Daily Rounds: Loose Hospital Nukes; Suicide Advocate Dies; Canadian Docs Balk; Junk Food Hurts Sperm?

Hospitals with radioactive materials expose weakness in anti-terror rules - The New York Times - "Ten years into a campaign to make radioactive materials harder for terrorists to steal, Congressional auditors have found one hospital where cesium was kept in a padlocked room but the combination to the lock was written on the door frame and another where radioactive material was in a room with unsecured windows that looked out on a loading dock. In testimony prepared for delivery on Wednesday to a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee, an official from the Government Accountability Office plans to say that people with responsibility for security told the auditors that they were trained as physicists or radiation health technicians and were being told to enforce regulations “that they did not believe they were fully qualified to interpret.” (The New York Times)

Oregon physician behind death with dignity dies - AP - "A physician who campaigned for an Oregon state law that allows patients with terminal conditions to end their lives died Sunday after using lethal chemicals obtained under the initiative he championed. He was 83. Peter Goodwin died Sunday at his home surrounded by his family, said a spokesman for Compassion & Choices. an organization he helped launch. The group advocates laws that help terminal patients die, and supports patients and families facing the end of life. Goodwin was diagnosed in 2006 with a rare brain disorder, corticobasal ganglionic degeneration, that progressively robbed him of his movement." (AP)

B.C. anesthesiologists threaten to pull services - CBC - "A contract dispute involving a group of B.C. anesthesiologists has boiled over into name-calling between politicians and physicians. Health Minister Mike de Jong said Tuesday the B.C. Anesthesiologists' Society was trying to hold patients hostage with its threat to withdraw services for elective surgeries if its demands aren't met April 1. "I would characterize the threat as unprofessional and, in my view, unethical," de Jong told reporters in Victoria." (CBC)

Diet 'linked' to low sperm counts - BBC - "A study of 99 men attending a US fertility clinic found those eating junk food diets had poorer sperm quality. High intakes of omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish and plant oils, were associated with higher sperm concentration. More work is needed to confirm the findings, the researchers report in the journal Human Reproduction. The team, led by Prof Jill Attaman from Harvard Medical School in Boston, questioned men about their diet and analysed sperm samples over the course of four years." (BBC)