Daily Rounds: Just Eat Less; Genzyme Sale? Health Law Peril; Gates' Critics On Polio Push; Bacon Nation

Latest Dietary Guidelines Reinforce Need to Restrict Salt - NYTimes.com "This time, the government suggests that Americans also just eat less.
More specifically, the guidelines urge Americans to drink water instead of sugary drinks like soda, and it suggests that they avoid fatty foods like pizza, desserts and cheese (albeit deep in the report). "(nytimes.com)

Sanofi-Aventis increases its offer for Genzyme Corp. - The Boston Globe"The French drug maker's purchase of the state's largest biotech company could be sealed by next week."

Ezra Klein - Does health-care reform stop cold? "On page 75, Judge Vinson says that he thinks his decision is sufficient to stop implementation of the Affordable Care Act in the 26 states named in this suit. If he's right, it's not just implementation that stops. It's current benefits. That means the small businesses that are getting tax credits to buy their employees health-care insurance will stop getting those tax credits. It means young adults who went back on their parent's health-care plan after the law allowed kids up to age 26 to qualify as dependents might be kicked back off. It means the rebate checks being sent out to seniors in the Medicare donut hole will stop. It means insurance plans will no longer have to cover preventive care or be barred from rescinding coverage." (Ezra Klein)

Gates Calls for a Final Push to Eradicate Polio - NYTimes.com "Recently, Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, the influential British medical journal, said via Twitter that “Bill Gates’s obsession with polio is distorting priorities in other critical BMGF areas. Global health does not depend on polio eradication.” (The initials are for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.) And Arthur L. Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s bioethics center, who himself spent nine months in a hospital with polio as a child, said in an interview, “We ought to admit that the best we can achieve is control.”' (nytimes.com)

Why Bacon Is A Gateway To Meat For Vegetarians : Shots - Health News Blog : NPR "Because bacon is one- to two-thirds fat and also has lots of protein, it speaks to our evolutionary quest for calories, Lundstrom says. And since 90 percent of what we taste is really odor, bacon's aggressive smell delivers a powerful hit to our sense of how good it will taste. "There's an intimate connection between odor and emotion, and odor and memory," Lundstrom says. "When you pair that with the social atmosphere of weekend breakfast and hunger, bacon is in the perfect position to take advantage of how the brain is wired."' (npr.org)