Month: June 2013

Your Hidden Censor: What Your Mind Will Not Let You See

By Patricia Reaney NEW YORK (Reuters) – Healthcare has improved in many countries in the last five years, but patients in South Korea, Argentina and Japan are the most satisfied with their medical care, according to an Ipsos poll released on Tuesday. In a survey of 15 countries, people in those countries gave top grades for improvements in their national healthcare system since 2008, along with residents of Belgium and Australia, which rounded out the top five nations. …

Glowing Plants: Crowdsourced Genetic Engineering Project Ignites Controversy

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Faced with a federal judge's order in the heart-wrenching cases of two terminally ill children seeking lung transplants, a national review board sought a balance that will keep such decisions in the hands of doctors, not lawyers or judges.

NEW YORK (AP) — After setting off a storm of criticism from abortion rights groups upset that a Democratic president had sided with social conservatives, the Obama administration said it will comply with a judge's order to allow girls of any age to buy emergency contraception without prescriptions.

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations refugee agency is talking to Germany about resettling up to 10,000 Syrian refugees, UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said on Tuesday. UNHCR was also working with other European governments to find ways to resettle some of the 1.6 million Syrians who have fled the country, a number the United Nations expects to reach 3.45 million by the end of 2013, Edwards said. The U.N. agency plans to hold a meeting on the subject with governments around the end of June in Geneva, but details and the participants were not yet known, he said. …

By Joseph Ax NEW YORK (Reuters) – Lawyers for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration will try to convince an appeals court on Tuesday to reinstate a ban on large sugary drinks, three months after a judge struck it down at the 11th hour as an illegal overreach of executive power. The law, one of Bloomberg's signature public health policies, would have barred sugary drinks larger than 16-ounces from businesses under the city health department's authority, including restaurants, movie theaters and other food-service establishments. …

By Jane Wardell and Jackie Range SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s Virtus Health Ltd became the first in-vitro fertilization company in the world to list, hitting the boards at a 7 percent premium to its offer price and sparking hope of renewed life in the country’s stalled initial public offering market. The float is the largest on the Australian exchange so far this year and the biggest private equity exit via an IPO since the disastrous $2 billion listing of department store company Myer Holdings Ltd in 2009. …