Authored by Nelson Lebo via The Automatic Earth blog,
“Our already horrendous suicide rate hit a new record high last year.” The news of New Zealand’s suicide rate did not surprise me when I heard it on the radio earlier this week. Anyone who pays attention to global trends could see this coming. “Psychotherapists say we need a wide-ranging review into the mental health system before there are more preventable deaths” reported Newstalk ZB.
A Supreme Court judge has ruled that a father must treat his 11-year-old daughter as a boy, at the request of the child. The father wants his daughter to cease taking hormone blockers, but the court ruled in favour of the child and its mother, saying the father must respect the wishes of the girl in becoming a boy at such a young age.
A new CDC report states that prescription painkillers are responsible for killing at least 40 American citizens every single day. Drugs such as OxyContin (oxycodone) and Vicodin (hydrocodone) were found to kill almost 15,000 Americans every year. Naturalnews.com reports: The numbers from the CDC report show that more people are now killed by opioid prescription drugs than they are by overdoses from both heroin and cocaine combined. These numbers match ones released as part of 2009 study conducted by physicians at St.
Under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), the government spent $2.4 billion creating 23 non-profit healthcare cooperatives which were intended to help drive down health insurance costs through competition with for-profit companies.
As we noted, insurance premiums have subsequently skyrocketed, 12 of the 23 co-ops lost so much money that they had to shut down, and the remaining 11 lost a combined $400 million last year. So far, so good on the Obamacare front.
Refugees escaping war and hardship in the Middle East who risked their lives and paid smugglers 1000’s of dollars to reach the safety of Europe, are now trying to swim their way back to Turkey. They are leaving behind asylum detention centers described by some as unfit for animals. Some migrants weary of deportation back to Turkey and an uncertain welcome by the authorities have pre-empted the process to avoid facing Turkish interrogation and detention.