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Today's Globe: food inspections, Alzheimer's clue, right-to-die law, Gunther Stent

E-mail | Print | Comments () Posted by Elizabeth Cooney June 23, 2008 06:43 AM

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As Boston health inspectors handed out violation notices at restaurants across the city, the sandwiches and salads dished up under their own noses at inspections headquarters and at City Hall were also being prepared in unsafe conditions, according to city records.

Researchers have uncovered a new clue to the cause of Alzheimer's disease in experiments that caused Alzheimer's symptoms in rats by injecting them with a particular form of beta-amyloid, a sticky protein that clutters the brains of people with the memory-robbing form of dementia.

A looming battle in Washington state over efforts to create a right-to-die law for the terminally ill is a personal one for two men leading it, both of whom are ill. Fighting for the measure is a former governor who wants the freedom to exercise such a right; fighting against it is a former press secretary who can't imagine anyone wanting to.

Gunther Stent, who helped pioneer the field of molecular biology as one of the first scientists to confirm the structure of DNA, has died. He was 84 and died June 12 of pneumonia at his home in Haverford, Pa., according to the University of California, Berkeley, where he served on the faculty for nearly 40 years.

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White Coat Notes covers the latest from the health care industry, hospitals, doctors offices, labs, insurers, and the corridors of government. Chelsea Conaboy previously covered health care for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Write her at cconaboy@boston.com. Follow her on Twitter: @cconaboy.

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