Teen pregnancy just isn't the Oscar-nominated, tabloid-cover romp Hollywood makes it out to be, according to a new report released today in Chicago. Amid the gloomy data noting 400,000 such US births per year (at a public cost of $US7.6 billion), experts cited increasing cultural influence among girls who look to Jamie-Lynn Spears, Bristol Palin and even Juno as models of upstanding teenage motherhood. Alas, as you probably could have guessed, the experts at a subsequent panel discussion begged to differ:

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Let's face it: As well-intentioned celebrity spats go, Jenny McCarthy vs. Amanda Peet was a total disappointment in its attempt to bring awareness to the cause and treatment of autism. What it needed was less born-again book-tour proselytizing and more substantive debate about nature, nurture and science itself. In other words, it needed the radical authority of a medical professional like Denis Leary, who, in his own new book, tastefully settles the problem of autism once and for all:

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Though MTV spent the earlier part of this week teaching men how to emotionally manipulate their girlfriends, it's got plenty of advice to dole out to women, too. Why, just have a gander at the casting call for the network's upcoming entry in the crowded "model reality" genre! In what could be a first for the network, they're looking to cast the show solely with overweight women, but there's a catch: those women will be expected to lose up to 80 pounds in just 12 dangerous weeks. Says ABC News:

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The body-ravaging horrors of movie-theatre concessions aren't especially breaking news to anyone whose pores ever oozed yellow grease for two days after dropping $15 on one of those beloved Regal "Family-Trough" snack specials. But when couched in riveting metrosexual terms by Dave Zinczenko and the crew at Men's Health, the grim numbers yield a far more haunting context: A large popcorn with butter = 1,283 calories and 78 grams of fat; large nachos with cheese = 1,101 calories and 59 grams of fat.

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After passing along word of the new CureConnieAndPatrick.com Web site devoted to getting the word out about a possible "cure" for pancreatic cancer -- and the site's unauthorized use of the disease's most famous afflictee -- Defamer heard from Patrick Swayze's publicist Annett Wolf. The news didn't sound terribly good: "Patrick is not aware of this Web site, and he has no association with it or the medication it advertises," she told us. "He is not affiliated with the woman from the site; Patrick had no knowledge of her." So even if it's a good cause, would Swayze align himself with what essentially amounts to a campaign against a pharmaceutical manufacturer?

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The news of Patrick Swayze's cancer woes have drawn support from virtually every corner of the Web. Few have organized the type of outreach conjured by the family of Connie Loughman, however, whose press release hit Defamer HQ this morning with the curious subject line: "CURE POSSIBLE FOR PATRICK SWAYZE & INDIANA FAN SUFFERING FROM PANCREATIC CANCER":

An Indiana family is hoping for an Easter miracle - in the form of obtaining access to a revolutionary new treatment that holds the potential to cure both Hollywood legend, Patrick Swayze, and their beloved mother and wife from the ravages of pancreatic cancer - one of the most deadly forms of cancer.

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