Busy week? Don’t worry. CBC’s Marketplace rounds up the consumer and health news you need.
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Energy failure
Well, this is alarming: A construction worker drank four energy drinks a day, and got acute hepatitis. Turns out, viruses aren’t the only thing that can cause the disease.
Liver specialists are calling it “a warning to the consumer.” Each drink contained 200 per cent of the recommended daily limit of niacin. Guess we’ll have another coffee then?
Piracy shakedown
Christine McMillan is 86 and, no, she doesn’t play Metro 2033, a post-apocalyptic video game.
She is one of likely thousands of Canadians who have received confusing copyright infringement notices demanding payment for illegal downloads.
But you don’t have to pay a piracy notice settlement — not even a penny. Here’s what you need to know.
Ontario senior Christine McMillan reacts to a video trailer for Metro 2033. (CBC)
Call a doctor like you call a cab
Think Uber, but for doctors. The British start-up GPDQ offers a smartphone app that can hail a house call within 90 minutes.
And there’s no reason there couldn’t be a similar service in Canada, says a health policy professor.
Back that up
The cameras are coming: Transport Canada says most new vehicles will have to have back-up cameras starting in 2018.
Back-up incidents killed 27 people and injured more than 1,500 from 2004 to 2009, and kids, the elderly and people with disabilities are especially vulnerable.
What else is going on?
Climate change is making some wine more expensive, which is totally not cool.
Some mortgage rates just went up.
There may be some transmission problems in these Ford models.
Facebook posts with bad information about Zika were way more popular than those based on good science.
On TV: Agents behaving badly
We took our hidden cameras inside the hot world of real estate, and documented some agents breaking the rules in an effort to double their commissions. With bidding wars cloaked in secrecy, how do you know your deal wasn’t already rigged?
Meanwhile, should we look at Australia’s weird system for some answers?
Watch the full investigation on TV and online.