Product Bans

UCLA's neuropsychiatric hospital has banned all cellphones and laptop computers after a patient posted group photos of other patients on a social networking website, officials confirmed Monday. Dr. Thomas Strouse, medical director of the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, said in a statement that the decision was part of "UCLA Health System's ongoing efforts to enhance patient privacy and confidentiality in compliance with California's patient rights law."

Chris Carpenter pitches for a team once owned by America's largest brewery in a stadium that shares its name with a brand of beer. But should Carpenter wish to toast any of his victories this season he'll have to wait until he leaves the ballpark. That's because the St. Louis Cardinals don't allow beer or other alcoholic beverages in their clubhouse. Same for the Colorado Rockies, who play at Coors Field, and the Milwaukee Brewers, who are not only named after beer makers but play in a stadium (Miller Park)

American doctors who treat people with insomnia say they are perplexed by the British government's decision last week to withdraw the popular sleeping drug Halcion from the market, citing a high risk of potentially dangerous side effects. According to several veteran sleep-disorder experts, the tales of violent behavior and paranoia that some patients have blamed on Halcion are not supported by American doctors' extensive experience in prescribing the drug or by clinical studies.

As she stood in a Dodgers Stadium parking lot, Terry Romero pointed to one of the hillsides that shape the urban panorama around the baseball park. "I sat up on that hill pregnant with my son," said Romero, 63 and trim in her Brooklyn Dodgers shirt -- a reminder of the provenance of the team before it moved to Los Angeles. "I've been here every opening day since they built this stadium." So of course, Romero, an administrative assistant who lives in Highland Park, was there Tuesday for the Dodgers' home opener.

David Snow didn't even want lawn darts when he went shopping last April. He wanted a volleyball set, but all the department store had was volleyball in a combo pack with two other games. Fine. He took it. The darts would stay in the box.

With a spray of rifle fire and a trail of blood, a deranged killer in Louisville, Ky., on Thursday vividly brought to life nightmarish images that are likely to rejuvenate efforts to broaden restrictions on assault weapons, activists on both sides of the issue agreed. Some compared its potential impact to that of shootings in Stockton, Calif.

The sale, manufacture and distribution of plastic foam products, such as insulated coffee cups, made with harmful chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) will be banned in Los Angeles starting next July 1, the City Council decided Tuesday. Without debate, the council approved a proposed ordinance sponsored by Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky last November. But the ban will not remove plastic foam products from use.

German drug company Schering may sue to force the Brazilian government to lift a ban on its products after some placebo birth-control pills used to test packaging methods found their way onto the market. Brazil banned the company from selling its products there after a birth-control mix-up left at least seven women pregnant. The ban follows a probe of Schering's Brazilian operations, which produced 13 million placebos that entered the market, health ministry officials said.

Medications banned or highly restricted in the United States because of severe, and sometimes fatal, side effects are being smuggled in from Mexico and peddled out of back-room shops across Southern California. These potentially dangerous drugs, which multinational pharmaceutical companies market in Mexico, where regulations and enforcement are less stringent, have shown up consistently in more than 70 raids over the last year of markets, dress shops and swap meets catering to Latino immigrants.

State health investigators staked out a warehouse early Friday, then placed an embargo on more than 8 million capsules and tablets of a weight-loss product called Cal-Ban 3000 that is suspected of causing intestinal obstructions. Officials from D&F Industries, a health-products manufacturer with offices in Anaheim and Orange, could not be reached for comment Friday.

State lawmakers adopted one of the nation's most far-reaching regulations of tobacco use Monday, approving a bill to outlaw smoking at 278 state parks and beaches. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not said publicly whether he will sign the measure, which would allow a fine of up to $100 for smoking at a state beach or in a designated section of a state park. Smoking would still be allowed in many parking lots and campgrounds. The state has previously banned smoking within 25 feet of a playground or sandbox area and in public buildings.

Los Angeles and Orange counties' sanitation districts have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that a voter-approved ban on dumping processed human waste in Kern County violates federal interstate commerce laws. The petition aims to abolish a ballot initiative overwhelmingly approved by Kern County voters in 2006 that makes it a misdemeanor to dump treated wastes known as biosolids on unincorporated county land. The ban effectively ending shipments of treated waste from Southern California.

Federal health officials announced Friday that they would reexamine a 27-year-old set of restrictions on blood donations by gay men. The restrictions, enacted in the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, impose a lifetime ban on men donating blood if they've had sex with another man at any time since 1977. In recent years, the American Red Cross, the American Assn. of Blood Banks and America's Blood Centers, which collectively represent almost all blood banks in the country, have recommended loosening the restrictions to allow men who have abstained from gay sex for one year to donate blood.

It started in the Green Zone, with Iraqi soldiers ordering restaurants to stop serving alcohol and confiscating bottles from politicians at checkpoints. Then, mysterious signs began appearing across the rest of Baghdad declaring alcohol sinful and warning of damnation for those who drink. Finally, the crackdown came. Phalanxes of soldiers and police officers descended on the nightclubs, cabarets and bars that had proliferated across the capital in the last two years and symbolized for many a return to normality.

The owner of a Claremont doughnut shop was indicted Tuesday on federal charges that he bought endangered-elephant ivory on EBay and smuggled it into the United States from Thailand three years ago. Moun Chau, 50, of Montclair was charged with conspiracy and the illegal importation of wildlife, according to the indictment, which cited violations of the Endangered Species Act and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The alleged smuggling was discovered in November 2006 when authorities found four African elephant tusks in a shipment purported to be toys.

The changing face of the Old Dominion can be seen in the stuff Jimmy Cirrito sweeps up off the floor of his bar every night. It used to be cigarette butts -- now it's gum. "I got Nicorette and Bubblicious and green and yellow and purple. It looks like a circus down there," said Cirrito, owner of Jimmy's Old Town Tavern in the northern Virginia suburb of Herndon, where patrons once smoked so much they burned holes in the curtains. Now they chew to fight the urge. It's been one month since Virginia became the first Southern state to ban smoking in bars and restaurants.

Doctors angry over the American Medical Assn.'s deal to lend its name to Sunbeam Corp. on Tuesday approved a ban on AMA endorsements of products the group doesn't produce. The organization's house of delegates also agreed to appoint a committee to investigate how the Sunbeam deal slipped through, apparently without approval from the board of trustees. "The AMA is against product endorsement, and this organization has made a move to make sure everyone knows that," said Dr.

A fight is brewing over the practice of feeding chicken feces and other poultry farm waste to cattle. A coalition of food and consumer groups that includes Consumers Union and the Center for Science in the Public Interest has asked the Food and Drug Administration to ban the practice. McDonald's Corp., the nation's largest restaurant user of beef, also wants the FDA to prohibit the feeding of so-called poultry litter to cattle. Members of the coalition are threatening to file a lawsuit or to push for federal legislation establishing such a ban if the FDA doesn't act to do so in the coming months.

A police advocacy group has criticized an appeals court judgment last week overturning a law that prevented violent felons from owning body armor, saying the ruling will put officers and the public in danger. The decade-old ban was enacted after the 1997 North Hollywood shootout, a confrontation between police and two heavily armored bank robbers that injured officers and civilians. The state Legislature passed the ban in 1998 as a measure to protect police. Thursday's ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles overturned the state law, saying it was unconstitutional because the definition of body armor was too vague.

The U.S. manufacturers of a toxic flame retardant commonly used in television sets have agreed to phase out production under a deal with federal regulators. The retardant, known as deca, is one of a class of chemical compounds that have been found in California residents at the highest levels in the country, a consequence of widespread exposure linked to the state's strict flammability standards for furniture. Deca is a polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE), a group of flame-retardant chemicals used in the manufacture of electronic equipment, furniture cushions, upholstery textiles, carpet backings, mattresses, cars, buses, aircraft and construction materials.