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Hospital and clinic personnel who work with patients should receive an annual flu shot in order to reduce the risk of spreading the infectious virus. Yet surprisingly, only 40 percent of healthcare workers are vaccinated. In light of these dismal findings, the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) voted 12-to-2 that hospitals should consider mandating the vaccine if they fail to achieve a 90 percent employee vaccination rate after training and educating their workers about the benefits of the shot.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a relatively new biotech startup, has gained FDA approval for the first drug to target the underlying cause of a rare form of cystic fibrosis. Unlike other current cystic fibrosis medications, which treat only the symptoms of the disease, the new drug Kalydeco targets the disease at the level of a defective cell protein.

As if our trust in government isn't low enough, leave it to Mayor Bloomberg, Thomas Farley and the New York City Health Department to play us for fools once again.
As reported in an article in today's New York Times, a fear-mongering ad depicting an overweight man with only one leg sitting behind cups of soda is not what it seems.

We were surprised and disappointed to see this week s issue of Nature offering us The toxic truth about sugar. The commentary, by Dr. Robert Lustig and colleagues, calls for nothing short of a global war on sugar in order to combat the chronic non-communicable diseases that the United Nations has identified as the greatest worldwide health burden. In this regard, Lustig et al.

Although malaria-related deaths have been declining, a new report in The Lancet puts a damper on this good news, suggesting that the decline is not nearly as significant as we had thought.

In a sadly misguided effort, ostensibly intended to curb obesity, Colorado lawmakers are considering a ban on trans-fat in schools. Beyond the regular school meals served in the cafeteria, this ban would extend to vending machines, extra items available at lunch (such as ice cream and pizza), and even after-school bake sales.

While drugs in the U.S. must undergo extensive testing and monitoring to ensure their safety and efficacy, supplements come under much weaker regulation. In a perspective article in The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Pieter A. Cohen criticizes the current deficiencies in the regulation of the supplement industry. He argues that a new guidance proposal by the FDA makes important steps toward enhancing supplement safety but it still doesn t go far enough.

Melanoma is one of the most common cancers in young people in the U.S. However, this most dangerous of skin cancers can actually be significantly prevented by wearing sunscreen. The trouble is, too many children and adolescents aren t bothering to use sunscreen, according to a study just published in Pediatrics.

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a type of assisted reproductive technology that has gained popularity in the U.S. over the last 20 years. But a new study questions the current recommendations for women who want to try the procedure.

Congratulations to India are in order: The country has remained polio-free for an entire year. Thanks to the great efforts of the Polio Eradication Program in India, which aims to immunize every child under the age of five with the oral polio vaccine, there have been no reported cases of polio in the country for the past year. That s a marked difference from just two years ago, when 741 people were diagnosed with the disease.

Medical researchers have high hopes for human embryonic stem cells: There are numerous diseases that might be treated by transplanting cells generated from such stem cells, which have the capacity to mature into a wide variety of specialized tissues.

Estrogen therapy may reduce the hot flashes that so often wake menopausal women during the night but the quality of their sleep won t necessarily improve, says a new study in Obstetrics and Gynecology. In this study, investigators looked at the effects of synthetic estrogens on a group of 1

Josh Bloom, Forbes January 11, 2011
Garbage In, Anti-Nuclear Propaganda Out: The 14,000 Death Fukushima Lie

And speaking of junk science legislation, a Connecticut state environmental committee is considering a bill that would require a label on all genetically engineered foods. Yet Gregory J. Costa, director of state affairs for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, counters fears that such biotech products are somehow harmful.

How do we regulate the consumption of dangerous foods? Mark Bittman asks in his latest column for The New York Times. The public enemy in question is sugar, and Bittman is of the party that would limit its consumption with the kind of age restrictions and taxation policies applied to tobacco and alcohol.

In a new post for Medical Progress Today, ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom describes an unfortunate double blow that Congress has been aiming at doctors: threatening to reduce Medicare reimbursements by 27 percent and attacking interactions between pharmaceutical companies and physicians as necessarily corrupt. Fortunately, Congress relented on the Medicare reimbursement issue and voted to delay the decrease for the rest of 2012. But next year an even greater cut is in the works, unless a permanent solution is found. And as Dr.

The results of two observational studies by the same group at the Harvard School of Public Health have made headlines, spurring claims that red meat increases mortality risk and sugar-sweetened drinks raise the risk of heart disease. While these observational studies cannot show causation, it s clear that many in the public are interpreting the studies in exactly this way.

There may be an unexpected culprit contributing to the incidence of Type 2 diabetes, suggests new research in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. The latest study found that the bacterium H. pylori(Helicobacter pylori) the cause of most stomach ulcers was also linked to higher levels of blood sugar, the diagnostic hallmark of diabetes.

Is It Safe to Play Yet? asks a New York Times feature on the increasing paranoia of a certain demographic of parents when it comes to the perceived threat of household toxins. A photo image of a toddler in a tiny hazmat suit illustrates numerous anecdotes of concerned mothers and fathers, who all but dismantle their homes in an effort to purge the nursery and beyond of anything remotely chemical.

How can we help level the playing field in the game of regulatory approvals between upstart biotech firms and Big Pharma? By supporting a new bill that would expand the FDA s accelerated approval process to a broader range of diseases. At least that s what Avik Roy, a Senior Fellow in health care policy at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, is suggesting in a recent Forbes op-ed.

Even as the public is becoming more aware of the risks of hospital-acquired infections, and health providers are working to improve sanitary practices to prevent disease transmission, there is still a worrying trend: Infections with C. difficile (Clostridium difficile) are actually on the rise. C. difficile is a bacterial infection that can cause severe diarrhea and even death. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that, over the past 10 years, the number of Americans who have been hospitalized for C.

The basic idea is conventional wisdom: Children who spend more time physically active than their sedentary peers will generally be healthier. Now a new study in the current Journal of the American Medical Association has refined this common understanding, looking specifically at the amount of time spent physically active and sedentary as it relates to certain risk factors in otherwise healthy children.

Do trans fats increase stroke risk? A new study in the Annals of Neurology seems to suggest that they do, at least among postmenopausal women. But ACSH s Dr. Ruth Kava thinks that the data just don t hold up. Food frequency questionnaires, the method used in this study to assess participants diets, are not the most accurate way to figure out what people eat, she notes. It would be difficult to determine trans fat consumption from this type of survey.

The latest report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has some uplifting news: Accidental childhood deaths decreased by about 30 percent between 2000 and 2009. While traffic fatalities account for over half of these accidental deaths each year, the number of such deaths actually declined by 41 percent during the study period.