TV News LIES

It's a good time to be a health insurer. Three of the biggest names in the insurance game reported rock-solid profits last week. Aetna said its third-quarter net income jumped 53% over the same period last year, to $497.6 million.

WellPoint, parent of Anthem Blue Cross in California, said its profit rose 1.2% to $739.1 million. Health Net posted a net income of $62.7 million, compared with a loss of $66 million a year earlier. Angela Braly, chief executive of WellPoint, attributed the company's strong performance to "disciplined administrative expense control."

Fast-food restaurants are stepping up efforts to market themselves and unhealthy food products to children and toddlers with television ads, websites and even their own menus, researchers said on Monday.

They said efforts by the industry to regulate itself have failed and urged government officials at all levels to declare children a protected group and stop marketing efforts that are fueling child obesity, a serious U.S. health problem.

Secret documents reveal that government-funded experts were warned nearly 30 years ago that tranquillisers that were later prescribed to millions of people could cause brain damage.

The Medical Research Council (MRC) agreed in 1982 that there should be large-scale studies to examine the long-term impact of benzodiazepines after research by a leading psychiatrist showed brain shrinkage in some patients similar to the effects of long-term alcohol abuse.

Researchers at Cambridge University have discovered how tumour cells protect themselves from the body's natural defences.

By turning off this process, they believe that the body would cure itself of the disease.

In the past attempts to harness the immune system have failed because a protein appears to shield – and even nurture – cancer cells.

But destroying this molecule leaves the cancer completely defenceless and it is killed by the immune system.

Last month, when Breast Cancer Action, a non-profit advocacy organization, attempted to rent a billboard in Indianapolis, they got the kibosh by every rental company in the city.

The message was simple–the billboards simply read, “Eli Lilly is making us sick.Tell them to stop,” and referred to Lilly's manufacturing of recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), which has been linked to cancer. BCA followed the guidelines of all companies contacted, but Indianapolis is home to Eli Lilly's corporate headquarters, and it seems their ad dollars aren't good there.

The charity Medicins sans Frontieres (MSF) says that hidden clauses in the free trade agreeement (FTA) currently being negotiated between Europe and India will prevent the manufacture and distribution of crucial generic medicines produced in the country.

"There are dirty legal tricks being used," says Dr. Tido von Schoenangerer, who runs the MSF campaign for essential medicines. "Any person living with HIV in the developing world is facing a future scenario in which the medicines they need will be under threat."