More and more women are choosing to give birth at home, or in birthing centers, rather than in hospitals. The important question is whether these alternatives are safe for mothers and/or babies. A new report sheds light on this important question, and mostly appears to support the choice.
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It s been a banner year here at The American Council on Science and Health. From fighting out of control activist to promoting important public health policies we have been very busy promoting healthy living and fighting junk science.
Dame Sally Davies, Britain's chief medical officer, has written to pharmacies and GPs warning them to use correct medical practices when treating the sexually transmitted bacterial infection gonorrhea, but too late Somehow, the UK ended up getting three years behind us in treating the infection properly. This is no laughing matter. Thanks to bacterial resistance, we are now down to one drug that still cures the infection. Misusing it, as was done in the UK, will accelerate the resistance problem, and could leave us with no options to cure a very common STD.
Want to advocate for a food you want to sell or criticize a competitor? There's a study for that.
The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans have just been published, and there are some positive moves as well as some of the same-old recommendations that have yet to be shown to be effective. Dietary advice always brings a variety of dissent and assents, so we thought we'd add some of our own.
What is the broader health media community saying about the new nutrition guidelines? We took a look around the country, and the internet, and here are some of the most popular sentiments, from the intriguing to the batty.
As guest writer Vivian Moses points out, we can trace the anti-GM movement to two things: increasing disillusion as a result of the progress of left-wing ideologies, and a growing awareness of environmental problems.
How to motivate obese people to lose weight is a really hard nut to crack. While there are many weight-loss strategies available from dieting guidelines to surgery over one-third of Americans are obese. And according to a new study, providing monetary incentives at work isn't the magic bullet, either.
Screening for cancer may well reduce deaths from the cancer screened for but still not reduce (or even increase) overall mortality. That's the message in a recent BMJ meta-analysis of the harms and benefits of screening.
About 20 percent of cancer clinical trials recruit less than half of the target number of participants. Knowing what factors contribute to this ongoing dilemma in cancer clinical trials could shift resources in the right direction.
Hormonal contraception has traditionally been available only with a doctor's prescription. That is changing in both Oregon and California, where only a pharmacist's approval will be necessary. But, is this a good development?
There is a common perception that as people spend more time together, they begin to act and think more alike. This synchrony -- interdependence -- means that peoples' cognitive functioning influences others in the group.
Metastatic cancer that is unresponsive to chemotherapy is considered incurable. But those days may be numbered, as scientists at the University of North Carolina may have uncovered the perfect system for delivering chemotherapy directly to the site of the cancer -- using a fraction of the conventional dose.
A scathing report by the General Accountability Office, a federal watchdog organization, exposes serious flaws in the needed data collection by the FDA for fast-tracked drugs.
An outbreak of pertussis, otherwise known as whooping cough, in a Florida pre-school affected children who had been vaccinated almost a frequently as those who were not. The reason: our current vaccine's protection wanes. Therefore, a booster shot is needed.
Stuck indoors during the latest Snowmageddon? Grab some cocoa and some crystallography and learn how snowflakes form.
A comprehensive study of heart attacks in women by the American Heart Association reveals many important differences between those that afflict men and women: symptoms, risk factors, diagnosis and treatment. Racial disparities also come into play.
Increased Internet speed and availability in the U.S. delivers many benefits. But do such advances also carry long-term risks for online users? And as Internet quality improves, could Americans soon find themselves facing the same "addiction" problems as South Korea, the world s most wired nation?
There have been repeated concerns about the inaccuracy of dietary reports who eats what, and how much. Since most of our dietary recommendations are based on memory-based disclosures, such inaccuracies undermine researchers' faith in the data. But wearable video recorders may be the solution.
Snow blower, shovel, scoop... how the heck do you know which one to use when the snow falls? There's one for the light and fluffy stuff, and then there's one for the harder, packed snow. UGH- this is all way over our heads
A new report in JAMA Dermatology strengthens the link between indoor tanning and melanoma, the often-fatal skin cancer. Among the conclusions: the younger the woman who begins indoor tanning, and the more frequently she does it, the greater the risk she has of developing melanoma.
Winter storm Jonas swept through the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, where at least 48 people died as a result of hypothermia, car crashes, roof collapses -- and snow shoveling. There's a right way and a wrong way to deal with the mountains of white in front of your house. So here are a few tips to keep you safe.
In an effort to stop tax evaders, the federal government is cracking down on sales of illegal cigarettes. Yet contrary to popular opinion, the cigarette black market may actually benefit public health, especially in impoverished communities. That's hard to believe, you say? Here's how it could.
Itchy bedbug bites are hardly a thing of the past, since resistance to commonly-used pesticides is on the rise. Not only are the critters basically laughing at older chemicals, the resistance seems to be carrying over to newer ones as well. A precipitous rise in the bedbug population may be in our future.
Researchers say that the U.S. cities whose teams play in the Super Bowl see a spike in flu cases, as well as an 18-percent increase in flu deaths among those 65 and over. The reason? These locations are always where game interest is highest, leading to a higher percentage of parties thrown, which ups the odds of germs being spread in close quarters.
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