health

We’re all feeling the pinch of this economic crisis. But some, like Carlene Balderrama, are having trouble dealing with mounting debt and financial despair.

Balderrama hid her pending foreclosure from her family, until authorities came to evict her. That’s when she shot herself in the chest, leaving behind a suicide note and an insurance policy.

And she’s not the only one.

Calm down! Steve Jobs is fine. A bogus report posted on the CNN community website iReport alleged that the CEO of Apple had had a heart attack. Apple’s stock took a hit, of course.

But it turned out that the claim wasn’t true, and the stock gained back most of the ground that it lost.

People have been questioning the increasingly thin and sickly Jobs for months now. But the famous CEO has assured everyone that though he has lost weight, his health has never been better.

NSRA is trying to put an end to the controversy. Everyone freaks out about radon in their granite countertops, so they are conducting a live test of radon in a counter-less kitchen followed by the same kitchen with granite counters. Check it out here.

A chemical explosion at the Bayer CropScience plant rocked West Virginia last night at around 9:25pm, killing one worker and injuring another.

Apparently, there was no sign of chemical exposure in the area, but residents could feel the explosion from miles away.

That’s the problem with biotech…if you’re drug’s no good, you’re kind of screwed.

Cell Genesys stopped a late-stage study today, after more people taking the drug died than did cancer patients in the control group. Yikes.

Investors went understandably postal: shares have fallen over 72 percent in recent trading.

The makers of Airborne tablets have agreed to pay 30 million dollars to settle a class-action lawsuit and charges that their germ-prevention is…well…useless.

We all kind of knew this was the case, but now we can’t even pretend. The placebo effect works sometimes, but not if there’s a settled lawsuit in the books.

Maybe they’ll start selling the fruit-flavored tablets as candy or a fun, fuzzy, effervescent…thing…you drink. Or maybe they’ll make something that actually works. Yeah…probably not.

Something spicy was cooking under Ms. Child’s apron.

The Office of Strategic Services, an early branch of the CIA, released the names of spies for Roosevelt during World War II. The list included Sterling Hayden (an actor in The Godfather), notable historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and, of course, Julia Child.

While Child was teaching us all how to be fat and happy, she was also spying for the US. Maybe her cooking contained messages…or maybe she poisoned people…who knows?

This is just a reminder that we can’t be sure of anything.

Robert Maheu, who basically ran Howard Hughes’ billion-dollar empire, died last night, at the age of 91. He led Hughes’ Las Vegas buying spree in the 60s and 70s, but never actually met the man (surprise, surprise).

Maheu met Hughes through his work with the CIA (which included the organization of the Castro assassination attempts).

Tysabri, a drug for multiple sclerosis patients, was reintroduced in 2006. It had been taken off the market for the same side effect that just cropped up again: a deadly brain infection.

Two new cases in Europe were all it took to send Biogen and Elan shares tumbling. This will definitely slow growth of the drug.

Elan just can’t catch a break: earlier this week, the company’s shares took a hit when a promising Alzheimer’s drug trial revealed that the drug caused brain swelling.

Someone’s going to make a killing on this one. It’s the exercise pill: the pill that helps you burn off calories just by sitting on the couch. It’s America’s dream. And it might just be in our grasp.

It works on mice, why can’t it work on humans?

Women have been donating their eggs more frequently, according to egg clinics. Of course, this is a convenient story that relies mostly on common sense as a source.

But hey, it makes a good story. Certainly sounds like a good option for some extra cash.

BMY has offered $4.5 billion for the shares of IMCL it doesn’t already own. That’s $60/share, a 29% premium on IMCL’s share price as of yesterday.

After the bid, of course, ImClone’s shares hit a 4-year high of 65, so there might be a higher offer in the future. IMCL must feel like a pretty, pretty princess.