Study Links Stroke Risk to Living Near Fast-Food Restaurants
PHILLIPS: For anybody who takes psoriasis drug Raptiva, some news that you need to know about now. The FDA is warning that the medication could cause a serious potential fatal brain infection known as PML. There have been three confirmed cases and a fourth possible case of Raptiva patients coming down with PML. Eighty percent of people who get it die. And the FDA says that it will take steps to make sure that patients are fully informed about the risk. Now, if you pass a lot of drive-throughs on your drive home, you'd better listen up. A new study links stroke risk to the number of fast-food places near your home. Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has more on this, with us now. Hey, Elizabeth.</s>ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, this is definitely an interesting study. What these folks did at the University of Michigan is they looked at a county in Texas, and they looked at who lives near a high-volume, high-capacity of fast-food restaurants. What they found is that folks who live near a lot of fast-food restaurants had a higher incidence of stroke. Now this is not the first time that it's been found that people who live near a lot of fast-food restaurants have more of a chance of getting a stroke or heart disease. In fact, in Los Angeles County last year, the city council decided to -- Los Angeles, rather, the city council decided to ban new construction in certain neighborhoods of fast-food restaurants, because they were concerned about people's health.</s>PHILLIPS: So what is the restaurant industry -- industry saying about this?</s>COHEN: The restaurant industry says that this is completely flawed, that the study is completely flawed. And I do want to make a few notes here. Because even the authors say that this is not proof that fast-food restaurants cause strokes. For example, it is possible that folks who lived in these areas have a lot of fast-food restaurants. Maybe they were lower socioeconomic standard kind of -- kind of areas, and perhaps they had a lot of people who didn't have health insurance. Perhaps a lot of people smoked. It's unclear whether it's really the fast-food restaurants that are doing the damage. So this is not one of these studies where you're like, "OK, this is definitely it. It's been proven." That's not the case here.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, come on. We all eat fast food -- fast food once in a while. So are there specific smart choices?</s>COHEN: There are some smart choices. What's nice is I remember doing these stories years ago. There were no smart choices. You went to a fast-food restaurant, you were going to get something with a lot of cholesterol in it. That is no longer the case. So let's take a look, for example, at McDonald's. When you go to McDonald's -- and here's the nutrition facts right on their Web site -- you can order a Big Mac and a small fries and get 770 calories and 40 grams of fat. You can make that choice. Or you could choose to have Asian Chicken Salad and yogurt and get 320 calories and 12 grams of fat. So it's your choice: 40 grams of fat, 12 grams of fat. You can make good choices. And they're pretty obvious. I mean, I don't think you need to be a nutritionist to know that, you know, yogurt is better than fries.</s>PHILLIPS: That's true, obviously (ph). But, you know, for many years we all thought Caesar salad was the way to go.</s>COHEN: That's true.</s>PHILLIPS: And then, you know, that dressing has 50 grams of fat!</s>COHEN: That's true, that's true. But all that information is now on the Internet, and often it's at the restaurants themselves. I know because whenever I go, I ask for it.</s>PHILLIPS: All right. Very good.</s>COHEN: OK.</s>PHILLIPS: Happy Meal now. We'll have lunch.</s>COHEN: Absolutely.</s>PHILLIPS: Thanks. One 11-year-old Alabama girl is fighting for her life today after police say that she drank a chemical from a bottle used to make meth.</s>DENISE KELLEY, MOTHER: You know, with the help of God and the prayers, my baby will live, but she'll never be the same. She'll never be the same.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, the girl's mother says that her daughter innocently drank from a soft-drink bottle. Liquid immediately burned her throat. Police say the liquid was hydrochloric acid linked to a meth lab located in a backyard trailer where a relative lived. Well, it's almost briefing time. And we're watching the White House for another lively session of a world of issues. We'll take it live when it happens.