Purifimax promises to wash the liver, improve digestion, balance metabolism, clean toxins in the blood and facilitate weight loss. It comes in a reassuring white and blue bottle of 60 pills for about 500 pesos. But starting February 17, Purifimax and other miracle products will no longer be able to make such claims in their marketing. According to a new law signed by President Felipe Calderon, the Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks (COFEPRIS) will have the power to shut down any advertising campaign for products making such sensational claims.

World Aids Day will be marked on Thursday, December 1 at a time when rates of HIV infection and AIDS-related deaths are at their lowest levels since their peaks around the turn of the millennium, according to a report by the United Nations’ UNAIDS division.

Since 1985, over 12,300 people have been diagnosed as HIV positive in Jalisco, of whom 60 percent have died, Blanca Estrada, technical secretary of Coesida, the state-run AIDS prevention department, said this week.

When 30-year-old Guadalajara driving instructor Edgar Gonzalez inexplicably became paralyzed three days after Christmas, “doctors initially told me it was due to diabetes,” he said. His legs were affected first.