TV News LIES

The European patent for aspartame is now available online, and it confirms the artificial sweetener is made from the waste products of genetically modified E. coli bacteria.

Though this fact was reported as early as 1999, not much attention was paid at the time to aspartame and its maker Monsanto, which was allegedly adding GM aspartame to soft drinks in Britain.

The national drug overdose epidemic has been steadily on the rise for nearly 20 years. From 1999 to 2010, deaths surged a colossal 102 percent. And while overdoses kill more people each year than either cars or guns, the debate over what can be done to address the disturbing trend often gets overshadowed by noisier killers.

On Saturday, the 13th annual International Overdose Awareness Day, drug policy reform advocates and those affected by overdoses will gather around the world, putting solutions front and center.

Bottles of Tylenol sold in the U.S. will soon bear red warnings alerting users to the potentially fatal risks of taking too much of the popular pain reliever.

The unusual step, disclosed by the company that makes Tylenol, comes amid a growing number of lawsuits and pressure from the federal government that could have widespread ramifications for a medicine taken by millions of people every day.

A government study of "cancer villages" along a major Chinese river suggests economic growth is taking a heavy toll on the environment, officials say.

A rising cancer rate has been detected in regions along the Huaihe River, Yang Gonghuan, former deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said. The cancer rate in the affected areas was 50 percent higher than the national average of 0.25 percent in 2004-05, the study found.

CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta apologized Wednesday for publicly opposing marijuana legalization, saying there was "no scientific basis" to claim marijuana had no medical benefits.

"I think we have been terribly and systematically misled in this country for some time, and I did part of that misleading," he said.

Fulfilling a campaign promise, Gov. Maggie Hassan signed a law Tuesday making New Hampshire the 19th state to allow seriously ill residents to use marijuana to treat their illnesses.

"Allowing doctors to provide relief to patients through the use of appropriately regulated and dispensed medical marijuana is the compassionate and right policy for the state of New Hampshire, and this legislation ensures that we approach this policy in the right way with measures to prevent abuse," Hassan said in a statement.