Drinking sugar-sweetened soft drinks has been linked to an increase in new cases of diabetes and heart disease. By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent More people now drink soft, sport and fruit drinks daily, and the increase has led to thousands more diabetes and heart disease cases over the past decade, according to research presented to the American Heart Association’s annual conference. The study estimates the increased consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks between 1990 and 2000 contributed to 130,000 new cases of diabetes, 14,000 new cases of coronary heart disease (CHD), and 50,000...

By Ed O’Keefe A Food Safety and Inspection Service veterinarian blew the whistle on his agency Thursday, telling lawmakers that managers repeatedly failed to heed his warnings about unsafe slaughterhouse practices, claims supported by government auditors who said the agency had failed to consistently enforce humane slaughtering standards. Dean Wyatt, an FSIS supervisor based in Vermont, described several instances in which he witnessed and reported the mistreatment of pigs at an Oklahoma slaughterhouse. Read More…

(Reuters) – The Dutch government wants to sell 21 million unused H1N1 flu vaccine doses back to their manufacturers after they proved unnecessary and no other country wanted to buy them, the Health Ministry said on Saturday. A spokeswoman for the ministry said it had approached manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis about buying back the doses. She added that it was not clear what their total value was. She also declined comment on the status of the talks, saying the ministry would inform parliament of the details at a later date. Read More…

Tracy A. Jeffers The health care debate rages on, and it appears that the Democrats are going to use the parliamentary maneuver called reconciliation to pass the bill presently before Congress without any Republican votes. This is a health care bill that the majority of the American people clearly do not want. I honestly believe that all Americans are concerned with the number of people who have no insurance, me included. But they know what the government’s track record with running other programs is and they shudder to think of what this particular program could grow into and at what costs....

By HEATHER KEELS HAGERSTOWN — Despite talk of a national nursing shortage that prompted Hagerstown Community College to roughly double the size of its nursing program two years ago, some new nursing graduates say jobs aren’t as plentiful as they had hoped. “I thought I was going to be able to find one right off the bat, but it didn’t work out that way,” said Tamara Medina, one of 24 students who graduated from HCC’s nursing program Jan. 8 as part of a new, January-admission program that was started with grant funding in 2008. Medina said she applied to hospitals all over the area,...

By Shayne Roberson President William Bloodworth of Augusta State University has a tough job. With mandated budget cuts from the state, he had to sit down with his red pen and decide what academic programs at ASU would be put on the chopping block. I assume that in doing this, he considered the impact not only on the local student population, but on the needs of the community on the local and national level. Read More…

Washington DC will become the first city in the US to make female condoms available for free, the Washington Post has reported. The contraceptives will be handed out in beauty salons, convenience stores and high schools in areas with high rates of HIV/Aids infection. Male condoms have long been handed out but infection rates remain high among Washington’s black residents. Read More…

WASHINGTON — President Obama pressed Congress on Saturday to “finish its work” on health care, dismissing criticism from Republicans as he sought to build a case that the legislation would be friendly to families and small businesses. As the administration works to win over skeptical Democrats in Washington, Mr. Obama is taking his health care message to Philadelphia and St. Louis this week, the latest steps in a forceful campaign designed to demystify the complicated health care measure. Read More…

Arlington, Virginia (CNN) — The man who authorities say shot and wounded two police officers outside the Pentagon Thursday before he was fatally shot had a history of mental health problems and a penchant for spouting anti-government conspiracy theories. John Patrick Bedell repeatedly tangled with police in recent months, while his relationship with his parents — whom he lived with in a gated community in Northern California — grew increasingly contentious. Read More…

By Tracee Cornforth An estimated 182,800 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in 2000. Approximately 42,200 deaths will occur in women from breast cancer in 2000. One in eight women or 12.6% of all women will get breast cancer in her lifetime. Breast cancer risk increases with age and every woman is at risk. Every 13 minutes a woman dies of breast cancer. Seventy-seven percent of women with breast cancer are over 50. Approximately 1400 cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in men in 2000 and 400 of those men will die. More than 1.7 million women who have had breast cancer...