A new prenatal blood test made by Sequenom will test for Down syndrome less invasively in the early stages of pregnancy. Known as MaterniT21, the test determines with a high degree of accuracy whether the baby will have Down syndrome. This condition, in which the child has some degree of mental retardation, is caused by Trisomy-21 three copies of the chromosome 21, instead of the normal set of two.
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We may have run out of clever puns, but yet another, very large study has refuted the spurious link between cell phone use and brain cancer. Read more, here, about a team of Danish researchers findings that long-term data do not support the too-often cited link.
There has lately been much debate about how often women should be screened for breast cancer. In 2009 the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended that the standard age for routine screening be raised from 40 to 50, while advising that the frequency be reduced from yearly to once every other year.
Despite European consumers longstanding aversion to genetically modified (GM) food products, BASF, the world s largest chemical company, is making headway toward European Union approval of a genetically modified potato.
Rotavirus is a virus that causes inflammation of the stomach and intestines, resulting in the kind of severe diarrhea, vomiting, and fever that lead to dehydration and too often death in young children. Because the virus is responsible for an estimated half-million deaths each year in children younger than five years old, the World Health Organization recommends routine use of the rotavirus vaccine in all countries.
The results of a study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reveal that receiving an organ transplant doubles a person s risk of developing cancer, compared to the general population.
A new study from the German Heart Center in Munich should ease the minds of air travelers with pacemakers or implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs). The researchers found that undergoing metal detector security screenings did not result in any functional abnormalities in such devices.
The FDA s efforts to mandate the display of graphic images on cigarette packs have been blocked by a judge s ruling. Declaring that the regulation violates the tobacco companies First Amendment right to free commercial speech and would likely be considered unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon stopped the regulation from taking effect until a lawsuit filed by the companies against the graphic images is resolved.
Four common medications are responsible for the majority of adverse drug reactions in older Americans, a study just published in The New England Journal of Medicine has found. Blood thinners and diabetes medications were responsible for 67 percent of emergency hospitalizations in people over the age of 65.
Yesterday, we discussed the alarming trend of clinicians who will allow parents to deviate from recommended childhood vaccination schedules. The week before, we pointed out the importance of TDaP vaccination boosters (against tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis) for adults as well as children.
The serendipitous result of a clinical trial shows that a drug given to breast cancer patients to maintain their bone density actually increased their survival rate. Seven years after the initial treatment, women who received an intravenous injection of the bone density drug Zometa had a significantly lower risk of death than those who received only the standard of care.
A recent study published in The Lancet finds that taking a statin to lower levels of cholesterol especially the bad type, LDL provides long-term benefits with low levels of risk. Researchers from the Heart Protection Study Collaborative Group in the U.K. randomized over 20,000 patients with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease to receive either 40 mg of simvastatin daily or a placebo over a period of about five years.
In what comes as a surprise to both scientific thought and conventional wisdom, a recent study suggests that, for women ages 40 to 49, a family history of breast cancer makes no difference in their rates of invasive disease.
Pfizer s exclusive right to sell the blockbuster drug Lipitor (atorvastatin) ended yesterday. With the expiration of Pfizer s patent, the door is now open for generics to enter the market. Given that Lipitor earned $13 billion at its peak, and that 3 million Americans currently take the cholesterol-lowering drug, that market is enormous.
Older chemotherapy drugs from the 1980s reduced breast cancer mortality by nearly a quarter. But a new meta-analysis of 123 randomized trials that assessed nearly 100,000 breast cancer patients over a period of 40 years shows that modern chemotherapy regimens decrease mortality by about one-third. This means that these newer drug treatments have added 17 percent of all patients to the ranks of survivors, as compared to the older regimens.
It s National Influenza Vaccination Week. What many people may not realize is that thousands of people die from the flu every year. The thing is, most of these deaths can be prevented with a flu shot. So, if you ve yet to get yours, it s not too late. Do it this week contribute to your community s herd immunity!
A new, large study suggests that receiving regular dental cleanings may be linked to a lower heart attack risk. Researchers have speculated about this unlikely relationship between dental health and heart disease for years, although up until now there have been few strong conclusions.
True to form, the E.U. continues down the path of hyper-caution and decided Monday to ban the use of X-ray body scanners in all European airports in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens health and safety, the European Commission stated.
Some scientists are expressing concern that a widely used variety of genetically modified corn plant, known as Bt corn, has grown vulnerable to the very pests it was designed to resist. Bt corn, which accounts for 65 percent of all U.S. corn acreage, was developed by Monsanto Co. and introduced in 2003. This biotech strain is created by incorporating a gene from a common soil bacterium into the plant so that it produces a toxin to ward off rootworms a pest that is particularly destructive to corn crops.
Need to find the nearest emergency room or medical center? Well, as we just learned, there s an app for that too. The Emergency Medical Center Locator (EMCL) is a free application available to iPhone users that will pinpoint the medical centers nearest to a user s location. Since the difference between life and death could come down to just a few precious minutes, we re inclined to think that the new app is worth downloading.
Because of the fresh start afforded by the new year, it s a good bet that more than a few of the 70 percent of American smokers who would like to quit will give it a go. However, according to a recent CDC study, only one in 10 of those would-be quitters will actually succeed.
Health care providers can serve as a critical link between smokers and the resources and motivation they need to quit. But many opportunities to encourage smokers to kick the habit are missed, reports a new survey, because more than one in 10 smokers do not tell their doctors that they smoke.
In ACSH s recent publication, The Top Ten Unfounded Health Scares of 2011, hydraulic fracturing (better known as fracking) made the list. Alhough our report debunked the various unfounded accusations that this method of natural gas extraction has received, it seems as though The New York Times failed to get the message.
Feeding the World: Why Pesticides are a Critical Part of the Solution
Environmental Toxicologist Featured Speaker at Capitol Hill Briefing
Women with normal bone density at age 65 can safely wait as long as 15 years before having another bone density scan, researchers report in a study just published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The finding runs counter to the common practice of testing bone density in older women every two years, which happens to b
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