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Health/Biotech/Pharmaceutical

Mobile phones can cause brain tumours, court rules.

Innocente Marcolini, 60, an Italian businessman, fell ill after using a handset at work for up to six hours every day for 12 years.

Now Italy’s Supreme Court in Rome has blamed his phone saying there is a “causal link” between his illness and phone use, the Sun has reported.

Mr Marcolini said: “This is significant for very many people. I wanted this problem to become public because many people still do not know the risks.

Source: Telegraph UK  

Pot compound seen as tool against cancer

Marijuana, already shown to reduce pain and nausea in cancer patients, may be promising as a cancer-fighting agent against some of the most aggressive forms of the disease.

A growing body of early research shows a compound found in marijuana - one that does not produce the plant’s psychotropic high - seems to have the ability to “turn off” the activity of a gene responsible for metastasis in breast and other types of cancers.

Source: SF Chronicle  

Pfizer Targeted Nigerian Attorney General to Undermine Suit over Fatal Drug Tests

Diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer hired investigators to find evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general to pressure him to drop a $6 billion lawsuit over fraudulent drug tests on Nigerian children. Researchers did not obtain signed consent forms, and medical personnel said Pfizer did not tell parents their children were getting the experimental drug. Eleven children died, and others suffered disabling injuries including deafness, muteness, paralysis, brain damage, loss of sight, slurred speech.

Source: Democracy Now  

Neuroscientists Influence People’s Moral Judgments by Disrupting Specific Brain Region

MIT neuroscientists have shown they can influence people’s moral judgments by disrupting a specific brain region – a finding that helps reveal how the brain constructs morality.

“You think of morality as being a really high-level behavior,” she says. “To be able to apply (a magnetic field) to a specific brain region and change people’s moral judgments is really astonishing.”

Source: Science Daily  

Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law

Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States – from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners – nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all public officials under a little-known federal provision.

Under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, manufacturers must report to the federal government new chemicals they intend to market. But the law exempts from public disclosure any information that could harm their bottom line.

Source: Washington Post  
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