Daily Briefing: New Facebook Option Sends Organ Donor Registrations Soaring

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Published on
May 2, 2012

Organ Donation: In yet another example of the power of social media, Facebook's decision to allow users to state their organ donor status on their profile pages and sign up to be a registered donor has resulted in tens of thousands of new registered donors in California and around the nation, Russell Goldman reports for ABC News.

Painkillers: The New York Times' Catherine Saint Louis reports on the quandary faced by emergency room doctors when patients report unbearable pain: are they faking because they're painkiller addicts?

Childhood Obesity: Also in the Times, columnist Mark Bittman explores why hunger and obesity prevention advocates are at odds over a New York City decision to stop expanding a school breakfast program that offers free breakfast to all students in some schools regardless of income. To stop kids from eating two breakfasts, will some kids have to go hungry?

AltMed: Outspoken vaccine advocate Dr. Paul Offit takes aim against the alternative medicine movement in an essay in today's JAMA, arguing that the federal government's alternative medicine research agency shouldn't be spending millions to test therapies that won't work, Karen Kaplan reports for the Los Angeles Times.

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