By MARCUS BARAM
September 25, 2008

As Hurricane Gustav loomed off the coast of Louisiana, thousands of impoverished people flocked into shelters, where some of them seemed unprepared to take care of their young children's basic needs, forgetting to bring along diapers or medicine.

That heartbreaking scenario inspired Louisiana Republican State Rep. John LaBruzzo to start thinking about ways to stem generational welfare, in which many welfare recipients have children who also end up dependent on government assistance, according to the representative.

His idea -- giving $1,000 to poor women to undergo reproductive sterilization by Fallopian tube ligation -- is stirring up controversy among some medical professionals, who say that the proposal is offensive and smacks of long-discredited eugenics programs.

LaBruzzo has also suggested other controversial ideas: paying poor men to get vasectomies and giving tax incentives for college-educated wealthy couples to have more children.
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By Judy Fortin
CNN Medical Correspondent

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A dozen old family photos were strewn across the table as Gary Neal picked them up one by one.

Gary Neal lost his son Harrison to a prescription drug overdose at age 17.

The attorney from Tulsa, Oklahoma, reminisced about his teenage son, Harrison, who died two years ago at the age of 17 after fatally mixing over-the-counter cold medication and someone else's prescription painkillers.

"There's nothing worse as a parent than to see your kid on a gurney being rolled out of your house ... and placed in a hearse," Neal, 61, lamented. "There's nothing worse than that."

Hoping to get the word out that in the wrong hands, prescription drugs can be deadly, Neal joined forces this year with the New York-based Partnership for a Drug-Free America. » Read More

By JACKIE BURRELL
Contra Costa Times

It's been a year since Pulitzer Prize-winning author Laura Sessions Stepp sent out shock waves with a book chronicling the so-called teen hook-up culture. Teen and college dating, said Stepp, has been replaced by the "hook-up," casual physical intimacy that spans kissing to intercourse, sans emotion or any kind of relationship.

To hear Stepp tell it, teen romance is dead.

But some teens and twentysomethings beg to differ. They may not call it "dating," but they still "go out," they say. And when it gets serious enough, they announce it online and become "Facebook official."

"People my age still do that thing where they 'go steady,'" says Andrea Nguyen, a recent graduate of Antioch High School in Antioch, Calif. "It's sweet to a sickening degree, sometimes, depending on who it is. I think it seems like teenagers aren't being monogamous anymore because of the way they act with each other, but a lot of times, friendliness is mistaken for intimacy."

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“I’ve heard in other schools that people have been sneaking drugs into their lockers,” Jake says.  He’s only ten years old, and he already knows kids who use drugs.

Experts say that today, children younger than ever are exposed to themes once reserved for adults: sex, violence, profanity - as well as drugs and alcohol.

“I think they’re pushed,” explains educator Kay Scott. “You know, pushed by music, pushed by movies, and pushed in some ways by the media.”

Experts add that parents aren’t teaching their elementary school-age kids about the dangers of alcohol.

As Dr. Michael Fishman, an addiction medicine specialist, explains, “Many of the parents are not getting involved as much with kids around education, around negative experiences they’ve had with drugs and alcohol.”

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Kate Benson

Australia's obesity epidemic is being blamed for a sharp rise in the number of boys and men developing anorexia as more teens get bullied for being overweight and become confused about healthy food guidelines, say eating disorders experts.

More than 7 million Australians are overweight or obese, but the Eating Disorders Foundation says it has had scores of calls a day from family and friends of boys who are starving themselves or bingeing and purging.

"Boys with eating disorders used to be so rare but everybody's insecure now," says the foundation's executive officer, Greta Kretchmer.

NSW Health statistics indicate about one in 10 adults and one in four children with anorexia are male, but Ms Kretchmer said the real numbers were much higher.

"There is increasing pressure from society and the media to look a certain way and they are getting conflicting messages about fat," she said. "We're getting a lot of boys who are into over-exercising and doing weird things with food such as increasing protein and eliminating carbohydrates.

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MELBOURNE: Scientists have discovered that going veggie could be bad for your brain-with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage.

Vegans and vegetarians are the most likely to be deficient because the best sources of the vitamin are meat, particularly liver, milk and fish. Vitamin B12 deficiency can also cause anaemia and inflammation of the nervous system. Yeast extracts are one of the few vegetarian foods which provide good levels of the vitamin.

The link was discovered by Oxford University scientists who used memory tests, physical checks and brain scans to examine 107 people between the ages of 61 and 87.

When the volunteers were retested five years later the medics found those with the lowest levels of vitamin B12 were also the most likely to have brain shrinkage. It confirms earlier research showing a link between brain atrophy and low levels of B12.

Brain scans of more than 1,800 people found that people who downed 14 drinks or more a week had 1.6% more brain shrinkage than teetotallers. Women in their seventies were the most at risk. » Read More

By ANGELA DELLI SANTI
Associated Press Writer

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- New Jersey's attorney general has slammed the brakes on plea bargains for teenagers ticketed for driving offenses.

Attorney General Anne Milgram issued a directive Wednesday barring municipal prosecutors from offering bargain-down deals to provisional drivers.

The directive is the first recommendation of Gov. Jon Corzine's Teen Driving Study Commission to be put into practice.

The commission determined that New Jersey's graduated driver's license program was being undermined when young drivers were allowed to plead down to lesser motor vehicle offenses carrying no points.

Drivers in the program who accumulate three or more points must complete a driver improvement program before being issued a nonprovisional license. » Read More

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Federal investigators said Sunday they plan to get the cell phone records of two teenagers and the engineer of a commuter train to determine whether text messages played a part in a collision that killed 25 peopleThe Metrolink train failed to stop for a red signal, triggering the Friday collision with a freight train, according to the commuter train's operators. In addition to the 25 fatalities, more than 130 passengers were injured.

Earlier, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office erroneously reported a 26th death.

A case file was added in error, said coroner's spokesman Craig Harvey, and discovered later during a review.

Authorities have said 24 bodies were recovered at the scene of the crash. The 25th person, who died at a hospital, was a man in his 50s. His name has not been released pending notification of relatives, Harvey said. » Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — The popular video-sharing site YouTube has moved to purge terrorists training films and other videos that extremist groups might use to attract new members, an imperfect process that will rely on users to report objectionable videos.

It's sort of like the post Sept. 11 advice — if you see something, say something. It's nearly impossible to vet every video when 13 hours of new video are uploaded every few minutes.

A quick search on Google-owned YouTube on Friday, one day after the new policies were posted, turned up several videos on how to make bombs using, for instance, such household items as toilet bowl cleaner and tin foil.

In addition to barring terror training videos, the new YouTube community guidelines include bans on videos that incite others to commit violent acts, videos on activities such as how to make bombs and footage of sniper attacks. Previously, it had policies in place against showing people "getting hurt, attacked or humiliated," banning even clips OK for TV news shows.

YouTube has not identified specific videos on its site that led to the change, nor said exactly how it will choose those that are purged. YouTube does not deny that extremist groups could have used the site. » Read More

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The powerful painkiller Oxycontin may be even more addictive for adolescents than it is for adults, new research in mice suggests.

Fewer U.S. teens are using illegal drugs, but the abuse of prescription drugs, such as Oxycontin (generic oxycodone) and Vicodin (generic hydrocodone) is rising, Dr. Mary Jeanne Kreek and colleagues from The Rockefeller University in New York City report.

The brain undergoes dramatic changes in adolescence, they add, and there is evidence that abusing opioids during this key developmental period may cause permanent brain alterations that increase the likelihood that a teen will be more vulnerable to addiction compared with those who first abuse this drugs as adults.

To better understand the brain chemistry and addiction risks involved in adolescent Oxycontin use, the researchers studied self-administration of the drug in 4-week-old, or "adolescent," mice and 10-week-old adults. » Read More