO.
News International 'deliberately' blocked investigation
Rupert Murdoch's News International has been found by a parliamentary committee to have "deliberately" tried to block a Scotland Yard criminal investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World, the Guardian has learned.
The report by MPs from the all-party home affairs committee will be released on Wednesday and its publication has been moved forward in time for today's statement by prime minister David Cameron on the scandal.
Demorcatic Sen. Dave Hansen wins Wisconsin recall election
Voters have spoken out against recall efforts of Green Bay Democratic Senator Dave Hansen. With 65% of the preliminary voting results in, Hansen is expected to win the recall election with more than two-thirds of the vote against Republican David VanderLeest.
Hansen’s win is expected to set the tone for upcoming recall elections of six Republican set for August 9th, and for two other Democrats facing recall elections on August 16th.
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