ULTIMATE PUNISHMENT?Jurors Find Jodi Arias Eligible for Death Penalty

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PHOENIX –  The same jury that convicted Jodi Arias of murder one week ago took about three hours Wednesday to determine that the former waitress is eligible for the death penalty in the stabbing and shooting death of her one-time lover in his bathroom five years ago.

The decision came after a day of testimony in the "aggravation" phase of the trial, during which prosecutor Juan Martinez hoped to prove the June 2008 killing was committed in an especially cruel and heinous manner.

Family members of victim Travis Alexander sobbed in the front row as Martinez took the jury through the killing one more time. He described how blood gushed from Alexander's chest, hands and throat as the motivational speaker and businessman stood at the sink in his master bathroom and looked into the mirror with Arias behind him.

"The last thing he saw before he lapsed into unconsciousness ... was that blade coming to his throat," Martinez said. "And the last thing he felt before he left this earth was pain."

The trial now moves into the final phase, in which prosecutors will call Alexander's family and other witnesses in an effort to convince the panel Arias should face the ultimate punishment. Arias' attorneys also will call witnesses, likely members of her family, in an attempt to gain sympathy from jurors so they give her life in prison. That phase is scheduled to start Thursday morning.

The aggravation phase played out in quick fashion, with only one prosecution witness and none for the defense. The most dramatic moments occurred when Martinez displayed photos of the bloody crime scene for the jury and paused in silence for two minutes to describe how long he said it took for Alexander to die at Arias' hands on June 4, 2008.

Arias, wearing a silky, cream-colored blouse, appeared to fight back tears most of the morning but showed little emotion when the decision was announced. Afterward she chatted with her attorneys.

Arias spent the weekend on suicide watch before being transferred back to an all-female jail where she will remain until sentencing.

Martinez told jurors Wednesday that Alexander "suffered immensely" at Arias' hands.

"She made sure she killed him by stabbing him over and over and over again," he said.

The defense didn't have much of a case given how many times Alexander was stabbed, the defensive wounds on his hands, the length of the attack, and the sheer amount of blood found at the scene. Defense lawyers said Alexander would have had so much adrenaline rushing through his body that he might not have felt much pain.

The only witness was the medical examiner who performed the autopsy and explained to jurors how Alexander did not die calmly and fought for his life as evidenced by the numerous defensive wounds on his body.

Minutes after her first-degree murder conviction last Wednesday, Arias granted an interview to Fox affiliate KSAZ, only adding to the circus-like environment surrounding the trial that has become a cable TV sensation with its graphic tales of sex, lies and violence.

"Longevity runs in my family, and I don't want to spend the rest of my natural life in one place," a tearful Arias said. "I believe death is the ultimate freedom, and I'd rather have my freedom as soon as I can get it."

However, Arias cannot choose the death penalty. It's up to the jury to recommend a sentence.

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy testified Wednesday that Alexander did not die calmly and fought for his life as evidenced by the numerous defensive wounds on his body.

Arias acknowledged killing Alexander on June 4, 2008, at his suburban Phoenix home. She initially denied any involvement then later blamed masked intruders. Two years after her arrest, she said it was self-defense when the victim attacked her after a day of sex.

She stabbed and slashed Alexander nearly 30 times, shot him in the forehead and slit his throat from ear to ear, leaving him nearly decapitated before she dragged his mutilated body into his shower, where friends found him about five days later.

Prosecutors said Arias planned the killing in a jealous rage, as Alexander wanted to end their affair and planned to take a trip to Mexico with another woman.

Testimony in Arias' trial began in early January. The jury reached its verdict after about 15 hours of deliberations over four days. All 12 jurors -- eight men and four women -- unanimously agreed the killing was premeditated.

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DEATH PENALTY?Ohio Kidnapping Suspect May Face Murder Charges

By Edmund DeMarche

Published May 09, 2013

FoxNews.com

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  Ariel Castro appears in a Cleveland courtroom where a judge set bail at $2 million each charge.Fox News

Ariel Castro, the man police say kidnapped and held captive three girls for over a decade, was arraigned inside Cleveland Municipal Court Thursday morning where the judge set bail at $2 million for each criminal count he faces.

Ariel Castro, who wore a navy blue jumpsuit and tucked in chin inside his collar at the hearing, did not speak and was read the charges of four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape.

Brian Murphy, the assistant prosecutor, said Ariel Castro kidnapped the three women to use them in a 'self-gratifying,' 'self-serving' way.

"Two of these victims endured this horrifying ordeal for over a decade, a third for close to a decade," he said. Murphy said the victims were bound, sexually assaulted and beaten. They were not allowed to leave the home, he said.

His brothers, who were initially arrested in connection with the investigation, were alongside him in the courtroom after spending four days in jail, but evidence did not support kidnapping charges against them.

Pedro Castro, one brother, pleaded no contest to an open container charge and Onil Castro had minor misdemeanors from 12 years ago dismissed.

Ariel Castro, 52, who lived in the downtown Cleveland area for 39 years, had no prior felony convictions and was living on unemployment payments.   

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'ULTIMATE FREEDOM': Jodi Arias Says She Prefers Death Penalty to Prison

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PHOENIX –  Jodi Arias was convicted of first-degree murder Wednesday in the gruesome killing of her one-time boyfriend in Arizona after a four-month trial that captured headlines with lurid tales of sex, lies, religion and a salacious relationship that ended in a blood bath.

Arias fought back tears, and family members of the victim wept and hugged each other as the verdict was announced in the hushed, packed courtroom.

Outside, a huge crowd that had gathered on the courthouse steps screamed, whistled and cheered the news in a case that has attracted fans from across the country who traveled to Phoenix to be close to the proceedings. Some chanted, "USA, USA, USA!"

The jury of eight men and four women took about 15 hours to reach its verdict after four months of testimony, including 18 days on the witness stand by the 32-year-old Arias. The jury will return to the courtroom Thursday to begin the next phase of the trial that could set the stage for her being sentenced to death.

Arias was charged with first-degree murder in the June 2008 death of Travis Alexander in his suburban Phoenix home. Authorities said she planned the attack in a jealous rage after being rejected by the victim while he pursued other women. Arias initially denied involvement then later blamed the killing on masked intruders. Two years after her arrest, she said it was self-defense.

Testimony began in early January, with Arias eventually spending 18 days on the witness stand. The trial quickly snowballed into a made-for-the-tabloids drama, garnering daily coverage from cable news networks and spawning a virtual cottage industry for talk shows, legal experts and even Arias, who used her notoriety to sell artwork she made in jail.

Jurors got the case Friday afternoon. They deliberated for two full days this week before reaching a decision late Wednesday morning. The verdict was announced at about 2 p.m. local time.

The trial will move into a phase during which prosecutors will argue the killing was committed in an especially cruel, heinous and depraved manner, called the "aggravation" phase. Both sides may call witnesses and show evidence during a mini trial of sorts. If the jury determines the killing was cruel, heinous and depraved, then another phase will begin to determine whether she should get the death penalty.

A mob of spectators gathered outside the courthouse to learn the verdict, while TV crews, media trucks and reporters lined nearby streets. Family and friends of Alexander wore blue ribbons and wristbands with the words "Justice For Travis."

Alexander suffered nearly 30 knife wounds, was shot in the forehead and had his throat slit before Arias dragged his body into his shower. He was found by friends about five days later.

Authorities said Alexander fought for his life as Arias attacked him in a blitz, but he soon grew too weak to defend himself.

"Mr. Alexander did not die calmly," prosecutor Juan Martinez told jurors in opening statements.

Arias said she recalled Alexander attacking her in a fury after a day of sex. She said Alexander came at her "like a linebacker," body-slamming her to the tile floor. She managed to wriggle free and ran into his closet to retrieve a gun he kept on a shelf. She said she fired in self-defense but had no memory of stabbing him.

She acknowledged trying to clean the scene of the killing, dumping the gun in the desert and working on an alibi to avoid suspicion. She said she was too scared and ashamed to tell the truth. However, none of Arias' allegations that Alexander had physically abused her in the months before his death, that he owned a gun and had sexual desires for young boys, were corroborated by witnesses or evidence during the trial. She acknowledged lying repeatedly before and after her arrest but insisted she was telling the truth in court.

Arias spent 18 days on the witness stand describing an abusive childhood, cheating boyfriends, dead-end jobs, a shocking sexual relationship with Alexander, and her contention that he had grown physically abusive.

Psychologist Richard Samuels testified for the defense that Arias suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociative amnesia, which explained why she couldn't recall much from the day of the killing. Another defense witness, psychotherapist Alyce LaViolette, concluded that Arias was a battered woman.

Their testimony would be crucial to convince jurors that, one, Arias wasn't lying about her memory gaps from the day of the killing, and two, that she did suffer physical abuse by Alexander. Defense attorneys had to get jurors to believe that despite no evidence of Alexander ever having been violent in the past, he had attacked Arias on several occasions, and did so again on the day of his death.

After all, there was no dispute that Arias killed Alexander.

It was the first thing Arias' defense acknowledged as the trial began.

"Jodi Arias killed Travis Alexander," Arias attorney Jennifer Willmott told jurors in opening statements. "There is no question about it. The million dollar question is what would have forced her to do it?"

Martinez worked feverishly to attack the credibility of the defense experts, accusing them of having sympathy for Arias and offering biased opinions.

He later called his own expert, clinical psychologist Janeen DeMarte, who told jurors Arias didn't suffer from PTSD or amnesia, and that she found no evidence that the defendant was a battered woman. Instead, DeMarte said Arias suffered from borderline personality disorder, showing signs of immaturity and an "unstable sense of identity."

People who suffer from such a disorder "have a terrified feeling of being abandoned by others," DeMarte told jurors.

The case had devolved into dueling expert witnesses.

Aside from her lies, Arias had another formidable obstacle to overcome.

Her grandparents had reported a .25-caliber handgun stolen from their Northern California home about a week before Alexander's death -- the same caliber used to shoot him -- but Arias insisted she didn't take it. Authorities believe she brought it with her to kill him. The coincidence of the same caliber gun stolen from the home also being used to shoot Alexander was never resolved. It would be left up to the jury to decide if it made sense.

Then there was Arias' account of Alexander's killing. She said she shot him first, but he kept coming, forcing her to grab a knife and defend herself.

However, Dr. Kevin Horn, a Maricopa County medical examiner, testified it would have been highly unlikely that Alexander could have sustained so many defensive wounds from the knife attack had he been shot in the head first. Horn said the gunshot would have rendered the victim incapable of fighting back.

Meanwhile, the entire case devolved into a circus-like spectacle attracting dozens of enthusiast each day to the courthouse as they lined up for a chance to score just a few open public seats in the gallery. One trial regular sold her spot in line to another person for $200. Both got reprimands from the court, and the money was returned.

Many people also gathered outside after trial for a chance to see Martinez, who had gained celebrity-like status for his firebrand tactics and unapologetically intimidating style of cross-examining defense witnesses.

The case grew into a worldwide sensation as thousands followed the trial via a live, unedited Web feed. Twitter filled with comments as spectators expressed their opinions on everything from Arias' wardrobe to Martinez's angry demeanor. For its fans, the Arias trial became a live daytime soap opera.

Adding to the spectacle, Arias sold drawings from jail throughout the trial on a website operated by a third party, said her mother, Sandra Arias. According to the site, some pieces were fetching more than a $1,000, and Sandra Arias said the money was being used to help pay for family expenses. Nothing prevented Arias from profiting from her notoriety given she hadn't been convicted of a crime.

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China reports another bird flu death, total now 8

Published April 09, 2013

Reuters

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  A New Taipei City Department of Environmental Protection worker sprays sterilising anti-H7N9 virus disinfectant around chicken stalls inside a market in New Taipei City April 8, 2013.Reuters

Another person died in China from a new strain of bird flu on Tuesday, state media said, bringing to eight the number of deaths from the H7N9 virus since it was confirmed in humans for the first time last month.

The 83-year-old victim, from the eastern province of Jiangsu, was admitted to hospital with a fever on March 20 and confirmed as having H7N9 on April 2, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The H7N9 strain has infected 24 people, all of them in eastern China, of whom eight have died.

The World Health Organization has praised China for mobilizing resources nationwide to combat the strain by culling thousands of birds and monitoring hundreds of people close to those infected.

Authorities have said there is no evidence of the H7N9 strain being transmitted between humans.

The bird flu outbreak has caused global concern and some Chinese internet users and newspapers have questioned why it took so long for the government to announce the new cases, especially as two of the victims fell ill in February.

Airline shares have fallen in Europe and in Hong Kong over fears that the virus could be lead to an epidemic like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which emerged in China in 2002 and killed about 10 percent of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.

Chinese authorities initially tried to cover up the SARS outbreak.

In the case of the H7N9 strain, authorities have said they needed time to identify the virus, with cases spread between eastern Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Anhui provinces as well as the business hub Shanghai.

Other strains of bird flu, such as H5N1, have been circulating for many years and can be transmitted from bird to bird, and bird to human, but not generally from human to human.

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BIAS ALERT: AP Bashes Thatcher, Favors Chavez in Death

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Even in death, conservatives can’t get an even break – especially from the Associated Press. Writer J.P. Freire caught the supposedly neutral news service bashing the late Margaret Thatcher in her obituary, while lionizing socialist nutball Hugo Chavez in his obit just one month earlier.

To AP, Britain’s first woman prime minister was an autocrat who “imposed her will,” by “breaking the unions,” until she was pushed out by a “mutiny.” “Love her or loathe her,” the obituary began. It was obvious which one AP chose. And all that in the first 70 words recalling her 11 years of service to Britain and the world.

Then there’s Hugo Chavez, who AP called a “fiery populist,” who “crusaded” and “championed.” AP didn’t even hint at Chavez’s controversial nature until the third paragraph and there they still softened the criticism. “He polarized Venezuelans with his confrontational and domineering style, yet was also a masterful communicator and strategist who tapped into Venezuelan nationalism to win broad support, particularly among the poor,” wrote AP.

Let’s not forget that Chavez was a man so nutty that even lefty “Saturday Night Live” parodied his funeral with Justin Timberlake playing Elton John performing a redone version of “Candle in the Wind.” Timberlake sang some fun memories of crazy Hugo, including how he traveled to the U.N. and called then-President George W. Bush “the devil” who smelled of “sulfur.”

But AP kept up with its tribute, calling him a “political survivor” and a “burly president [who] electrified crowds with his booming voice.” 

Buried in the seventh paragraph was this lovely nugget of Venezuela under Chavez: “Inflation soared and the homicide rate rose to among the highest in the world.” And this: “He insisted all the while that Venezuela remained a vibrant democracy and denied trying to restrict free speech. But some opponents faced criminal charges and were driven into exile.”

While AP wouldn’t call him a dictator, it was there, buried deep enough you would need an archaeologist to find it – all the way down in the thirty-second paragraph. “Chavez was re-elected in 2000 in an election called under a new constitution drafted by his allies.”

He was a dictator, but hey, he was “fiery!”

For Thatcher, AP chose a point-counterpoint approach, always careful to give critics their chance to bash.

“For admirers, Thatcher was a savior who rescued Britain from ruin and laid the groundwork for an extraordinary economic renaissance. For critics, she was a heartless tyrant who ushered in an era of greed that kicked the weak out onto the streets and let the rich become filthy rich.”

Even the first quote AP chose for comment on her death played up the controversy, not her many successes. "Let us not kid ourselves, she was a very divisive figure," AP quoted Bernard Ingham, “Thatcher's press secretary for her entire term.”

Then there was the time IRA terrorists tried to kill Thatcher. Only AP won’t call them "terrorists," they were “audacious” for trying to assassinate a world leader. “The IRA detonated a bomb in her hotel in Brighton during a party conference, killing and injuring senior government figures, but leaving the prime minister and her husband unharmed,” wrote AP.

Dan Gainor is the Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.

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China announces 2 new bird flu cases and 1 death, as worry grows over pandemic risk

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  Technicians carry out a test for the H7N9 bird flu virus using test reagents at the Beijing Center for Diseases Control and Prevention in Beijing.REUTERS/Stringer

China has found two more cases of a new strain of bird flu and one of the victims has died, state media said on Wednesday, bringing the number of cases to nine.

The new death comes as scientists struggle to identify the source of the virus H7N9 infection.  Many who have examined the genetics of the virus believe it could actually be spread silently between birds, without them showing any signs of symptoms.  However, officials do not know for sure if those infected with H7N9 actually contracted the virus from birds or any other animals.

So far, the Agriculture Ministry said it had yet to find any animals infected with H7N9, but added it was possible it had been brought to China by migratory birds.  If the virus is spread from birds to humans, scientists and other officials are worried about the potential for a H7N9 pandemic, as birds are difficult to contain.

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations said, however, there are many precautions they can take to stop the spread of the virus from birds to humans, if it is determined that is the way H7N9 is spreading.

“Although birds are not easily contained, we are able to separate species of birds,” Juan Lubroth, doctor and chief veterinary officer of FAO, told FoxNews.com.  “If we see the carriers are ducks, we separate ducks from chickens.  I the carriers are wildlife, we are able to change our rearing practices with nets so they won’t enter certain facilities.  There are things you can do. I can’t say it’s easy or free, but it’s an investment to protect people’s lives and commerce.”

The FAO has many projects up and running in China that analyze human-animal interface, to pick up novel pathogens in that may affect human health.  Lubroth said H7N9 is particularly worrisome because scientists have never seen the virus behave this way in humans before.

“Characterized as low pathogenicity in poultry, so that makes detection a little harder for veterinary services,” Lubroth said.  “We do not have what we had with H5N1, where chickens were dying off.  You don’t have that red flag, such as a dramatic event, which would trigger an owner to call veterinary services to see what is happening.”

A 38-year old cook became ill early last month while working in the province of Jiangsu, where five of the other cases were found. He died in hospital in Hangzhou city on March 27, the Xinhua news agency reported. Samples tested positive for the new H7N9 strain on Wednesday.

The second patient, also in Hangzhou, is a 67-year old who is under treatment. Xinhua said no connection between the two cases had been discovered, and no one in close contact with either patient had developed any flu-like symptoms.

Of the seven other cases of the new strain, two have died, both in the business hub of Shanghai The other five are in a critical condition in hospital in Nanjing.

Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou are all close to each other in eastern China.

The World Health Organization said on Monday that the first three cases had shown no evidence of human-to-human transmission, but that there were questions about the source of the infection and the mode of transmission.

One of the world's top flu experts, Ab Osterhaus, based at the Erasmus Medical Center in The Netherlands, is concerned about some of the sequence's genetic mutations.

"The virus has to a certain extent already adapted to mammalian species and to humans, so from that point of view it's worrisome," he told Reuters in a telephone interview. "Really we should keep a very close eye on this."

China has stepped up its alert level since the cases came to light and has said it is being transparent in dealing with the outbreak.

China has a checkered record when it comes to tackling bad news, which has been known to be covered up by officials fearing it may attract unwanted attention from superiors and damage promotion prospects.

In 2003, authorities initially tried to cover up an epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged in China and killed about a tenth of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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State health agencies check hundreds for rabies after transplant death

Public health agencies in five states are assessing the rabies risk for hundreds of people who may have had close contact with an infected organ donor and four transplant recipients, one of whom died, officials said Saturday.

About 200 medical workers, relatives and others were assessed for potential exposure in Maryland, where the man who received an infected kidney died, state veterinarian Katherine Feldman said. She said fewer than two dozen were urged to get the rabies vaccine as a preventive measure.

In Florida, about 90 people were identified as potentially exposed, and three were offered the rabies vaccine as of Friday, state health department spokeswoman Ashley Carr said.

Illinois Department of Public Health spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said the only potential exposures there were people who worked with the patient or the transplanted organ. She said only the organ recipient is receiving rabies treatment.

Health officials in Georgia and North Carolina are also involved in the epidemiological investigation prompted by the Maryland man's death from rabies in late February, nearly 18 months after he got the kidney from a donor in Pensacola, Fla. However, officials in those states didn't respond to requests from The Associated Press about the number of people they're assessing.

Doctors in Florida didn't test the 20-year-old donor for rabies before he died in September 2011. His heart, liver and other kidney went to recipients in Florida, Georgia and Illinois. They started getting the vaccine this month, and none has had rabies symptoms. A rabies expert unconnected to the case, Dr. Rodney Willoughby of Milwaukee, said they have a strong chance of surviving since they haven't shown any symptoms.

Health officials say the virus can be spread through the infected person's saliva and mucous membranes, but human-to-human transmission is rare. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta says there has been only one documented instance of transmission by a bite in the U.S.

Feldman said Friday that the search for potential exposure subjects in Maryland was wrapping up. She said medical workers typically take precautions, and "we don't share saliva with that many people in our day-to-day goings about."

CDC spokeswoman Melissa Dankel said investigators are still trying to learn how the transplant donor got infected with the raccoon rabies virus that was found in his brain tissue and that of the Maryland man. She said the donor was an outdoorsman who might have been bitten by a wild animal in his native North Carolina before moving to Florida and beginning training as an Air Force aviation mechanic 17 weeks before his death.

He visited a clinic at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in August 2011 for abdominal pain and vomiting and was transferred to a civilian hospital four days later, said Defense Department spokeswoman Cynthia Smith. He later developed encephalitis, a brain inflammation that can have a host of causes, including rabies, but he wasn't tested for the disease, CDC officials say.

Smith said the airman died of severe gastroenteritis — inflammation of the stomach and small intestine — complicated by dehydration, electrolyte abnormalities and seizure. The Florida Department of Health said he died of encephalitis of unknown origin.

Federal rules require organ banks to disclose any known or suspected infectious conditions that might be transmitted by donor organs. CDC officials say they don't know what information was communicated.

Federal guidelines published last year for evaluating organ donors with encephalitis urge "extreme caution" if the suspected cause is a viral pathogen, such as rabies.

Dr. Michael Green, a University of Pittsburgh professor who heads the committee that wrote the guidelines, said the guidelines hadn't been published when the Florida patient died. He also said rabies transmission through solid organ transplants is rare. There have been just two other documented instances worldwide — one in Germany and a 2004 U.S. case in which all four recipients died. The CDC says there have been eight documented instances of rabies being transmitted by transplanted corneas.

"Nonetheless, if asked whether or not I would use organs where concern for rabies was active in the potential donor, I would urge extreme caution before using organs from this person," Green said.

One of the patients who died in the 2004 case was 18-year-old Joshua Hightower, of Gilmer, Texas, after a kidney transplant. He had kidney problems since he was a child. His mother, Jennifer, said Saturday that if rabies is suspected in a transplant donor, doctors should go ahead and transplant the organs, and then give recipients the rabies vaccine.

"The word has got to get out there and something's got to change," she said. "These people, like my son, he thought the transplant was going to give him a new life and a new opportunity to move forward, and it killed him — over somebody's negligence and their plain old stupidity, and that's what it is."

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High-fat dairy may increase risk of death from breast cancer relapse

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After a patient has been diagnosed and treated with breast cancer, the types of food she consumes may have a significant impact on her long-term survival.

A new study has revealed women who consume higher rates of high-fat dairy products after a breast cancer diagnosis have a much greater chance of dying from recurrence of the disease years later.  The research, conducted by scientists at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., is published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The idea to examine breast cancer prognosis in relation to dairy consumption stems from the way milk and dairy are produced in Western culture.

“The way milk and dairy are produced in the western world, through breeding of cows and modification of feed, cows are able to give milk at the same time as being pregnant,” lead author Dr. Candyce Kroenke, staff scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, told FoxNews.com. “This leads to higher estrogen rates in the fats of the milk.”

Kroenke said while estrogen resides in the fats of milk regardless, pregnant cows have higher estrogen rates, therefore the milk they produce have much higher rates of estrogen stored in the fat.  In nature, pregnant cows are not capable of producing milk until after their calves are born.

While high-fat dairy products made in Western society are generally high in estrogen, dairy products in which the fat was removed – such as skim milk or 1 and 2 percent milk – had effectively lower estrogen levels.

For women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, higher amounts of estrogen in the body can trigger relapse of the disease.  Therefore, Kroenke and her team theorized that the more high-fat dairy a woman consumed, the higher her chances for breast cancer relapse – and ultimately death.

To test their hypothesis, the researchers followed a cohort of 1,893 women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer approximately two years prior to the beginning of the study.   Each participant was given a food-frequency questionnaire, and 1,513 were given a follow-up questionnaire six years later. Overall, the participants were followed for an average of 12 years.

In the questionnaire, the women were asked about their dairy intake – such as milk, yogurt, butter and cheese.  They were also asked what kinds of milk they consumed, whether it was high-fat, 1 or 2 percent, or non-fat.  With the answers of those questions, the researchers were able to categorize each woman into either a high-fat dairy group or a low-fat dairy group.

“In terms of total dairy intake, we didn’t find a strong association overall,” Kroenke said.  “But for women who consumed high levels of high-fat dairy, they had an elevated risk of breast cancer death and death from all causes, as well as non-breast cancer-related deaths.  For the non-breast cancer-related deaths, the women died primarily of cardiovascular disease.”

Of the sample of women, 349 had breast cancer recurrence and 372 died of any cause, 189 of them from breast cancer.  This translated to a 50 percent elevated risk of dying from breast cancer for women who consumed high-fat dairy.

With such a substantial association established, Kroenke noted a very clear take-away message from the research.

“Overall, one of the potential opportunities is to shift away from using high-fat dairy towards using lower fat dairy sources,” Kroenke said.  “Also, women with breast cancer can reduce their dairy intake, or people can shift to more plant-based milks.  Those are some of the recommendations.”

The study has the influence to potentially change dairy production in Western society, and we could return to a more natural process – more as a consequence of pregnancy rather than genetically designed to occur during pregnancy, Kroenke said.  However, she said this transformation will not occur until profit-gain is no longer the main priority of the dairy industry.

“Obviously in a different food environment, high-fat dairy may not be as much of an issue,” Kroenke said.

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Monster Beverage says no link between caffeine and teen girl's death

Monster Beverage Corp, facing concerns over the safety of its energy drinks, said on Monday that it has found no evidence that the death of a 14-year-old girl was caused by her drinking two Monster Energy drinks.

Monster was sued last year by the family of Maryland teenager Anais Fournier, who died after suffering from cardiac arrest her family says was related to her drinking two Monster Energy drinks on consecutive days. They sued Monster for failing to warn about the alleged dangers of the drink.

Following the suit, Monster hired a group of doctors to study whether the caffeine from the drinks contributed to her death.

The company said on Monday that its doctors found "no medical, scientific or factual evidence to support the Maryland Medical Examiner's report of 'caffeine toxicity,'" said Daniel Callahan, a lawyer for Monster. He said no blood tests were ever done to test her blood's caffeine levels.

Kevin Goldberg, a lawyer for the Fourniers, told Reuters there were other symptoms of caffeine toxicity, though he declined to elaborate.

"We have our experts and they have their experts," Goldberg said, adding that it was "not appropriate ... to litigate the case in the media."

The lawsuit said Fournier died from "cardiac arrhythmia due to caffeine toxicity" that complicated an existing heart valve condition related to a disorder called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

Monster's doctors said the most likely cause of Fournier's death was myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle. They said that would not have been exacerbated by caffeine.

Energy drinks are caffeinated beverages with aggressive-sounding names like Monster, Red Bull, Rockstar, AMP and Full Throttle. They are often associated with active or extreme sports, which makes them popular with young men.

In addition to the Fournier lawsuit, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in October that it was investigating reports of five deaths that might have been associated with Monster's namesake drink.

Monster shares were down 97 cents, or 1.9 percent at $49.69 on the Nasdaq.

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