Utah lawmakers vote for abstinence-only sex education

(CNN) – When I was a senior in the late 1980s, my high school brought in a woman from Planned Parenthood to talk to my health class. I remember her because she had props – a condom and a banana. Utah may outlaw lessons like that one very soon. The state's legislature passed a bill mandating that when it comes to sex education, public schools must teach about abstinence, and almost nothing else.
If the bill is signed by Gov. Gary Herbert, Utah's teachers will not be allowed to inform students about contraceptives, "the intricacies of intercourse," homosexuality, or sexual activity outside of marriage. The bill says teachers would have to inform students that, "abstinence from all sexual activity before marriage and fidelity after marriage as the only sure methods for preventing certain communicable diseases." Teachers would still be allowed to provide instruction on male and female physiology and anatomy, as well as health issues like AIDS/HIV. The proposed law does allow schools one other option: not to teach anything about sex at all.

According to CNN affiliate KSL, the bill's sponsor, Utah state Rep. Bill Wright, said that he believes sex education shouldn't be taught in the classroom; he says that kind of instruction should take place in the home. Wright says he decided to change existing sex education laws after seeing instructional materials provided by Planned Parenthood that he viewed as inappropriate. The proposed bill mandates that Utah schools must use approved abstinence-only curriculum materials for sex education instruction.
The Utah Education Association – a teacher's union – and the Utah Parent Teacher Association are urging the governor to veto the bill. A state senator opposed to the bill said that schools need to teach young people about sex because parents might not address the topic at home. Critics of the bill point to a 2007 study of abstinence classes that found no difference in the abstinence rate between students who took the class and students who did not.
An online petition has garnered more than 35,000 signatures, asking the governor to veto the bill.
Current Utah law stresses abstinence, but teachers can currently provide contraceptive instruction. In addition, parents can decide whether their children will receive sex education. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, very few parents in Utah's largest school districts opt out of these kinds of lessons for their children.
The bill is on Herbert's desk, but there has been no indication yet whether the governor will sign or veto the bill. A spokeswoman for the governor's office said that he has received thousands of calls, e-mails and letters on both sides of the issue. The governor has said his decision will reflect the best policy for Utah, not necessarily public opinion.

sumber : http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com

A rare disease in the smallest of patients

 
 
(CNN) -- Haleigh Jacobs and her husband, David, have spent the last two months in the hospital, hovering over their 8-pound newborn, Brantley. He has yet to spend a day outside the incubator, smell fresh air or go home to meet his siblings.

Brantley's right leg juts out like a reddish brown lump of flesh that is thicker than his torso. His toes, indistinguishable from each other, look like dimples. The leg is studded with damaged blood vessels, veins and capillaries that look like raisins. Another lump protrudes from his abdomen.

"It is frustrating," his mother said. "For one, being a parent, you feel helpless, and then, you've got a baby that's hurting."

But this is an improvement from what Brantley has endured. He had a rectal tear that spontaneously gushed blood and fluids. That has been healing.

For families dealing with rare diseases, the road to a diagnosis is a long, winding one, riddled with confusion, complications and expenses. Although pop culture has left an impression that there is a genius doctor somewhere, like the fictional Dr. House who can identify and cure rare diseases, the reality is far different.

After the diagnosis, the lack of answers or effective treatment can be completely unsatisfying.

"Two-thirds of the people with rare diseases are children, because these are genetic diseases," said Mary Dunkle, the vice president for communications at the National Organization for Rare Disorders. "It's very often young parents with a new baby and they're very, very worried and very much in unfamiliar territory."

On December 28, the Jacobses, who are from Blanchard, Oklahoma, welcomed their second son. Brantley Lane Jacobs was born eight weeks early.

"I didn't get to see him," Haleigh Jacobs said, about after the birth. "But I saw his leg. It was hard not to see his leg. ... I started bawling."

Brantley weighed 4 pounds, 3 ounces. His leg weighed 1 pound.

Haleigh Jacobs cuddles her 2-month-old son, Brantley, who has severe medical problems.

The leg had puffed up because of a buildup of blood vessels, called hermangioma. The skin of his legs had stretched thin to encase the increasing swelling and had become fragile like a burn patient's. The leg required constant wrapping and moisturizing to prevent chapping and bleeding.

Jacobs had learned before giving birth there was something unusual about her third baby. Twenty-one weeks into her pregnancy, she and her husband went to get an ultrasound to find out whether the baby was a boy or a girl. The specialists noticed an unusual lump on the fetus.

When he was delivered, Brantley's physical state was perplexing.

The doctors were baffled, Jacobs said. The swelling on Brantley's leg kept growing. Every time Brantley was moved or his leg touched, he would wince or scream.

The hole near his rectum would bleed whenever someone tried to wipe him during a diaper change.

Brantley has never been breastfed, because he's too fragile. His mother gingerly feeds him with a bottle, worried that any jerks or sudden movements could bother his skin.

His doctors in Oklahoma called specialists and sent images and test results to other pediatricians and specialists around the country. Maybe, one of the doctor speculated, Brantley had Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome, a rare childhood genetic disease.

Another doctor suggested it could be CLOVES Syndrome, another rare vascular disease that causes malformations and has only been found in 80 people. Another doctor thought it could be a combination of both diseases, possibly a new condition.

There are almost 7,000 rare diseases in the United States, according to the National Organization for Rare Disorders.

The swelling in Brantley's leg increased after birth.

These tend to be complex diseases," said Dunkle. "It's really not in any way bashing the professional medical community. People have a hard time getting a diagnosis, it's obviously distressing and difficult for families and patients."

The parents wanted to find someone who could help their son. Haleigh Jacobs e-mailed doctors and worked with doctors in Oklahoma to get referrals to other hospitals.

In mid-February, Brantley was referred to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. Jacobs took a leave from her job as a dispatcher for the police department and so did her husband, who works for a company that locates and marks underground gas and electric lines.

Families are often encouraged to go to teaching hospitals on the theory that they will have a better chance there of interacting with medical professionals who may have seen something similar to their situations.

When Brantley arrived in Arkansas, the diagnosis was Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome, a rare disorder that appears in one in 100,000 children, said Dr. Gresham Richter, associate professor at the University of Arkansas for medical sciences.

Richter sees about 30 cases a year at the hospital. The way Brantley presented with the disease was so unusual Richter said he has only seen it in two other patients.

Some Klippel-Trenaunay patients have internal bleeding because of the malformation of blood vessels in organs such as the liver, heart, lungs and rectum. They usually have port wine marks on the skin and the growth of masses of blood vessels and varicose veins.

"It's usually a cutaneous birthmark that is red and inflamed. It becomes bigger and bigger," Richter said. "It usually does not appear at birth like Brantley's does. It's a rare form of KTS, and the one that is most dangerous because it grows very quickly."

The swelling in Brantley's leg is caused by accumulating lymphatic fluids collecting in his leg. The muscles, tendons and bones in Brantley's right leg are being infiltrated, Richter said.

There is no cure for the disease, which is often the case when dealing with rare diagnoses.

"The worst thing is to get a diagnosis and find out there's no treatment, no support group," Dunkle said. Sometimes that's how patient advocacy groups are formed, she added.

Although the appearance of Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome is shocking, Richter said patients can have a normal life expectancy.

Brantley will need laser surgery continually to remove the damaged blood vessels in his leg. The surgery does not address the underlying cause of the disease, which is believed to be genetic.

His leg will have to be amputated at some point, Richter said.

Brantley's parents are seeking a second opinion and another hospital as they contemplate their next step. They brought Brantley home for the first time this week. But the homecoming has been overshadowed by a looming medical decision.

"We have been going back and forth," she said. "Do we tell them to take the leg? Is he going to be mad at us when he gets older?"

Her husband added that when they first learned of the malformation during pregnancy, they were given two options: abort Brantley or give birth and see what happens.

"That was an easy decision on our part," he said. "This whole leg amputation, it has been left up to us. That's a tough decision because the decisions we have to make have nothing to do with us. It's for the betterment of him. Do we leave the leg and hope someone can fix it three or four years down the line?"

Fat In Diet Linked To Sperm Count

The amount and type of fat in men's diets may affect the quality and concentration of sperm in their semen, according to a new small US study whose results need to be corroborated by a larger trial before we can say for sure whether this finding stacks up. But the researchers say in the meantime men already have much to gain by reducing the amount of saturated fat in their diet: we know too much of it is linked to poor health, and now it may also signify poorer fertility.

The study, by Jill Attaman and colleagues, is published in the 14 March online issue of the journal Human Reproduction.

Attaman was a clinical and research fellow in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as an instructor in obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School when they did the study.

In their study, of 99 American men, Attaman and colleagues found that a high total fat intake was linked to a lower total sperm count and concentration.

They also found that the sperm of men whose diets contained more omega-3 polyunsaturated fats, the type of fat that is often present in fish and plant oils, was better formed than that of men who ate less of these healthier fats.

However, they are careful to point out this was just a small study, the first to look at links between specific dietary fats and male fertility, and the findings need to be considered in the light of several limitations. These include, for instance, that the data came from food frequency questionnaires and may have missed some foods the men consumed, and there was only one sperm sample per participant. Also, being of cross-sectional design, it can only suggest links, it can't say there is a cause and effect relationship.

Attaman and colleagues suggest more research should now be done to find out for sure what role different types of dietary fat play in male fertility.

But in the meantime, they can still take action, says Attaman, "if men make changes to their diets so as to reduce the amount of saturated fat they eat and increase their omega-3 intake, then this may not only improve their general health, but could improve their reproductive health too."

"At a global level, adopting these lifestyle modifications may improve general health, as high saturated fat diets are known to be a risk factor for a range of cardiovascular diseases; but, in addition, our research suggests that it could be beneficial for reproductive health worldwide," she added.

Previous studies have looked at links between Body Mass Index (BMI) and semen quality, but the findings are not clear. Even less is known about the potential effects of different types of dietary fat on semen quality, which is what prompted Attaman and colleagues to start investigating.

They invited men attending a fertility clinic to take part in the study. Between the end of 2006 and the fall of 2010, 99 men answered questions about their diet, and gave semen samples for sperm analysis. The researchers were also able to measure levels of fatty acids in sperm and seminal plasma in 23 of the participants.

When they analyzed the results, the researchers put the men in three groups, according to the amount of fat in their diet: at the top was the third who ate the most fat, and at the bottom was the third who ate the least.

They found that compared with those in the bottom third, the top third, who ate the most fat, had a 43% lower total sperm count and a 38% lower sperm concentration.

Total sperm count is the total number of sperm in one ejaculation of semen. Sperm concentration is the amount of sperm in a millilitre of semen.

The results also showed that the relationships between fat in the diet and semen quality appeared to be largely driven by intake of saturated fats.

Compared to the third whose diets contained the least amount of saturated fats, the men in the top third saturated fat intake had a 35% lower total sperm count and a 38% lower sperm concentration.

Attaman said:

"The magnitude of the association is quite dramatic and provides further support for the health efforts to limit consumption of saturated fat given their relation with other health outcomes such as cardiovascular disease."

Another measure that experts take into account when assessing male fertility is sperm morphology, or the shape of the sperm. Normal sperm have an oval head and a long tail. Abnormal shapes occur when the head is too big or misshapen or the tail is crooked or there are two of them. Such defects can affect the ability of the sperm to get into and fertilize the egg.

In this study, the researchers found that the third of men who had the most omega-3 fats in their diets had slightly more normal-shaped sperm than the third who ate the least.

In their discussion, Attaman and colleagues point out that 71% of the men in the study were overweight or obese, which can also affect semen quality. However they did adjust for the potential effect of BMI, and they also noted that 71% overweight or obese is not very different from the 74% in the general US male population.

They conclude:

"Given the limitations of the current study, in particular the fact that it is a cross-sectional analysis and that it is the first report of a relation between dietary fat and semen quality, it is essential that these findings be reproduced in future work."

"Further, studies with larger samples are now required to confirm these findings," they urge.

Written by Catharine Paddock PhD
Copyright: Medical News Today

Most women with cancer want a role in decisions

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - About two-thirds of women diagnosed with early stage breast cancer want to take part in making decisions about their treatment, according to a new survey of patients from five different countries.
Some of these women want complete control over making treatment choices while others want to share the decision with their doctor -- yet only a minority of them actually get the level of involvement they are hoping for.
"Physicians should be trying to elicit patient preferences," said Richard Brown, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Brown's team asked 683 women who were recently diagnosed with breast cancer what kind of role they would like to have in making decisions about their treatment: would they like to have total control, a shared role with their doctor, or have the doctor make the choices.
After the women met with their physicians, the researchers followed up to ask how their visit went and whether their preferences for how involved they would like to be in the future had changed.
Only 28 out of every 100 women initially wanted to delegate the decision to their doctor, but 46 out of every 100 reported that their doctor ended up making the decision.
"I think it's not so surprising that the actual decision making tended to be more doctor-directed than the patients wanted," said Dr. Michael Barry, president of the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making, who was not involved in this study.
"I think sometimes clinicians think most patients don't want to participate in decisions, particularly around serious things like cancer, and that's not the finding here or in previous studies," he told Reuters Health.
Among the 282 women who changed their preference after the consultation with their doctor, a little more than half of them shifted toward a greater involvement.
A third of them originally wanted their doctor to make the decision and later preferred to either share it or take control themselves, and one in five who originally wanted to share the decision later preferred to make the choice on their own.
When women had more involvement than they originally intended, they "were less conflicted over the decision, more satisfied with their ultimate decision, more satisfied with the consultation communication" than women who had less involvement, the authors write in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Barry said the findings make sense for women with early-stage breast cancer, because there are often multiple, effective options for treatment.
For instance, the risk of death might be the same if a woman has her breast removed compared to having her breast preserved, but one woman might prioritize keeping her breast and be more willing to go through the extra surgeries and radiation.
"When patients then understand there are multiple reasonable options for treatment of early stage breast cancer...usually you'll see more desire for participatory decision making," Barry said.
After they had the consultation with their doctor, about a third of the women in the study continued to want their physicians to have control over the decision.
"The preference to leave the decision to the physician is a perfectly reasonable decision to make," Brown told Reuters Health.
He and his colleagues note in the new report that they intend to pursue future studies of patients with other cancers, especially those with limited treatment options.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/xp9uLX Journal of Clinical Oncology, online February 6, 2012.

Does sex ed keep girls from becoming teen moms?

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In a new study, states with more comprehensive sex education programs had lower teen birth rates -- but the effect seemed to be due more to political, religious and social differences between those states than the sex ed itself.
That doesn't mean sex ed never helps prevent pregnancy, researchers said. But attitudes of family and friends, and whether teens have access to contraception and family planning services, might be just as important to putting a dent in the number of new teen moms.
"Although the teen birth rates and teen pregnancy rates are dropping year after year... we still have disparities between states, and we have higher teen birth and teen pregnancy rates when we're compared to other industrialized countries," said Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, from Washington University in St. Louis, who worked on the study.
Researchers said there have been mixed results when it comes to whether a comprehensive sex ed program, which teaches contraceptive use and HIV prevention, does prevent teen births.
Whether school programs should include anything other than abstinence-only education has also been the topic of political battles in some parts of the country.
To get a big-picture take on sex ed's effectiveness, Cavazos-Rehg and her colleagues compared curriculums in 24 states with birth rates for girls ages 15 to 17 in those states between 1997 and 2005.
They found wide variation over the study period, from one birth in every 100 New Hampshire girls each year to three or four births for every 100 Arkansas girls.
In general, the more districts in a state that covered how to use a condom, how to prevent HIV and other sex ed topics, the fewer teen births there were, the researchers report in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
But when they took into account race, poverty and crime levels in states, much of the link disappeared: poorer states with more minorities and more crime had less sex ed and more teen births. And when "religiosity" and laws on abortion were thrown into the mix, sex ed programs themselves no longer predicted birth rates.
Researchers said that there are a number of ways to interpret the findings -- but none of them suggest teens can't learn from sex ed.
First, conservative and religious states might teach sex ed in a less effective way than liberal ones -- meaning more teens in those states end up pregnant.
"There can be enormous variation between what goes on in one state and what goes on in another state even if they both indicate that they discuss how to use a condom or pregnancy prevention," said Amy Bleakley, who studies teen sexual behavior and reproductive health at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Or, it could be that teen pregnancy rates are more similar between states, but in places with liberal abortion laws, more adolescent girls end their pregnancies early.
Cavazos-Rehg said that abortions may account for some of the difference in birth rates, but not all of it. Although data on pregnancy rates are less comprehensive, she said, her own research has still shown much higher teen pregnancy rates in Arkansas and Mississippi, for example, than in New England.
Regardless of what teens are taught in school, whether they can easily get condoms and have their parents' support for "healthy sexual decision-making" may depend on state politics and social factors, Marla Eisenberg, an adolescent health and medicine researcher at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, told Reuters Health in an email.
"In short, school-based sex ed is only one part of a much larger puzzle of influences on adolescent sexual behavior, and as the authors conclude, the demographic, religious and political environment matters a lot," added Eisenberg, who didn't participate in the new research.
Still, sex ed can be improved, the experts agreed.
To prevent teen pregnancies, kids in sex ed need to be taught more than just how to use a condom, but the consequences of getting pregnant and having a baby, according to Cavazos-Rehg.
Bleakley, who also wasn't involved in the new study, called for better standards regarding what goes into a comprehensive sex ed program, and better training of instructors across states, to erase any disparities that could be tied to the religious and political environment in a given area.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/AquJBE Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, online February 6, 2012.

Chavez home in a week, facing more cancer therapy

 

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday he will be home from Cuba in a week and start radiation therapy for cancer that could leave him weakened ahead of his re-election bid on October 7.
Chatting for more than two hours in a televised address from Havana, where he is recovering from a third surgery to treat cancer in his pelvic area, Chavez seemed eager to show he is fully in command of the government despite his illness.
Flanked by some of his cabinet ministers at the head of a long table, he laughed and sang songs in an apparent effort to squelch rumors he has a life-threatening condition like a spreading cancer.
"Today we are in the thirteenth day post-operation, with completely normal vital signs, a good general state of health and with no complications, good scarring, daily monitoring, rehabilitation and long walks," he said, reading off a document with details about his cancer treatment.
"In the coming weeks we will start the already announced phase of radiation therapy," Chavez said wearing a windbreaker with the colors of the Venezuelan flag.
During his recovery he said he was reading many books, quoting from a thick volume by Marxist philosopher Istvan Meszaros.
Since arriving in Cuba on February 24, Chavez has been firing off tweets, meeting with foreign leaders and phoning state TV, in what could be preparation for a triumphant homecoming.
"God willing, next Sunday afternoon I will be in Caracas," the 57-year-old leader said at the end of the pre-recorded broadcast.
In June he made an emotional return from his first round of surgery in Cuba, surprising the country with an unannounced dawn arrival in Venezuela and shortly thereafter waved to tearful supporters from a balcony at the presidential palace.
This homecoming will likely be less dramatic.
Last month he contradicted his own upbeat assurances that he was "completely cured," announcing he would once again have to go under the knife to remove a reappearance of the cancer in the same pelvic area.
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS, TOUGH CAMPAIGN
Chavez linked up via satellite with his vice president and other ministers back in Venezuela presiding over the inaugurations of government projects, like a chicken farm jointly owned with an Argentine company.
He approved the issue of a bond in local currency for some $2.325 million due between 2015 and 2017 to spend in the agricultural sector with the participation of a government fund and state oil company PDVSA.
According to analysts, those bonds will be bought by local banks to replace government-mandated quotas of agriculture sector loans, which banks have been struggling to meet.
Venezuela's leftist government is on a massive spending push, funded by oil dollars from the coffers of South America's largest crude exporter, to win over poor voters with popular welfare programs, including job training and new housing units.
The side effects from radiation may slow down Chavez's gregarious on-the-street campaigning style - where he is known to meet with recipients of the state's largess in person - just as he faces a formidable race against 39-year old opposition candidate Henrique Capriles.
He may instead have to fall back on "virtual campaigning" through frequent Twitter posts, pre-recorded televised speeches and phone calls to state television.
Little is known about what kind of cancer the president has or how serious it is, but medical experts say the radiation treatment could take a heavy physical toll.
Capriles, a former state governor, won a strong mandate in a primary election last month and is expected to contrast his energetic and youthful image with Chavez's convalescence.
Opinion polls show Chavez, in power since 1999 and omnipresent in the media, still has the edge over Capriles in voter enthusiasm, although roughly a third of the electorate is still undecided.
With no clear successor to carry on Chavez's "21st Century revolution," Venezuelans will be closely watching for signs he has the strength to run a campaign and rule for another six-year term after 13 years in power.

Study prompts call for wider ban on metal hips

LONDON (Reuters) - New research confirmed that all-metal artificial hips fail more often than other types, fueling concerns about the devices and prompting a call from researchers on Tuesday for a ban.
The analysis in The Lancet medical journal came two weeks after Britain's medical regulator said nearly 50,000 Britons with metal-on-metal hips needed annual check-ups to monitor for problems, including exposure to toxic metals.
The finding will likely fuel criticism about the regulation of medical devices in the wake of a scandal over French-made breast implants and past problems with other implantable devices, including faulty leads on some heart defibrillators.
Metal-on-metal hips were developed to be more durable than traditional implants, which combine a ceramic or metal ball with a plastic socket.
But recent experience suggests they may actually do worse, prompting the recall of one device made by Johnson & Johnson that critics argue should never have been allowed on the market.
Results from the most comprehensive study to date now show that there is a 6.2 percent chance patients with all-metal hips will need a replacement within five years -- some three times greater than the revision rate seen with older implants.
The rate was particularly high with larger-head implants and those used in women, in whom failure rates were up to four times higher, the researchers said.
The team from the University of Bristol analyzed data from the National Joint Registry of England and Wales covering more than 400,000 hips replacements, including 31,171 all-metal ones, that were undertaken between 2003 and 2011.
The results, they said, were unequivocal: "Metal-on-metal stemmed articulations give poor implant survival compared with other options and should not be implanted."
Their analysis did not cover resurfacing systems, which avoid the use of a stem sticking into the bone, such as Smith & Nephew's Birmingham Hip Resurfacing joints.
TIGHTER REGULATION
In recent years, the use of metal-on-metal implants has declined in Britain, but they are still used extensively around the world, including in the United States.
Art Sedrakyan of Cornell University said the problem highlighted weaknesses in the regulatory systems on both sides of the Atlantic due to "outdated and low-threshold regulatory pathways".
In a strongly worded Lancet commentary accompanying the latest research, he called for better studies before implants reach the market.
"We are left with more than 500,000 patients with metal-on-metal prostheses in the USA and more than 40,000 in the UK who are at elevated risk of device failure, which will inevitably result in the burden of further surgical treatment as well as billions of dollars in costs to taxpayers," he said.
Ashley Blom of the University of Bristol said that total hip replacement surgery remained a very successful operation for the vast majority of people but regulators should learn lessons as they seek to balance safety against innovation.
"In this case, with the benefit of hindsight, I think that tighter regulation may have prevented this," he told Reuters.
Under the new guidelines from Britain's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), doctors are being advised to consider removing and replacing implants if patients have abnormal MRI scans or if metal ion levels in the blood reach worrying levels.
With the exception of J&J's DePuy ASR system, which was pulled from the market in 2010, the MHRA decided in its recent ruling against a ban on use, arguing that stemmed metal-on-metal implants could still be good news for some patients.
Other companies that make metal-on-metal hip implants include Zimmer, Stryker, Corin and Biomet.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/ykNRa6 and http://bit.ly/yD8X4d The Lancet, online March 13, 2012.

Sumber : http://www.healthnews.com

Coke, Pepsi to alter caramel color ingredient

(Reuters) - Coca-Cola Co and PepsiCo Inc are making changes to the production of an ingredient in their namesake colas to avoid the need to label the packages with a cancer warning.
The changes will not alter the colas' taste, color or formula, according to statements from both companies.
Coke and Pepsi said on Friday that they had asked their suppliers of the caramel coloring in their colas to alter their manufacturing process to meet the requirements of a California ballot initiative aiming to limit exposure to toxic chemicals.
The change is meant to reduce the amount of a chemical called 4-methylimidazole, or 4-MI, which in January was added to the list of chemicals covered by California's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, also known as Proposition 65.
High levels of that chemical have been linked to cancer in animals.
Earlier this week, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a U.S. watchdog group, said it found unsafe levels of the chemical in cans of Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc's Dr Pepper and Whole Foods Markets Inc's 365 Cola.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said at the time it was reviewing the group's petition but stressed that the drinks were still safe.
An FDA spokesman said a person would have to drink "well over a thousand cans of soda a day to reach the doses administered in the studies that have shown links to cancer in rodents".

Sumber :  http://www.healthnews.com