 |
         
|
This light day of news saw all three networks file segments from feature series rather than covering breaking stories. CBS chose Forced to be Fit, in which Dean Reynolds told us about employers, faced with high healthcare coverage costs, who offer financial sticks and carrots to their workers. The municipal plan in Benton County Ark, for example, used to have a blanket annual deductible of $750 for each worker. Now it saves money by offering a $500 deductible to non-smokers with healthy blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels. Those not in shape have a $2,750 deductible instead.
NBC continued its corporate Green Is Universal effort with another Our Planet feature on renewable energy. Yesterday, Dawna Friesen showed us windmill farms for generating electricity. The next step is to apply the same principle to water, Anne Thompson told us: developing turbines to take power from the tide. She showed us one experimental system of buoys off the New Jersey shore that forms a floating power plant and a second that is built on the bed of tidal waterways, looking like "underwater windmills." A prototype from the Verdant Corporation is already in operation under New York City's East River--"the current was unexpectedly strong and broke the first two groups of turbines--and another is planned by Pacific Gas & Electric for the waters at the entrance of San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge.
ABC's Miracles of Life series shows us those hard medical cases that spark ethical debates. Yesterday, John McKenzie outlined advances that allow pregnant women, who happen to be diagnosed with breast cancer, to undergo treatment before giving birth, instead of having an abortion for fear that the chemotherapy would deform the fetus. Now John Donvan introduces us to the Hartman family of Florida. They used fertility treatments to produce more than 100 embryos in order to select a lucky one that happened to be a genetic match for a daughter who was fatally ill with anemia. The matching embryo was implanted and born as the girl's brother--and the blood in his umbilical cord was used for a transplant to save her life. The non-matching embryos "remain in deep freeze or were donated for research."
You must be logged in to this website to leave a comment. Please click here to log in so you can participate in the discussion.
