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Daily Rounds: Health Board Pay; 1 In 7 Disabled; Germans Blame Sprouts; Arthritis From High Heels

Health board pay ban could affect charities - The Boston Globe Legislation aimed at preventing Massachusetts nonprofit health insurers from paying their board members could also end compensation for directors at other major charitable organizations. At least eight of the 50 largest nonprofit foundations in Massachusetts compensate their directors, in some cases as much or more than health insurers, according to a Globe review of annual filings with the Internal Revenue Service. (boston.com)

Nearly 1 In 7 People On Earth Is Disabled, Survey Finds : Shots - Health Blog : NPR More than 1 billion people in the world are living with some sort of disability, according to a new international survey. That's about 15 percent of the world's population, or nearly one of every 7 people. The numbers come from a joint effort by the World Health Organization and the World Bank. The last time anyone tried to figure out the prevalence of disabilities was back in the 1970s, when WHO figured it was about 10 percent. (npr.org)

Germany Concludes E. Coli Tainted Bean Sprouts - NYTimes.com BERLIN — After days of confusion, German authorities finally concluded on Friday that an E. coli infection, which has claimed at least 29 lives, unsettled the nation and thrown European agriculture into disarray, had been caused by contaminated bean sprouts and not, as first was feared, by other produce. But, at a news conference here, Reinhard Burger, the head of the Robert Koch Institute — the country’s disease control agency — said the outbreak was “not yet over” because “there will be new cases coming up.” No harmful bacteria had been found in any samples, he said. But from the pattern of the outbreak, “it was possible to narrow down epidemiologically the cause of the outbreak of the illness to the consumption of sprouts.”    (nytimes.com) BBC News - Arthritis warning to women who wear high heels Women who wear high heels or badly-fitting trainers could be putting themselves at risk of arthritis, experts are warning. The Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists said the UK could be facing an "arthritis crisis" due to increasing levels of obesity and poor footwear. A poll of 2,000 people for the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists found that a quarter of women wear high heels every day or "frequently".

Health care spending: Corporations profit from waste - baltimoresun.com
Health care costs cannot rise year after year by 2.4 percent more than the overall economy. Unless the citizens of the United States organize independently of the political parties and demand an end to corporate waste of $1 trillion per year (and growing), we will see some combination of more people with no health insurance, a major deterioration of the quality of care, and a decline in the health of the population. (Baltimore Sun)

Study finds why smokers gain weight when they quit - USATODAY.com Scientists say they've finally discovered why smokers tend to gain some weight when they kick the habit. It turns out that nicotine can rev up brain cells that normally signal people to stop eating when they're full, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
(yourlife.usatoday.com)

This program aired on June 10, 2011. The audio for this program is not available.

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