Drugstores: Selling Prescription Information to Big Pharma?

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Here's the latest in health and health journalism news from Reporting on Health.

Patient Privacy: Are drugstore chains illegally selling your prescription information to pharmaceutical companies? Two lawsuits in California and Pennsylvania allege just that, James Ridgeway reports for Mother Jones.

Living Longer: We may be getting more obese by the minute, but overall, Americans are living slightly longer, according to new CDC data. Average life expectancy rose to 75.7 years for men and 80.6 percent years for women, Angela Haupt reports for U.S. News and World Report. Compare that to 1930, when life expectancy was 58 years for men and 62 for women.

Diabetes: As if people in earthquake-ravaged Japan didn't have enough to worry about, supplies and medicines for the nation's estimated 8 million diabetic patients are running short, Noriko Kitano reports for the diabetes site ASweetLife.org.

Paradox: The National Academies has released a new report on the obesity-hunger paradox, where some people who don't have enough food have a higher risk of being overweight or obese.

Food Safety: Major food companies are telling Congress they support food safety, but not a tax that would help pay for it, Dan Flynn reports for Food Safety News (which is supported by a law firm that files food safety actions on behalf of consumers).

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Photo credit: Fillmore Photography via Flickr