Angelina Jolie has healthy breasts removed

Actress Angelina Jolie has revealed that she has undergone a preventive double mastectomy to reduce her risk of cancer. Her mother died from cancer aged 56.

Angelina Jolie has revealed that she recently underwent a preventative double mastectomy.

The actress, whose mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died of ovarian cancer in 2007, was tested to see whether she carried the ‘faulty’ gene that increases a woman’s risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.

Double mastectomy: Angelina Jolie. Photo: Getty Images

“My doctors estimated that I had an 87 per cent risk of breast cancer and a 50 per cent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman,” Ms Jolie wrote in a op-ed piece published in The New York Times.

Advertisement

“Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimise the risk as much I could.”

Ms Jolie’s treatment began in February and finished on April 27, with the procedures remaining secret until the Oscar-winning actress chose to go public by penning a first-person piece on her decision for the Times.

“I am writing about it now because I hope that other women can benefit from my experience,” Ms Jolie, who is 37, wrote.

“Cancer is still a word that strikes fear into people’s hearts, producing a deep sense of powerlessness. But today it is possible to find out through a blood test whether you are highly susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer, and then take action.”

In her article, Ms Jolie detailed the various stages of the medical procedures involved with a mastectomy, including the major surgery, which she said “does feel like a scene out of a science-fiction film”.

“But days after surgery you can be back to a normal life,” she wrote.

Tests not covered by Medicare

Breast cancer is the most common cancer for women in Australia, with one in eight being diagnosed by the age of 85.

However, hereditary breast cancer is rarer than many people think, with only 5 to 10 per cent of cases occurring in women whose families have a gene fault.

A clinician at the hereditary cancer clinic at Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, Lesley Andrews, said in Australia the test for the mutations was not covered by Medicare.

“Genetic testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2 is individually funded by each hospital,” she said. “The criteria for women to be offered testing usually includes that there is at least a 10 per cent chance that a mutation will be identified.”

This usually meant a woman would have two or more relatives diagnosed with breast or ovarian cancer, with one aged younger than 40 when she developed the disease.

If a woman was not covered under the hospital policy she could pay for the test herself, which usually cost about $2500.

The head of the breast cancer risk management clinic at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Kelly-Anne Phillips, said about one in five Australian women found to have the breast cancer gene mutations went ahead with a preventative mastectomy.

“Having a risk-reducing mastectomy is the most effective way of reducing risk,” she said. “It can take her from an 80 per cent risk of breast cancer to a… lower risk than an average woman.”

Chief executive of Cancer Australia Helen Zorbas said outcomes from reconstructive breast surgery could be “extraordinary”, with no obvious outward signs when a woman was in clothing or swimwear.

She said most women who chose to have preventative surgery chose to have a reconstruction.

“However, women I have met who have chosen not to have reconstruction are equally happy with their decision in terms of their mastectomy because they have reduced their anxiety and concern about their risk of breast cancer,” she said.

Despite the mastectomies and subsequent breast reconstruction being a difficult process, Ms Jolie said she was pleased she had gone through with it.

“The decision to have a mastectomy was not easy. But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer…

“For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options. I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.”

Click here to read Angelina Jolie’s piece in full

Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/lifestyle/life/angelina-jolie-undergoes-double-mastectomy-to-reduce-breast-cancer-risk-20130514-2jjst.html#ixzz2TFvaqsYr

Robert MacPherson

Computer files to create a handgun almost entirely from parts made with a 3D printer have been posted online, alarming gun control advocates after it was successfully test-fired by its inventor.

The single-shot .380-caliber Liberator bears a vague resemblance to its namesake, the FP-45 Liberator pistol the US developed during World War II to be air-dropped to French Resistance fighters.

“Security checkpoints, background checks, and gun regulations will do little good if criminals can print plastic firearms at home. ”  US Congressman Steve Israel.

Computer-aided design (CAD) files for the Liberator appeared on the website of Defence Distributed, a non-profit group that promotes the open-source development of firearms using 3D printers.

 ”There’s a lot of work to be done”: Liberator inventor Cody Wilson tests the gun. Photo: Defence Distributed

“We’ll build the trigger first … Next, we’ll build the hammer subassembly … Next, drop the hammer into the frame …” reads the accompanying set of instructions, which come in English and Chinese.

“Finally slide the grip on the frame and insert the grip pin. Your Liberator is now ready to go!”

For the Liberator to conform with US firearms law, the instructions call for an inch-large chunk of steel to be sealed with epoxy glue in front of the trigger guard, so that the weapon can be spotted by metal detectors.

The Liberator. Photo: Defence Distributed

The only other non-plastic part is a tiny nail that acts as the firing pin.

Business magazine Forbes posted a video of the Liberator being remotely test-fired outside Austin, Texas last week, with a yellow string tied to the trigger of the toy-like white-and-blue handgun.

“The verdict: it worked,” Forbes reported, adding however that the Liberator exploded (“sending shards of white ABS plastic flying into the weeds”) when its inventor Cody Wilson attempted a second test using a rifle cartridge.

The Liberator. Photo: Defence Distributed

“I feel no sense of achievement,” the 25-year-old University of Texas law student toldForbes. “There’s a lot of work to be done.”

CAD files for gun parts have been available on the internet for some time, but the Liberator is apparently the first entire weapon ever to be fabricated almost exclusively with parts created with 3D printing technology.

Supporters of tougher gun laws in the US – where there are nearly as many guns (an estimated 300 million) as there are people (about 315 million) and more than 30,000 gun-related deaths every year – expressed alarm.

“Stomach-churning,” said Senator Charles Schumer of New York. “Now anyone – a terrorist, someone who is mentally ill, a spousal abuser, a felon – can essentially open a gun factory in their garage. It must be stopped.”

In the US House of Representatives, Congressman Steve Israel, also from New York, is sponsoring an Undetectable Firearms Modernisation Act to outlaw plastic home-made guns.

“Security checkpoints, background checks, and gun regulations will do little good if criminals can print plastic firearms at home and bring those firearms through metal detectors with no one the wiser,” he said.

No longer prohibitively expensive, 3D printers can now be bought for about the same price as a top-end laptop. Brooklyn-based MakerBot, for instance, markets its desktop Replicator 2 for $US2199 with delivery in a week.

After the December 2012 massacre of 20 children at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, MakerBot took down CAD files for semi-automatic rifle parts that gun enthusiasts had posted on its open-source 3D printing library.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/files-posted-online-to-print-working-gun-20130507-2j4bn.html

No nuts warning on bag of nuts.

Booths decided to pull its Whole Hearted Roasted Monkey Nuts from the aisles because its label does not declare it contains peanuts, MSN News reports. The firm has stores in Lancashire, Cumbria, Yorkshire, Cheshire and a recently-opened branch at MediaCityUK in Salford.

A spokesman for the company said, “Booths is withdrawing some batches of its Whole Hearted Roasted Monkey Nuts, because the presence of peanuts is not declared on the label. This makes the product unsuitable for anyone with an allergy to peanuts. Booths takes the accurate labelling very seriously, particularly surrounding issues on allergen advice. Our technical manager Waheed Hassan alerted the Food Standards Agency (FSA) about this labelling error immediately as well as posting notices in all Booths stores.”

Hassan added, “It is our responsibility as retailers to accurately record allergy advice, and in this instance we felt a responsibility to recall the product and issue a notice to our customers who might suffer from a specific peanut allergy.”

Customers with an allergy to peanuts are advised not to eat the nuts and return the bags to their nearest Booths store for a refund, says the company.

A FSA spokeswoman said, “The packaging does not state that the product contains peanuts, which is a specific allergen that’s listed in legislation. People who are allergic to peanuts may not be allergic to other types of nuts. Without the correct information on the packaging, people with an allergy to peanuts who might not know or make the connection between peanuts and monkey nuts, for example children, might eat the product and experience an adverse reaction.” daily times monitor

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20130428story_28-4-2013_pg9_1

A MICHIGAN judge whose smartphone disrupted a hearing in his own courtroom has held himself in contempt and paid $US25 ($24) for the infraction.

Judge Raymond Voet has a posted policy stating that electronic devices causing a disturbance during court sessions will result in the owner being cited with contempt, the Sentinel-Standard of Ionia and MLive.com reported.

On Friday afternoon, during a prosecutor’s closing argument as part of a jury trial, Judge Voet’s new smartphone began to emit sounds requesting phone voice commands.

“I’m guessing I bumped it. It started talking really loud, saying ‘I can’t understand you. Say something like Mom’,” he said.

Judge Voet has used a Blackberry mobile phone for years, and said he wasn’t as familiar with the operation of the new touchscreen, Windows-based phone.

“That’s an excuse, but I don’t take those excuses from anyone else. I set the bar high, because cellphones are a distraction and there is very serious business going on,” he said. “The courtroom is a special place in the community, and it needs more respect than that.”

Over the years, the judge has taken phones away from police officers, attorneys, witnesses, spectators and friends.

During a break in the trial, he held himself in contempt, fined himself and paid the fine.

“Judges are humans,” he said. “They’re not above the rules. I broke the rule and I have to live by it.”

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2013/04/16/377098_weird-news.html

GINA the chimp has a problem. She’s addicted to adult human porn.

Gina is addicted to porn

The first question you may have is how a chimp came to watch TV. That one is simple. A television set was installed in her enclosure at Seville Zoo.

But maybe the zoo regrets the decision now.

Primatologist Pablo Herreros told El Mundo: “‘To enliven Gina’s nights, officials decided to install a Freeview television, protected behind glass, and gave her a remote control so she could change the channels herself.

“In the early trials, her keepers visited Gina to check that everything was in order and she did not break the new toy.

“The surprise came when they found that within a few days, Gina was not only using the remote control perfectly well, but that she also chose the porn channel for entertainment, as many of us would have done.”

Maybe Gina needs to get out more.

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2013/01/15/370399_weird-news.html

ANIMAL welfare extremists want to ban the display of naked chickens in supermarkets.

They also protest against pictures of raw chickens in ads.

The American founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, president Ingrid Newkirk, criticised a newspaper for running a picture of a raw chicken. Other supporters expressed disgust at the sight of plucked chickens in supermarkets.

A PETA spokesman said the organisation wants everyone to go vegan.

“We don’t want to see any chickens on display, but instead want them to live natural, happy lives with their families.

“Sexily displaying the corpse of a chicken who has been bred to grow so big, so quickly, that many collapse under their own weight, is just additionally offensive.”

http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2013/02/07/558988_business-news.html

Justin Bieber performs at the Jingle Ball 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia in this Dec 12, 2012, file photo. Teen pop star Justin Bieber is taking heat on social media after the Anne Frank House reported he visited the Amsterdam museum and wrote in the guest book he hoped the young Holocaust victim would have been a “belieber,” the popular term for his fans, April 14, 2013. — FILE PHOTO: REUTERS

THE HAGUE (AFP) – Teen idol Justin Bieber faced withering criticism on Sunday after he visited the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam and wrote that he hoped the Jewish girl who died in a Nazi death camp would have been a fan.

The museum said on its Facebook page that Canadian singer Bieber, 19, had visited the Anne Frank House, where she and her family hid from the Nazis, for more than an hour “with his friends and guards.”

“Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber,” Bieber wrote in the guestbook after the visit, the museum said.

A belieber is a term used to describe one of the celebrity’s fanatical fans, most of whom are teen or pre-teen girls. Anne Frank’s diary is a moving account of her two years in hiding from the Nazis with her family in a secret annexe that is today a popular museum in central Amsterdam.

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/lifestyle/story/justin-bieber-hopes-anne-frank-would-have-been-belieber-20130415

Audrie Pott. Credit: AP Photo/Family photo provided by attorney Robert Allard

MARTHA MENDOZA | Associated Press, Yahoo!7

Eight days after allegedly being sexually assaulted while passed out at a party, and then humiliated by online photos of the assault, 15-year-old Audrie Pott posted on Facebook that her life was ruined, ‘worst day ever,’ and hanged herself.

For the next eight months, her family struggled to figure out what happened to their soccer loving, artistic, horse crazy daughter, whose gentle smile, long dark hair and shining eyes did not belie a struggling soul.

And then on Thursday, seven months after the tragedy, a Northern California sheriff’s office arrested three 16-year-old boys on charges of sexual battery.

“The family has been trying to understand why their loving daughter would have taken her life at such a young age and to make sure that those responsible would be held accountable,” said family attorney Robert Allard.

“After an extensive investigation that we have conducted on behalf of the family, there is no doubt in our minds that the victim, then only 15 years old, was savagely assaulted by her fellow high school students while she lay on a bed completely unconscious.”

Allard said students used cell phones to share photos of the attack, and that the images went viral.

Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Lt. Jose Cardoza said it arrested two of the teens at Saratoga High School and the third, a former Saratoga High student, at Christopher High School in Gilroy on Thursday. The names of the suspects were not released because they are minors.

Cardoza said the suspects were booked into juvenile hall and face two felonies and one misdemeanor each, all related to sexual battery that allegedly occurred at a Saratoga house party.

The lieutenant said the arrests were the result of information gathered by his agency’s Saratoga High School resource officers. He said the investigation is ongoing, and Los Gatos police also continue looking into the girl’s September suicide.

In tribute to Audrie: After her death, her parents set up the Audrie Pott foundation. Picture: Facebook/https://audriepottfoundation.com/

The Associated Press does not, as a rule, identify victims of sexual assault. But in this case, Pott’s family wanted her name and case known, Allard said. The family also provided a photo to the AP.

The girl’s family members did not comment and have requested privacy until a planned news conference Tuesday.

Her father and step-mother Lawrence and Lisa Pott, along with her mother Sheila Pott, have started the Audrie Pott Foundation (audriepottfoundation.com) to provide music and art scholarships and offer youth counseling and support.

The foundation website alludes to the teen’s struggles, but until now neither law enforcement, school officials nor family have discussed the sexual battery.

“She was compassionate about life, her friends, her family, and would never do anything to harm anyone,” the site says. “She was in the process of developing the ability to cope with the cruelty of this world but had not quite figured it all out.

“Ultimately, she had not yet acquired the antibiotics to deal with the challenges present for teens in today’s society.”

On the day Pott died, Saratoga High School principal Paul Robinson announced her death, stunning classmates. Two days later other students and staff wore her favorite colour, teal, in her honor.

Robinson wasn’t immediately available for comment Thursday.

The Pott family is not alone.

In Canada on Thursday, authorities said they are looking further into the case of a teenage girl who hanged herself Sunday after an alleged rape and months of bullying. A photo said to be of the 2011 assault on 17-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons was shared online.

No charges initially were filed against four teenage boys being investigated. But after an outcry, Nova Scotia’s justice minister appointed four government departments to look into Parsons’ case.

If you are concerned about the mental health of yourself or a loved one, seek support and information by calling Lifeline 13 11 14, Mensline 1300 789 978, or Kids Helpline 1800 551 800

http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/16698010/teens-arrested-assault-firls-suicide/

ISTANBUL (AFP) – The first woman ever to receive a uterus from a deceased donor, is two-weeks pregnant following a successful embryo transplant, her doctors said on Friday.
The 22-year-old Derya Sert was revealed to be almost two-weeks pregnant in preliminary results after in vitro fertilisation at Akdeniz University Hospital in Turkey’s southern province of Antalya, her doctor Mustafa Unal said in a written statement.
“She is doing just fine at the moment,” Unal said.

Sert was described as a “medical miracle” when she became the first woman in the world to have a successful womb transplant from a dead donor in August 2011 at the same Antalya hospital.

The groundbreaking news of her pregnancy will rekindle hopes for thousands of childless women across the world who are unable to bear their own babies.
Sert was born without a uterus, like one in every 5,000 women around the world, and her doctors waited 18 months before implanting the embryo to make sure the foreign organ was still functioning.

Hers was the second womb transplant to be performed in the world, the first being in Saudi Arabia in 2000 from a living donor, which failed after 99 days due to heavy clotting. Doctors had to remove the organ.

The baby is expected to be delivered via C-section and the uterus to be removed from Sert in the months following the birth to avoid further complications and the risk of rejection.

The young woman had started to menstruate after the transplant, which her doctors had said was an important signal that the womb was functional.
Experts however warn the pregnancy carries several health risks to the patient as well as to the baby, including birth defects due to the use of immunosuppressive drugs as well as preterm delivery.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/latest/a/-/latest/16707480/worlds-first-womb-transplant-woman-pregnant/

By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News Senior Media Reporter

An Argentine man who thought he bought a pair of poodles at an outdoor market in Buenos Aires brought them home to the vet only to be told they were actually ferrets on steroids, reports the Daily Mail.

The man, a retiree from Catamarca, purchased the animals at La Salada, Argentina’s largest bazaar.

The veterinarian informed him the ferrets “had been given steroids at birth to increase their size and then had some extra grooming to make their coats resemble a fluffy toy poodle,” the paper says, translating a report from a local Argentine TV station. He paid $150 per poodle.

Another woman interviewed by the station said she was tricked into thinking she had purchased a chihuahua at the same market.

It’s unclear what the duped pet owners did with their faux poodles. But if you’re thinking about buying a poodle at an Argentine market, the Daily Mail has a handy guide on how to tell whether the pooch you’re purchasing is actually a ferret:

• Ferrets typically have brown, white or mixed fur and are around 51 cm in length—which includes a 13 cm tail.
• They weigh around three pounds and have a lifespan of 7 to 10 years.
• When happy, ferrets may perform a routine known as the weasel war dance—which is characterized by a series of hops and frenzied attempts to bump into things.
• This is often accompanied by a soft clucking noise called dooking. When upset, ferrets make a hissing noise.
• Toy poodles are known for their intelligence and are around 25 cm tall and weigh around nine pounds.
• If a toy poodle exceeds 25 cm height, it cannot compete in any dog show as a toy poodle.
• Toy poodles have been known to live as long as 20 years.
• Toy poodles are described as sweet, cheerful, perky and lively, and they love to be around people.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/ferret-poodle-argentina-125901615.html