TV News LIES

Many risk factors for Alzheimer's disease are linked to lifestyle or environment and the risk can be decreased at all ages, researchers in Australia say.

Lead researcher Professor Kaarin Anstey of the Australian National University in Canberra said a free 10-minute online test developed by ANU researchers is helping people assess their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

Eric Lawson, who portrayed the rugged Marlboro man in cigarette ads during the late 1970s, has died. He was 72.

Lawson died on 10 January at his home in San Luis Obispo of respiratory failure due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his wife, Susan Lawson, said on Sunday.

Lawson was an actor with bit parts on such TV shows as Baretta and The Streets of San Francisco when he was hired to appear in print Marlboro ads from 1978 to 1981. His other credits include Charlie's Angels, Dynasty and Baywatch. His wife said injuries sustained on the set of a western film ended his career in 1997.

A new government inquiry into a wave of sickness in Alberta, Canada, suggests that residents’ conditions may be linked to Canada’s controversial oil sands developments. The inquiry also finds that area doctors may be afraid to speak out when patients suggest that the oil developments could be the cause of their health problems, according to the Edmonton Journal.

The survey of doctors was conducted by Dr. Margaret Sears, a toxicology expert hired by the Alberta Energy Regulator. Sears and other experts were tasked with analyzing the health effects of the oil sands operations in preparation for a 10-day government hearing to address residents’ health complaints around the Peace River oil sands, Canada’s third largest oil sands development.

Renee Petro believes an illegal drug, marijuana, could save her son Branden’s life where sophisticated modern medical therapies have failed. Expert physicians say she might be right.

For three years, the Petro family of Fishhawk have lived through a nightmare that took away their smart, happy 8-year-old almost overnight, and left instead a child afflicted with constant seizures, severe learning disabilities and suicidal depression — a child who could die at any moment, his mother believes.

“I just want my son back,” Petro said in an interview at her home last week.

A new report by the U.S. surgeon general greatly broadens the list of disease evils linked to cigarettes and concludes that urgent, aggressive action is needed to further reduce smoking rates and save lives. The report, released Friday, recommends prevention efforts that especially target groups most vulnerable to smoking, including low-income Americans and ethnic minorities and youth.

If smoking rates persist unchanged, 5.6 million American children alive today will die prematurely because of smoking, the report finds. It pegs the economic costs of smoking at $289 billion a year or more in medical care and productivity losses.

New York State is poised to allow 20 hospitals to distribute medical marijuana, Gov. Andrew Cuomo formally announced Wednesday.

"Research suggests that medical marijuana can help manage pain and treatment of cancer and other serious illnesses," Cuomo said in the annual State of State speech in Albany.

"We will establish a program allowing up to 20 hospitals to prescribe medical marijuana, and we will monitor the program to evaluate the effectiveness and the feasibility of a medical marijuana system," Cuomo added, without elaborating.