We're obligated to tell you that Mariana Bridi, the 20 year-old Brazilian model who had her hands and feet amputated over the past week, has died.

Listen up, Mary Rambin and all other poor suckers who believe that magical herbal detoxes, fasts, or colonics will somehow "cleanse" your system of "toxins": they don't, okay. So stop buying them. Jesus.

Caroline Kennedy has been telling people she pulled out of senate contention due to uncle Ted's deteriorating health. But that was apparently after she learned she wouldn't get the gig anyway.

"Why don’t you guys leave me alone?" Apple CEO Steve Jobs testily asked a Bloomberg reporter probing him about his health. Good luck with that: The Securities and Exchange Commission is asking, too.

Ted Kennedy's OK: "He's awake and answering questions from the doctors," the hospital says.

Reached by a Bloomberg reporter asking about his latest health scare, Apple CEO Steve Jobs finally snapped. "Why don't you guys leave me alone — why is this important?" It's an intriguing question.

In lieu of national health insurance coverage, America offers easy access to VitaminWater. If you're ailing, simply drink the proper dye-and-micronutrient-containing beverage, and you're good! But now some liberal "public interest" lawsuit threatens it all:

Neither Hollywood celebrities nor corporate trade groups are good sources of information on health issues. That doesn't make the National Fisheries Institute's response to Jeremy Piven any less interesting.

The wall of secrecy surrounding Steve Jobs's medical crisis is breaking down. Now that the Apple CEO has announced he's taking a six-month medical leave, his confidantes are speaking to the press. But which ones?

CNBC's website is reporting that Steve Jobs, Apple's heroic CEO, is taking a six-month leave of absence to deal with his declining health. It is the best thing for Jobs. And for Apple.

MacRumors, one of the many sites which cover Apple's annual Macworld product launches, has had its live coverage infiltrated, with someone adding the false news of Steve Jobs's death to the blow-by-blow reports.

Following an autopsy, the official story is now that John Travolta's son died from a seizure. Travolta's story is that his son had Kawasaki disease. It's quite possible neither is right.

If you just look at how thin he is, you'd know it. But now Steve Jobs himself has admitted that his declining health is keeping him from taking the Macworld stage tomorrow.

This is why access is overrated. CNBC believed Apple's official pronouncements on the health of Steve Jobs, the computer company's CEO. Gizmodo relied on gossiping insiders. Who do you reckon was right?

Is Steve Jobs dying? Larry Ellison thinks so — the prospect reportedly moved the Oracle CEO to tears. A Gizmodo source thinks his "health is rapidly declining." For Apple, it could be good news.

Celebrity scandal author and Scientology-infiltrator Ian Halperin is either on to the story of a lifetime or trying to shoot the moon, libel wise.

Steve Jobs is a famed perfectionist. The way word leaked out he wouldn't keynote at Macworld was anything but controlled, raising concerns that his health had taken an unexpected turn.

Since a scary-skinny Steve Jobs showed up last summer to launch a new iPhone, rumors about the Apple CEO's health have circulated. Now, the cancellation of his annual Macworld speech has spooked Wall Street.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, we suppose: Sneak celebrities' medical records to the National Enquirer, collect $4,700 and quietly go back to your day job knowing you helped a venerable journalistic institution uphold its mission of transparency and insight into the fraught conditions of Britney Spears, Farrah Fawcett and others. But that was then, and this — a guilty plea and a possible 10-year prison sentence for tabloid source Lawanda Jackson — is now.

Former First Lady Barbara Bush, who is 83 and has not looked a day over it since 1980, spent last night in a hospital because of "a little bit of pain." "For years," the Houston Chronicle writes, "Bush has been a sunny presence in American life, the sort of person who would make herself and others comfortable at your kitchen table." Sure, guys, whatever. Save it for when you actually have to come up with kind things to say about her. [Chron]