Along with billions of dollars, 900 babies would be saved each year if 90 percent of mothers in the United States fed their babies only breast milk for the first six months of their lives. The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, suggests that hundreds of deaths and more costly illnesses are caused each year from health problems that breastfeeding helps prevent, such as stomach viruses, ear infections, asthma, juvenile diabetes, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and childhood leukemia. Breast milk contains antibodies that help fight infections, affect insulin in the blood, and make babies less likely to develop obesity. A 2001 government report had previously said $3.6 billion could be saved each year if 50 percent of mothers breast-fed for six months. Currently, only 12 percent of mothers breast-feed for that long. The government’s new health-care overhaul requires large employers to provide private places for working mothers to pump breast milk, which experts hope will increase that percentage. At many hospitals newborns are offered formula even when their mothers intend to breast-feed.
Source: Associated Press
Three employees at Disneyland Paris have committed suicide since the start of this year, causing the resort to consider taking action to improve working conditions. Guy-Bruno Mboe, leader of a Disneyland union, blamed the latest two deaths on “brutal” working conditions which demand more productivity without increased compensation. On March 26, and 37-year-old father of four hanged himself on the day he was supposed to return to work after holidays and sick leave. Another Disneyland restaurant worker threw himself in front of a train five weeks earlier. In February, an employee committed suicide for what the company called “personal reasons,” and after one man was fired he threatened to kill himself in the theme park.
Source: Sunday Times (UK)
According to a new document, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld covered up the fact that hundreds of innocent men were sent to Guantanamo Bay prison camp because releasing them could have harmed the start of the war in Iraq and the War on Terror. The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former secretary of state, who signed a declaration in support of Adel Hassan, a Sudanese man who was held and tortured at Guantanamo Bay from March 2003 until December 2007—Hassan is filing a damages action against a list of American officials. Wilkerson claims that the former vice-president and defense secretary knew that the majority of the 742 detainees sent to Guantanamo in 2002 were innocent, but they felt if they were released “the detention efforts would be revealed as the incredibly confused operation that they were.” Wilkerson claims that the detainees were as young as 12 and as old as 93 and turned over by Afghans and Pakistanis for cash bounties up to $5,000. Wilkerson claims that Mr. Cheney felt it was acceptable if at least some genuine militants were captured which could prove a link to Saddam Hussein and 9/11 and justify the war.
Source: Times (UK)
