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July 17th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments,
compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
Annual Report Ranks Mass. General as Top
Hospital in U.S.
Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston knocked off long-time champion
Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to take this year’s title as top hospital in
the United States.
Hopkins was first for 21 consecutive years in the annual rankings by
U.S. News and World Report, the Associated Press said.
The first-place ranking is a “tribute to the more than 23,000” staff at
MGH, hospital president Dr. Peter Slavin said. The competition was not
with other hospitals, but rather with “disease, health care costs,
accessibility of services, and social issues,” Dr. David Torchiana,
chairman of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, said.
MGH is a 950-bed facility that admits about 48,000 patients a year and
delivers about 3,600 babies annually. The hospital was founded in 1811,
the AP reported.
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U.S. Produce Testing Program Faces Uncertain
Future
A produce-safety testing program operated by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture will continue for the rest of the year but then may shut down
due to lack of funding.
The Microbiology Data Program screens thousands of produce samples a
year and is the nation’s largest produce-safety testing program. It has
detected more than two dozen bacteria-contaminated samples that led to
recalls of produce such as lettuce and tomatoes, the Associated
Press reported.
Funding for the program — which cost $4.3 million to run last year —
was slashed in President Barack Obama‘s proposed budget earlier this year
and the House and Senate have not included money for it in their
agriculture spending bills.
In order to keep the program operating until the end of the year, the
USDA will use existing agreements with states.
Ending the program would leave the nation without a vital way to
investigate outbreaks of foodborne illness, food safety advocated and
public health officials say. The program could not easily be replaced by
more modest federal sampling programs or by companies’ internal tests,
according to Dr. Robert Tauxe, the top food-germ investigator at the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the AP reported.
Last year, contaminated fruits and vegetables caused nearly one-third
of major multistate foodborne illness outbreaks in the U.S., the CDC
says.
“It is unacceptable for this crucial, cost-effective program to be
eliminated,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., a longtime food safety
advocate, the AP reported. She said she would continue to push for
the program to keep operating beyond December.
In recent years, produce industry leaders have urged the federal
government to eliminate the USDA program and have said they want the
private sector to do more testing.
—–
California Sues Companies Over High Lead
Levels in Costume Jewelry
California is expected to file a lawsuit Tuesday against 16 companies
accused of selling and distributing costume jewelry containing dangerous
levels of lead.
State investigators found that some of the items from the retailers,
wholesalers, suppliers and distributors had lead levels more than 1,000
times the legal state limit, the Associated Press reported.
Along with being accused of violating lead safety standards, the state
alleges that the companies engaged in deceptive practices by falsely
advertising contaminated jewelry as lead-free.
The three-year investigation involved spot checks at stores and
factories in which inspectors used hand-held X-ray devices to check for
lead in items such as earrings, necklaces, tiaras and hair clips. Items
with a high lead content were then sent to a laboratory for detailed
analysis, the APreported.
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