Food For Thought Tomorrow Morning

(click to gigantify)

Finally, Some Truth In Advertising

It took a while, but the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas can say they delivered on their promise.

While eating  a "triple bypass burger", man at the restaurant actually had a cardiac infarction. "He was having the sweats and shaking," said "Nurse" Bridgett, who is not a nurse  but was working at the restaurant at the time of the incident.  "I actually felt horrible for the gentleman because the tourists were taking photos of him as if it were some type of stunt. Even with our own morbid sense of humor, we would never pull a stunt like that." Yes, this from the place with a website that proudly proclaims the menu offers "taste worth dying for!"

It was the first actual known cardiac incident at the Heart Attack Grill, where menu items include a butterfat milkshake, non-filtered cigarettes, "flatliner" fries and four different burgers, each rated on an ascending scale of one bypass to the quadruple bypass burger. Owner "Doctor" Jon Basso said the man's name is being kept private and that he is recovering from the heart attack. It is unclear if the man will ever return to the restaurant , but since anyone "over 350 pounds eats free" according to the establishment, it may be worth the risk. 

Temp-pair-ary

Even if you're an octogenarian softcore mogul, what the FDA said is true: you can't keep breast implants for life.

Women who get silicone breast implants are likely to need additional surgery within 10 years to address complications (such as rupturing), and close to 1 in 5 women who receive them for cosmetic reasons will have them removed within that time (I assume a fair number of them are due to moving up to a large size).

After reviewing new data on silicone-gel breast implants, the FDA concluded "implants are basically safe as long as women understand they come with complications", including painful scar tissue and ruptured implants. And the longer the implant are in there, the more likely there could be complications.  It wasn't a vote of confidence for saline-filled versions either, which come with the same complications.

Boob jobs Breast augmentation is the top cosmetic surgery in the U.S., with nearly 300,000 women getting a boob boost in 2010, and many of those in, or for those about to arrive in Los Angeles. Doctors say women getting cosmetic implants need to understand that their breasts also will change with age or weight gain, and even if the implant doesn't rupture or develop scar tissue, the skin and fat around it can droop or sag in unattractive ways. Talk about a product that locks the consumer into continuing to use it!

The FDA says they will work to revise safety labels for silicone breast implants after reviewing data from several long-term studies, but let's hope they don't follow this model.

Warning Signs

"The surgeon general’s warnings are different on the sides of each pack. Mine says, 'Surgeon General Warning: Cigarette smoking may cause fetal injury or premature birth.' Hey, fuck it! Found my brand. Just don't get the ones that say lung cancer." - the great Bill Hicks

And now, smokers can do the same with the graphic images about to adorn smoking packages. Dead bodies, diseased lungs, and even a man on a ventilator will be the part of a new U.S. anti-smoking campaign. The change was part of a law that put the tobacco industry under the control of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in November 2010, and the new labels must be on cigarette packages and in advertisements no later than September 2012.

For example, the packaging would say, "WARNING: Cigarettes are addictive," and then illustrated with a photograph of a man smoking a cigarette through a hole in his throat. Nice. Other messages point out the dangers of secondhand smoke to children, tobacco's causal link to fatal lung disease, cancer, strokes, heart disease and death. By the numbers, over 221,000 Americas will be diagnosed with lung cancer in 2011, accounting for about 14% of all cancer cases, and 150,000 expected to die from lung cancer this year. So this is a good thing, right?

Fuck no.

According to Health and Human Services, the goal of the warnings is to stop children from starting to smoke and offer adults who want to quit some help. Well, does that need to be at the expense of everybody else who doesn't smoke who has to see these graphic advertisements? If I want to see rotting, gnarled, and ravaged body parts, I'll go to the internet when I want, not inadvertently from behind the counter at 7-11.

If you're still unaware of the health repercussions of smoking in 2011 then you should die - you're too stupid to live. It's a choice, and for those that make it, don't subject me to your second hand smoke. And the same goes for the government and their nasty images.

Superclap!

In 2009, nearly a quarter of strains of gonorrhea in America were resistant to penicillin, as well as and other commonly used antibiotics. Last year, some strains gained resistance all drugs doctors have to treat the the STD. What's next for 2011?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided this scary data reminded all that gonorrhea could spread to the blood or joints, and could be life-threatening if left untreated. Folks infected with gonorrhea typically show no symptoms, although it can lead to complications, such as infertility and in women, chronic pelvic pain, and in men, a painful testicular condition known as epididymitis.

This info was brought to you by the perils of having sex.

Crapateria

Students attending Chicago's Little Village Academy public school have two choices for lunch - eat the cafeteria food or go hungry.

Wanna bring your brown bag? Fuck you! Only students with allergies are allowed to bring a homemade lunch! "Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school," principal Elsa Carmona said of the policy. "It's about ... the excellent quality food that they are able to serve in the lunchroom. It's milk versus a Coke." Actually, it's about a private school versus a public challenge...for now.  Students said they would rather bring their own lunch, and the $2.25 daily cafeteria price can also tally more than a homemade lunch.

A Chicago public school teacher started a blog to protest the city's school lunches, and last year the schools tightened their nutrition standards for cafeteria-served school lunches. Now, every lunch must contain whole grains, only reduced-fat salad dressings and mayonnaise are offered as condiments, and the meals must feature a different vegetable each day. Meal providers also must reduce sodium content by 5% annually. About 86% of the district's students qualify for free or reduced price school lunches because their families are toeing the poverty line, so they should be happy their kids are getting fed, but the thought of not having the choice for those that can provide is getting added to the already growing debate on student lunches and childhood obesity.

Alabama parents protested a school's rule that barred students from bringing any drinks from home, since ice water was provided at lunch. Eastern New York schools have outlawed cupcakes and other desserts. Nationally, many schools have kicked out chocolate milk and soda vending machines. Over in new-fascist Arizona, the Children's Success Academy allows home-packed lunches, but only if nothing in them contains white flour, refined sugar, or other "processed" foods.  The school has no cafeteria, which makes meeting to restrictions even harder.  And even old white right-winger jerk-off fantasy Sarah Palin got involved in a debate regarding a recommendation that teachers limit the number of times per month sugary treats are eaten in classroom birthday celebrations.

About a third of America's kids are overweight or obese, and since children consume at least 30% of their calories while in school, the thinking is making lunches healthier is seen as one way to counter that problem. And that's great, but if the other 70% of meals they have are pure crap, it's not going to make a difference. But because there are a lot of shitty parents, it's up to the schools to get involved so their kids don't grow up to die sooner.
 

Get In The Mood For Love

It's Valentine's Day, so don't be afraid to fall in love...you may not actually catch a disease.

A recent study of five U.S. labs shows about 18% of the positive results from a test method used since the 1980s to determine syphilis were actually negative. Experts previously thought the false positive was much lower, below 7%. Oh, science, for an empirical discipline you're so uncertain.

Besides the incorrect concern, it means some patients were given unnecessary treatments, like penicillin, which can have adverse side effects...though are they worse than untreated syphilis?  Syphilis testing is recommended for all pregnant women and for people considered to be at high risk for sexually transmitted diseases (whores, right?), and the CDC supports additional testing when this particular test gives a positive result.

At least a CDC epidemiologist had a wry retort -  "It doesn't miss people who are infected."  Zing!

Colon's Best Friend

It's easy to tell which guys are assholes, but it takes a canine to tell which assholes have cancer.

With a sense of smell far superior to humans, dogs can sniff out plenty of things: they can find drugs or bombs or buried earthquake victims. And now, Japanese researchers say dogs can detect colorectal cancer.

The goal of the study was to find out whether odor can become an effective tool in colorectal cancer screening, and it was disgusting but important work. Samples of stool and exhaled breath from 40 patients with colorectal cancer along with 320 healthy people. In 33 of 36 breath tests and in 37 of 38 stool tests, the dog, a specially trained 8-year-old female Labrador retriever was successful, in distinguishing cancer. In contrast, standard fecal occult blood screening picks up colon cancer in only one out of 10 cases.

The dog was also able to identify cancers even when smokers and people with other stomach problems were included in the test. Scent ability and concentration vary between different dogs and also with the same dog on different days, and each dog can only conduct tests for a maximum of 10 years. For those reasons, researchers are trying to identify the cancer-specific organic compounds detected by dogs in order to develop an early cancer detection sensor that can be substituted for a dog's sense of smell.

You Said A Mouthful

Bad news for the fellas who are good to reciprocate a little oral pleasure for their lady friends: the human papillomavirus (HPV) many women are prone adds an increased risk of a kind of oral cancer often seen in men. Great, first we can count on asshole cancer, now we get it in the mouth?

The New England Journal of Medicine showed that men and women who reported having six or more oral-sex partners during their lifetime had a nearly ninefold increased risk of developing cancer of the tonsils or at the base of the tongue.

(thinks hard, counts on fingers)

Shit!

Of the 300 study participants, those infected with HPV were also 32 times more likely to develop this type of oral cancer than those who did not have the virus. Of the 120 HPV strains isolated from humans (about 40 of which are in the mouth and genital tracts), only four are protected against by the recently approved vaccine, Gardasil: HPV-6 and HPV-11, which cause warts; and HPV-16 and HPV-18, which cause about 70% of cervical cancers.

In the study, HPV-16 was present in 72 of the 100 cancer patients and of the 12,000 - 15,000 new cases of oropharyngeal cancer diagnosed each year, about 25% die from it. One researcher said, "When you look at the cancers associated with HPV in men — including penile cancer, anal squamous cell carcinoma, oral cancers — it's very close to the number of cases of cervical cancer that occur in the U.S. in women every year. We need to adjust the public's perception that only women are at risk."

Ladies, get your vaccines (even though studies say it only 17% effective against cancer precursors overall)! I guess I'll be masturbating safely in the other room until the fear tapers off.

Diseased Body Of Christ

Nothing good ever gets put in your mouth in church.

Case in point - roughly 1300 parishioners of a Long Island church may have been exposed to hepatitis A when they received communion during services on Christmas day. Now there's a lump of coal for ya!

According to the Nassau County Department of Health, "a person involved in the Communion process has tested positive for hepatitis A". Theye did not specify whether the infected person was a priest, altar boy or Eucharistic minister, but does it matter? New York health officials are asking anyone who attended services at 10:30 a.m. and noon on Christmas day at Our Lady of Lourdes Church to return to the church Tuesday or Wednesday to receive a vaccination to fight off infection of the disease. And good luck trying to get volunteers for the Sunday school pot luck after this.

Hepatitis A can lead to flu-like symptoms such as severe nausea, diarrhea and fever, but isn't considered to be as deadly as hepatitis B and C, which can lead to chronic liver disease. Hep A is most commonly transmitted through food when an infected person fails to wash their hands before handling/preparing the food, particularly after they've gone to the bathroom.

Cars And Effect

Nearly six in seven U.S. adults now wear seat belts. And the seventh? They're dead.

This increase in driver safety has helped cut motor vehicle deaths and injuries, according to the Center for Disease Control. Wow, I though the CDC just worried about ebola and bird flu, not traffic accidents. About 85% of adults in a 2008 survey said they wear seat belts, up from under 81% in 2002. Only 11% wore them in 1982, before the first state law requiring seat belt use.

The slow growing use of belts has lead to a decline of more than 15% in non-fatal vehicle crash injuries from 2001 to 2009. Traffic fatalities also fell in 2009 to 33,808, the lowest number since 1950. But don't worry my blood thirsty friends, there will always be some morons who have trouble with the simple task of clicking a belt - it's thinning the herd from the inside, one car at a time.

Prepare To Read "Teomerase" A Dozen Times!

If there's one thing we don't need to do, it's keep rodents alive longer...oh, wait - we're testing on them to help try to reverse the aging process for you and me. Okay then, I approve!

Harvard Medical School geneticists have managed to partially reverse the physical degeneration that results from aging by controlling the telomerase gene. Pretend like you already know the telomerase enzyme maintains the protective caps called telomeres that shield the ends of chromosomes, and as we age lower levels can contribute to tissue degeneration. Scientists created mice with a telomerase switch, and then prematurely aged them to see what would happen if they reactivated telomerase production. The telomeres dramatically reversed many aspects of aging, including reversal of brain disease and infertility. Playing God can be fun and productive!

The animals showed no signs of developing cancer from the experiment, which can be a concern because cancer cells turn on telomerase enzymes to make themselves virtually immortal. Briefly switching it on could avoid fueling hidden cancers or cause new ones to develop. It also has potential for adult stem cells, to keep aging tissues viable or repair tissue damage from aging.

After a month the mice exhibited increased levels of telomerase and lengthened telomeres, both biological changes indicative of cells returning to a growth state, with reversal of tissue degeneration, and increase in size of the spleen, testes, and brain. More newborn nerve cells were observed, and the fatty myelin sheaths around nerve cells increased in diameter. In addition, the increase in telomerase revitalized slumbering brain stem cells so they could produce new neurons.

Functionally, the mice’s ability to avoid a certain area in a testing zone where they detected unpleasant odors that they associated with danger (such as scents of predators, rotten food, or Kardashians) had returned as olfactory nerve cells regenerated. And while it's a shitty job, they checked the animals’ testes, and found that mice that were essentially barren produced new sperm cells. Ultimately, the rodents’ life spans were extended compared to their untreated counterparts, though they did not live longer than normal mice.

We're All Goners

Earlier in the year, 12 million Shrek glasses from kids meals had to be recalled due to toxic traces of lead in them. But it's not just the kids who are at risk...it's every kid from the last 50 years!

After the Shrek debacle, a specially commissioned test of 35 different drinking glasses made between the late 1960s to present day...and they all exceeded the federal limits on lead in children's products BY UP TO 1000 TIMES. The designs range from Star Wars to Superman and Batman to The Wizard Of Oz, and were not just sold through fast food chains, but also at the Disney Store and online through Coca-Cola.

In addition to seven highly contaminated glasses, 10 others raised concern over longer-term contact (two for both lead and cadmium, five for lead only and three for cadmium only). How much contact could cause a problem?

If half of what gets onto a child's hand enters their mouth, as the CPSC calculates, seven of the glasses would require fewer than 20 hand touches for kids age six and under to exceed U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines for the maximum amount of lead they should ingest in a day.

Shit. And I bet most of you possessed at least one or two of these. I had that damn Lando Calrissian glass from Burger King through college.

Virus Annihilist

Rinderpest is a virus that kills cattle, and was prevalent in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Was. Scientists believe that, except for samples in controlled laboratory conditions, they have wiped the virus out of existence. This would be only the second time in human history that a virus has been destroyed. The first was smallpox.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization has said that it will now suspend its efforts to track and eliminate the virus, confident it has been eradicated. When the disease first showed signs in Africa just before the 20th century, between 80% and 90% of cattle and buffalo on the continent were killed. Rinderpest killed on average seven out of 10 cattle infected with the disease until the 1960s, when Walter Plowright developed a workable vaccine.

A simple test was designed to be used by people in the field and to give reliable results within minutes, proving highly effective and leading to it being been rolled out across Africa. Experts would train locals to recognise the disease and administer vaccines, even working with nomadic tribesmen in the regions and vaccinate herds "on the move".

With Rinderpest set to be declared eradicated next year, Africa can finally focus it's efforts on cleaning up it's lesser issues: poverty, famine, and war. But really, it is the biggest veterinary achievement since Bob Barker told people to spade and neuter their pets.

We're Sorry

It's never too late to let folks know that you're taking responsibility for your actions.

First, with a final payment of £59.5 million (ouch, they had to pay in native currency), Germany can write off their debt for starting one world war that laid the foundations for another. It only took 90 years to cough up the reparations put upon them by the Treaty of Versailles. It was established as compensation to Belgium and France, and to pay back the Allies some of the costs of the war.

The initial sum agreed upon for war damages in 1919 was 226 billion Reichsmarks, but was later reduced to 132 billion (or £22 billion at the time). And if not for that douche Hitler who reneged on payment, would have been settled much earlier. Most of the money goes to private individuals, pension funds and corporations holding debenture bonds as agreed under the Treaty, and Germany was made to sign the 'war guilt' clause, accepting blame for the war.

On a less cheerful and fiscally prosperous note, the United States apologized for an experiment conducted in the 1940s where government researchers deliberately infected Guatemalan prison inmates, women and mental patients with syphilis. What, like they weren't going to get it sooner or later anyway? Besides, there's no better lab rats than a third world country when testing a then-new drug like penicillin, where inmates were infected by prostitutes and later treated with the antibiotic to see it's effectiveness.

The experiment, which is similar to the 1960s Tuskegee study in which black American men were deliberately left untreated for syphilis, was revealed by a professor following up on a book about Tuskegee. In total, 696 men and women were exposed to the disease and then offered penicillin. The studies ran from 1946 to 1948, and records suggest that despite intentions, not everyone was probably cured. The link was made through Dr. John C. Cutler, a Public Health Service physician who would later be part of the Tuskegee study.

The Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs - which is an actual position in our government, said it was not yet clear whether any compensation would be offered. That's because it's questionable that any of the people who were experimented upon could be traced...and I'm sure that will be a very thorough investigation.

Another Slice Of Shut The Fuck Up Pie

I just love rubbing the truth in Jenny McCarthy's face (and anything else I can get away with) ever since she began her crusade to find something and someone to blame for her autistic kid (other than the wrath of a karma-lovin' god).

A new government study adds to the evidence that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative (until recently found in many vaccines), does not increase children's risk of autism. Kids who had been exposed as babies to high levels of the preservative, either through vaccines they received or their mothers received while pregnant, were no more likely to develop autism, including two distinct subtypes of the condition.

Concerns about a link between vaccines and autism were first raised more than a decade ago by Andrew Wakefield. His report, based on 12 children, has since been discredited and was retracted earlier this year by the journal that published it. But the damage had been done, and with idiot bigmouths like McCarthy spewing bad info, the health scare caused many parents to shy away from recommended vaccines like the one against measles, mumps and rubella. The result? Outbreaks of all three diseases followed.

The researchers used data for U.S. children born between 1994 and 1999, who were enrolled in one of three managed care organizations. They found 256 children with an autism spectrum disorder and compared them with 752 children who did not have the condition, but were matched for age and sex. No matter when a child had been exposed to thimerosal, there was no increase in the risk of any type of autism spectrum disorder. In fact, children exposed to the preservative between birth and 20 months of age had slightly lower odds of developing the condition.

Health Beer

Scientists who took a chemical analysis of ancient Nubian (present day Sudan) mummies from 1,600 years ago indicate that they brewed beer with tetracycline, an antibiotic. Suck on that cold filtered science, Coors!

Chemist Mark Nelson noted, "The bones of these ancient people were saturated with tetracycline, showing that they had been taking it for a long time." They didn't have a Rite Aid, but he added, "I'm convinced that they had the science of fermentation under control and were purposely producing the drug." Tetracycline latches on to calcium and gets deposited in bones, which is how it can be detected it in fossils. An ultraviolet light technique only identified tetracycline was in the bone, but by dissolving them in hydrogen fluoride, they could clearly identify the amount present.

Tetracycline is produced by a soil bacteria called streptomyces, which thrive in warm, arid regions just like ancient Nubia - and probably contaminated a batch of beer. The Nubians likely noticed the antibiotics cured them of bacterial infection, and given the amount of it in their bones that it is near impossible that the tetracycline-laced beer was a fluke event.

Study co-author George Armelagos asked his graduate students to try to brew this type of beer to confirm that making an antibiotic beer was possible. "What they were making wasn’t like a Bud Light but a cereal gruel...students said that it was 'not bad,' but it is like a sour porridge substance. The ancient people would have drained the liquid off and also eaten the gruel." Early bar food...yuck.

There is some preliminary evidence of tetracycline in the bones of people who date back 1300 to 1400 A.D., furthering the notion that antibiotics were previously discovered before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. It may also explain why animals have been found with antibiotic resistance in Northern Africa where there is no previous evidence of antibiotics being used.

MRSA Reversa

MRSA bacteria is a nasty, virulent bacteria that breeds in hospitals, killing patients in recovering from surgery or other afflicted with other ailments. So rather than antibiotics, which will eventually lose potency, MRSA-free hospitals can be made...with paint?

A group of biotech researchers developed the paint by knitting together carbon nanotubes with lysostaphin, an enzyme that slices open cell walls and kills them. Lysostaphin is a naturally-occurring substance that bacteria developed to combat other kinds of bacteria - a sort of organic nullifier that is also super-focused. That is, it only destroys staph bacteria, including MRSA. One hundred percent of the MRSA that came into contact with the lysostaphin paint died within two hours. Not bad results.

The lysostaphin/nanotube mix can be used in paint for hospital walls, and possibly to coat surgical instruments. It can be washed repeatedly without losing effectiveness and has a dry storage shelf life of up to six months. And as a bonus, the lysostaphin/nanotube mix is environmentally friendly!

Little Pricks

Nobody likes getting shots. So what if you never felt it?

The tiny, dissolving patch that contain hundreds of microscopic needles, each barely any bigger than a 10,000th of an inch could be on the way. Like the 36 point patch in the picture, imagine micro-needles with each tip coated with a vaccine. Once the patch is applied to the skin, they dissolve painlessly to provide long-lasting protection. There's no trouble disposing of them like you have with used hypodermics, you can't accidentally get hurt by them, and they won't end up getting reused. Also, the patch stores the vaccine in a dry format that is much easier to preserve and transport than liquid vaccines. In early testing on mice, the patch works as well, if not better than hypodermic needles for application.

Healthy Weekend

C'mon, don't kid yourself - I'm not having a healthy weekend, but we all might.

This Sunday, a historic vote in the House may clear the way for the often dogged health care bill, the guts of which have been presented in various forms for decades. Here are some of the main points of the legislation, which makes changes to the version of the bill the Senate passed on Christmas Eve:

COST: $940 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

HOW MANY COVERED: 32 million uninsured. Major coverage expansion begins in 2014. When fully phased in, 95 percent of eligible Americans would have coverage, compared with 83 percent today.

INSURANCE MANDATE: Almost everyone is required to be insured or else pay a fine. There is an exemption for low-income people. Mandate takes effect in 2014.

INSURANCE MARKET REFORMS: Starting this year, insurers would be forbidden from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies, from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing conditions, and from canceling policies because someone gets sick. Parents would be able to keep older kids on their coverage up to age 26. A new high-risk pool would offer coverage to uninsured people with medical problems until 2014, when the coverage expansion goes into high gear. Major consumer safeguards would also take effect in 2014. Insurers would be prohibited from denying coverage to people with medical problems or charging them more. Insurers could not charge women more.

MEDICAID: Expands the federal-state Medicaid insurance program for the poor to cover people with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, $29,327 a year for a family of four. Childless adults would be covered for the first time, starting in 2014. The federal government would pay 100 percent of costs for covering newly eligible individuals through 2016. A special deal that would have given Nebraska 100 percent federal financing for newly eligible Medicaid recipients in perpetuity is eliminated. A different, one-time deal negotiated by Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu for her state, Louisiana, worth as much as $300 million, remains.

TAXES: Dramatically scales back a Senate-passed tax on high-cost insurance plans that was opposed by House Democrats and labor unions. The tax would be delayed until 2018, and the thresholds at which it is imposed would be $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. To make up for the lost revenue, the bill applies an increased Medicare payroll tax to investment income as well as wages for individuals making more than $200,000, or married couples above $250,000. The tax on investment income would be 3.8%.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS: Gradually closes the "doughnut hole" coverage gap in the Medicare prescription drug benefit that seniors fall into once they have spent $2,830. Seniors who hit the gap this year will receive a $250 rebate. Beginning in 2011, seniors in the gap receive a discount on brand name drugs, initially 50 percent off. When the gap is completely eliminated in 2020, seniors will still be responsible for 25 percent of the cost of their medications until Medicare's catastrophic coverage kicks in.

EMPLOYER RESPONSIBILITY: As in the Senate bill, businesses are not required to offer coverage. Instead, employers are hit with a fee if the government subsidizes their workers' coverage. The $2,000-per-employee fee would be assessed on the company's entire work force, minus an allowance. Companies with 50 or fewer workers are exempt from the requirement. Part-time workers are included in the calculations, counting two part-timers as one full-time worker.

SUBSIDIES: The proposal provides more generous tax credits for purchasing insurance than the original Senate bill did. The aid is available on a sliding scale for households making up to four times the federal poverty level, $88,200 for a family of four. Premiums for a family of four making $44,000 would be capped at around 6 percent of income.

HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: Small businesses, the self-employed and the uninsured could pick a plan offered through new state-based purchasing pools called exchanges, opening for business in 2014. The exchanges would offer the same kind of purchasing power that employees of big companies benefit from. People working for medium-to-large firms would not see major changes. But if they lose their jobs or strike out on their own, they may be eligible for subsidized coverage through the exchange.

GOVERNMENT-RUN PLAN: No government-run insurance plan. People purchasing coverage through the new insurance exchanges would have the option of signing up for national plans overseen by the federal office that manages the health plans available to members of Congress. Those plans would be private, but one would have to be nonprofit.

ABORTION: The proposal keeps the abortion provision in the Senate bill. Abortion opponents disagree on whether restrictions on taxpayer funding go far enough. The bill tries to maintain a strict separation between taxpayer dollars and private premiums that would pay for abortion coverage. No health plan would be required to offer coverage for abortion. In plans that do cover abortion, policyholders would have to pay for it separately, and that money would have to be kept in a separate account from taxpayer money. States could ban abortion coverage in plans offered through the exchange. Exceptions would be made for cases of rape, incest and danger to the life of the mother.

Best of the week: A report published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences follows up on the discovery of a gene that regulates regeneration in mammals. So one day, everyone can be like Wolverine...the healing factor, not the mutton chops.

Back in 1996, scientists were running an experiment using a strain of mice that, it turns out, lacked a p21 gene. The mice each had an ear pierced with an identifying mark, and a few weeks later, the experiment was ruined when all the identifying marks had healed without a scar - the mice all looked exactly the same again.

“While we are just beginning to understand the repercussions of these findings, perhaps one day we’ll be able to accelerate healing in humans by temporarily inactivating the p21 gene,” and you can quote them on that. That gene is tightly controlled by another gene, p53, which is a well-known cell division regulator and tumour suppressor. Defective p53 can lead to many types of cancer. In normal adult cells, p21 acts as an anti-cancer safety mechanism, blocking out cell division in the event of DNA damage, said the biologists.

What this study found was that there was no cancer surge in mice lacking the gene. Rather, there was an increase in apoptosis (”cell suicide”) causing dysfunctional cells to shut down rather than dividing out of control. But before all you fellas with tiny junk lop of those tips, there's not word whether or not the regeneration and be scaled or sized.

Plus: Despite heavy promotion, the ratings for Jessica Simpson's VH1 reality show The Price of Beauty were, wait for it...pretty ugly!

The premiere attracted just 1 million viewers, and around 487,000 people tuned in for the encore later in the night - thought it is unclear if some of the same people we so dumbfounded by the program they watched it again to figure out why it was even being aired.

The show got beat by a rerun of NCIS, a TruTV series called Operation Repo and History Channel's Pawn Stars, the Los Angeles Times was keen to point out. Even former American Idol contestant and has-been Fantasia Barrino had a stronger debut for her VH1 reality show, Fantasia For Real. (Her show premiere nabbed 2.3 million viewers for real.)

Reviews for The Price of Beauty - which featured Simpson and her pals traveling around the world to learn how other cultures define beauty - were mixed, but overall not terribly positive. The New York Post called it "dopey and clueless," while the San Diego Union Tribune said it was "sweet on the outside and a little empty on the inside." It's nice to see the clock run on on the Simpson family's fame. They're average in so many ways.

Also: Indonesian conservationists said they had caught red-handed a 92-year-old man who had admitted to killing dozens of critically endangered Sumatran tigers over a lifetime of hunting. How hard could that have been?

"We caught him while he was sailing a traditional wooden boat in a river in Kuala Cinaku with evidence of skin, skull and 8.3 kilos of bones from a tiger." The man, named Wiryo, told conservationists that he started hunting tigers for a living when he was 17 on Java island. He moved to Sumatra in 1960 as the population of Javan tiger decreased. According to him, he has killed more than 50 Sumatran tigers in Riau province alone.

Authorities say the poacher could be jailed for up to five years. Wiryo explained that he managed to sell the tiger parts in Singapore. Without his contribution, how will men get their extract of tiger penis to help their libido? I sense a market void that needs to get filled! There are fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild, so for those keeping score, that makes Wiryo one of the greatest tiger murderers of their kind. If you killed close to 15% of the human population, it would be impressive too.

And: A doctor who questioned an unusually high fare is credited with touching off a widespread investigation into cabbie rip-offs. Dr. Mitchell Lee was riding home from NYU Medical Center in Manhattan in August when he noticed an extra $2 on his usual $5 fare. And if anybody knows about overbilling, it's doctors!

When he complained, the driver offered a discount. Instead, Lee paid the full fare, with a credit card, then complained to the Taxi and Limousine Commission. The TLC said last week that thousands of cabbies had illegally raised rates on about 1.8 million trips over two years, overcharging riders a total of $8.3 million by setting their meters at a rate that was supposed to be used for trips to the suburbs.

Lee said that New Yorkers — and tourists — are "smarter than cabbies think." Though those cabbies are also New Yorkers, so they're smarter than themselves, right? Unless those cabbies are from New Jersey...

Best picture of the week:

the 12 symbols of the Chinese zodiac...carved in crayon by Diem Chau

Best bonus links:

• Inside The World Of Childhood Schizophrenia - The 20/20 program from the 12th is finally streaming on their site. It's incredible and sad and you have to watch it.

• Plane Kills Jogger In SC Beach Emergency Landing - The odds are so incredible, they're awesome! Aside from proving exercise is bad for you, it's one of the most baller ways to go out...I mean, if you have too.

• Study: U.S. Prison Rate Remains Near One In 100 Americans - Look at the person on your left and on your right. If one of you in not in jail, there there's 97 other people who could be. (and for more prison links check out No Prison For Ex-Jailer In Girls Gone Wild Case In Nevada and Ex-Coach Dungy Speaks To Inmates In South Carolina)

• Army Drops Bayonets, Busts Abs In Training Revamp - Cross-training and circuit work may lead to glistening sixpacks for the don't-ask-don't-tell crowd, but you can't stab an enemy soldier in the face when moving through trenches with a set of crunches.

• Ex-NY Bank President First Accused Of TARP Fraud - One down, thousands to go. But at least it's a start.

• The Top Ten Anti-Gay Activists Caught Being Gay - Certainly you have to join them if you can't beat them.

• Make Your Own 3D Video Camera With Stabilizer For $300 Or Less - Eliminating another excuse why you can't make those naughty films with your girlfriend interesting for me.

• Boeing Accelerates Production Of 747, 777 Models - Three-quarters of a million models? That's a lot of babes to make. and just in time for swimsuit season! Oh wait, they mean plane models, not a number.

• Top 5 Things I Learned From My Cab Driver Last Night - There's knowledge to be had, even if you don't take cabs.

• Dutch Furious At U.S. General For Blaming Gay Soldiers - Perfect response to the senile retired general who said gays made the Dutch weak in Bosnia.

• Fan Attacks KHL Goalie With Stick On Team Bench - I'm close enough to the ice to make that happen here in America, but really, only in Russia...

• Brewing Tensions Between The Tea Party And GOP - Watching the Republican lunatics battle inwardly is wonderful fun. It's like watching the rotten cream separate from the sour milk.

• Porsche Takes Top Spot In Dependability Study - It ranked number one in consistently pulling tail, impressing buddies, and having valets sit the longest in. Those are dependable stats!

• Court: Anna Nicole Smith Gets None Of Oil Fortune - And you thought the humiliation and shame ended at death. Moded in the afterlife!

• Sandstorms Turn China Into Earthly Arrakis - He who controls the MSG, controls the universe!

• Die Antwoord To Sign With Interscope, Neil Blomkamp To Direct Next Video - They made it to the big time. Zef style wins.

• A Massive Collection Of Superhero De-Motivational Posters - Heroes never quit, unless they're losers...and there's certainly a set of them here.

Worst of the week: It's a bad time to be a celebrity in a relationship.

First, Jennifer Love Hewitt got dumped by Jamie Kennedy after dating. I guess he's looking to get off The Ghost Whisperer, and she no longer has to be known as the "formerly skinny girl who was dating the guy from Malibu's Most Wanted".

Then Kate Winslet realised she was enough of a star that she didn't need to bang a director to get parts in movies. She and Sam Mendes decided to divorce after two kids and seven years of marriage. For all the playing down of her looks and the insistence for women to be liked and accepted on their own and not by society's standards, she is guaranteed to look the best she ever has in the near future. That's how the lady spider will catch her next male fly.

But the worst of the bunch is Sandra Bullock's literal blind siding by the not-really-outlaw Jesse James. Apparently, while she was out making the film, her husband was knocking tattoed boots with Michelle "Bombshell" McGee, a gal who would be prettier if she wasn't covered in stupid ink.

The story goes Michelle sent James' West Coast Choppers a friend request on line because she hoped to snag a modeling gig there. She said she was surprised that it was actually Jesse who wrote back to her and told her to e-mail him at his personal e-mail. A week after he got in touch, Michelle drove from San Diego home to West Coast Choppers garage in Los Angeles.

After taking Michelle on a tour of his garage, Jesse brought her into his office and locked the door. Assuming he and Sandra were separated, Michelle said she and Jesse had sex "two or three times," that night, and began what she believed was a serious relationship, meeting up for sex at least twice a week for the next five weeks.

To top it all off, McGee has a bunch of white power tats and models Nazi costumes. I'm not a huge Sandra Bullock fan, but this just sucks for her. I mean, he really found the worst human being you could cheat with.

Plus: DXM has a take on the South rising again...though their idea to attack through scholastic means only means they'll never read it.

A Selection of Chapter Titles from Texas's Newly Revamped, Conservative-Friendly High School Textbooks:

• From Adam to Earl: The Real Story of the "Evolution" of Man (from the geography-science book 6,000 Years of World History)

• The War of Northern Aggression: How the Arrogance of Invading Liberal Elitists Ruined Free Room and Board for Millions of Negroes

• FDR and the Rise of Socialism in America

• Great Presidents of the United States: From Reagan to Reagan

• Joseph McCarthy: American Hero or Misunderstood Genius?

• Remember the Alamo (edited by guest contributor Lou Dobbs)

• Wall Street of Dreams: From Ben Stein to Lloyd Blankfein, Them Jews Sure are Good with Money

• Why We Rule (from the history book America, Fuck Yeah!)

• Fossil Fools: Debunking the Jurassic Myth (or "How To Train Your Dinosaur")

• Vietnam: The Forgotten Victory

• 9/11: God's Wrath Against Secular-Humanist America or Just a Bunch of Murderous Muslims?

• Philistines, Palestinians and the Inevitable Rapture: Why the U.S. Must Support Israel

• Stonewall: The Tragic Legacy of the Sodomite Uprising of 1969

• 2 + 2 = Jesus!

• "Don't do it." (single page of the book Sex Education: Everything You Need To Know)

• Barack Hussein Obama and the End of America

• What's Next?: Sarah Palin and Beyond

Also: Pictured is Donna Simpson, and she is goddamn fat. In fact, she’s working to become the heaviest woman ever. Really. She already weighs somewhere over a quarter ton, but she’s gorging on cake, sushi and donuts to make a push for history. The most vile part? You can watch it unfold pond by gutbasting pound.

She runs her own website where people pay to watch her eat, or see her wash (*puke*) her mammoth body. The cash helps fund the family’s $750 a week food shopping bill, which Simpson carries out in her mobility scooter. Website subscribtions reportedly earn her $3000 a month. FML!

“I’d love to be 1,000lb,” she said. “It might be hard though. Running after my daughter keeps my weight down.” If you're scooting around the market, your fat ass isn't chasing your daughter around, even if she had an ice cream sundae covered in bacon bits. I sincerely hope this morbidly obese blob croaks during a webcast. That would be worth paying for.

And: Last fall, as swine flu cases mounted and parents desperately sought to protect their kids, the hard-to-get vaccine was handed out in some surprising places: the Royal Caribbean cruise line, the headquarters of drug giant Merck, the Johnson Space Center and a Department of Energy office in Idaho.

In some cases, financial institutions and other recipients got doses before some county health departments and doctors' offices. These records were obtained by The Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request. Yes, it's that simple to find out how hard your government is screwing you.

Even though the federal government spent more than $1.6 billion to manufacture and distribute the vaccine, there is no complete record of where it went. At least 85% of the doses given in the first six weeks went to groups most at risk for flu complications — children and other young people, pregnant women and those with certain health problems, according to an estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But Wall Street banks and cruise ship companies stil got theirs in the opening salvo.

The CDC decided how many doses would go to each state, and state and local health departments decided where the vaccine was sent. Doctors' offices, large employers and even federal offices were among those that applied for vaccine. Health officials told them to give it to at-risk people first, but there was no enforcement of that. It's clear that at many sites, lower-risk people got precious doses in the first two months:

• When a U.S. Department of Energy office in Idaho Falls, Idaho, got about 200 doses in October, officials there offered it to higher-risk employees for four hours. When hardly anyone came, any worker who wanted it was vaccinated, a facility spokesman said.

• Royal Caribbean got 2,100 doses in October and November, vaccinating low-risk crew members along with staffers who care for children on Florida-based ships. The rationale? Employees aboard ships work with the public and would probably come into contact with people in priority groups.

• NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston got about 800 doses in October and 1,400 more in November, some of which were sent on to other NASA operations. At Johnson, doses were offered first to employees in priority groups, but NASA also set aside doses for healthy astronauts and their families.

• Some doctors' offices gave it to healthy patients if people at risk didn't show up, said Dr. Jim Lederer, an official with Novant Health, a North Carolina-based hospital system.

• Merck got 200 doses in October and 200 in November at its corporate headquarters in New Jersey. A Boeing Co. site in Washington state received 100 doses in mid-October and 100 more the next month. A Hovensa oil refinery in the Virgin Islands got 500 doses in early November, a Nucor Steel plant in South Carolina was given 100, and Hallmark Cards Inc. in Kansas City received 100.

Some of the eyebrow-raising shipments to Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs came to light last year. The New York Stock Exchange got 200 doses by late October. Morgan Stanley in Purchase, N.Y., received 1,000 doses by early November, though the company said it turned over its entire supply to local hospitals when it learned it got shipments before some area hospitals. In Georgia, nine prisons and jails got 2,300 doses in October and November. Corrections officials were worried that swine flu would spread fast in crowded lockups.

Basically, the Center for Disease Control didn't quite control the disease best. Better luck this year!


Worst picture of the week:

a tampon chandelier? super absorbent but dim.

Worst bonus links:

• Afghanistan: Taliban Chops Off Nose, Ears Of 19-Year-Old Girl For Shaming Her In-Laws - The shame of not being content as an abused woman who was married off at the age of 10. Sure, our country steals and creates opportunity in the Middle East, but there are some just reasons for going to war with those animals, and this is one of them.

• Charlie Sheen Back At Work On Two And A Half Men - Moving the doomsday predictions of 2012 closer to happening.

• Florida Family Policy Council Accidentally Uses Wrong Photo Of Lesbian Parents - Accidentally would have been in quotes if you could write completely unbiased news copy. Florida, of course.

• Designer Favored By Michelle Obama, Oprah Closes - Because how many black middle aged women are there that can afford those fashions?

• Posner Says He Failed To Source Material for Book - Ahhh, the hazzards of plagerism. Another good way to avoid being caught? Don't be a high profile writer who doesn't write their own material.

• Thai Red Shirts Hurl Own Blood At PM's House - I think you're going to make your point a little better if you use your words and not your plasma. Unless your point is "I want you to be drenched in our blood".

• Texas Manager Tested Positive For Cocaine In 2009 / Washington: I Also Used Marijuana, Amphetamines - I never understood why the call coaches in baseball "mamagers", so I can't imagine why a coach would be so hopped up on drugs. Baseball sucks.

• Grenade-Shaped Lighter Forces Airport Evacuation - Remember the old days when this would be a real laugh? Explosive-themed smoking accessories jsut don't get the laughs they used to...

• AP Exclusive: Pentagon Gun Was From Tennessee Police - I know there's a Gifts For Guns exchange, but I thought the guns come in from the streets, not go back out.

• Kirstie Alley: I'm 'A Good A Sexual Mate... I'm Down For Whatever' - As long as your kink involves food. Kirstie Alley and sex are as heinous a thought as concentration camps - disturbing and horrifying.

• IRS Sends Out Two Agents To Collect $0.04 In Back-Taxes From Car Wash - It may not be a lot, but they had to check in-between the cushions for change.

• Heidi Montag To Fire Psychic Manager / Jennifer Aniston On Co-Starring With Heidi Montag: 'That's Interesting & Fun!' - Both of these are too stupid and pridictable to even comment on.

• Obama Effigy Hung At Rhode Island School With Fired Teachers - Yes, that'll inspire a comitment to education and learning!

• Paula Abdul Headed To 'Star Search' Remake - And she should hope she gets a spot the first contestant, judging by her actual talent and depths of her career.

• Walmart Fires Employee With Inoperable Brain Tumor For Legally Using Marijuana Outside Of Work / Wal-Mart Probing Racist NJ Store Announcement - The nation's largest company is an easy target, but they're setting themselves up time and again with their own stupidity.

• Massachutteses Dentist Used Paper Clips In Root Canals - He did not except most health plans, but did have a corporate account at Office Depot.

• British Poet Laureate Pens Ode To Injured Beckham - This is why nobdy takes poetry seriously anymore. When your renouned poets are musing about Posh Spice's husband's bad tendon, it's safe to say the art form may no longer have a pulse.