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Two pieces of news appeared yesterday with respect to birth control. First, Reuters reported on a three year study evaluating the reproductive outcomes of 52,000 women in the United States. The study found that unintended pregnancy rates of those taking regimens of birth control pills were highest among obese women and adolescents.

Eighteen percent of American women and 6.5 percent of American men use tanning beds, according to a survey of more than 2,800 whites by University of Minnesota researchers reported in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times. Most of those employing tanning beds said that they did not know that their use magnifies their risk of skin cancer. In response, ACSH's Dr.

Yesterday’s Science section of The New York Times included an intriguing article by columnist John Tierney on whether the government has a proper role in regulating commercial sales of DNA analysis tests to the general public.

ACSH recently identified actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s unhealthy fad dieting as the likely culprit behind her diagnosis of early onset osteopenia, a risk factor for osteoporosis. Perhaps the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) had her in mind when it updated the guidelines for assessing osteoporosis to recommend screening younger women who present the same risk factors as 65 year-old white women.

Sometimes the first time’s a charm, at least when it comes to breast cancer biopsies. According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, extensive lymph node dissections, used to detect breast cancer cells following an initial sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy, may not be necessary if the SLN biopsy is found to be negative.

A study of 6,322 post-menopausal women undertaken by the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) Allegheny Center, in Pittsburgh, shows that while family history is a strong indicator of breast cancer risk, other factors taken together may be equally strong predictors.

Since routine chickenpox vaccinations were implemented in 1995, yearly rates of chickenpox infections in the U.S. decreased by 80 to 90 percent while the proportion of Americans hospitalized due to the infection has fallen by over two-thirds, a new study by the CDC finds. The vaccine prevented approximately 50,000 hospitalizations between 2000 and 2006. During this period, one in 100,000 Americans was hospitalized for chickenpox complications compared to four per every 100,000 people between 1988 and 1995.

As the FDA prepares for a March hearing to assess whether synthetic food dyes cause hyperactivity in children, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is asking that they be banned altogether. Last year, the European Parliament banned synthetic food dyes — used to improve the appearance of packaged foods — in products geared towards babies and young children.

Following up on a 2009 law which gave it the power to regulate tobacco products, the FDA announced yesterday that manufacturers must report to the agency by March 22 on whether their products are in any way more dangerous or more addictive than items which were on the market by February 15, 2007. ACSH's Dr.

Students in Minnesota’s second-largest school district have limited time to tame their sweet tooth during regular school hours since all public schools in the St. Paul district will be “sweet free zones” by the end of this academic year. Once implemented, the St. Paul district will join a handful of other districts nationwide.

Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed — results of a new study suggest that the popular sleep aid Ambien, sold generically as zolpidem, can leave folks over 60 temporarily groggy and clumsy when awakened abruptly.

If two Senators have their way, baseball fans will no longer have to watch their favorite ball players spit in the dugout or field — at least not tobacco, that is. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey) want the Major Leagues to ban smokeless tobacco based on a survey showing that the use of smokeless tobacco among high school boys has increased by 36 percent since 2003.

After rejecting the approval of three new weight-loss drugs in the past few months, the FDA on Wednesday implemented a change which represents a minor advance in the fight against the obesity epidemic: lowering the requirements for patients who wish to use Allergan’s Lap-Band stomach-restricting device. Now, people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 and an associated obesity-related health condition, such as hypertension or diabetes, are eligible for the procedure.

Representatives from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) testified yesterday before the subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee alongside representatives of various small businesses and manufacturers regarding the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) of 2008. Both congressmen and business owners argue that the regulation is burdensome and stifles job creation.

A story in The New York Times about a report to be published in The American Journal of Surgery suggests that far more American women are undergoing invasive surgical biopsies for breast cancer than is warranted. Current guidelines hold that at most ten percent of all breast cancer biopsies should be surgical while the remainder should be performed simply with a needle.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals refused to reevaluate an appellate court’s December 2010 decision to not grant the FDA the authority to regulate e-cigarettes as medical devices. The FDA has lost another battle in the effort to require e-cigarette manufacturers to conduct expensive clinical trials to prove their devices are safe. These regulations are required of other smoking cessation products such as nicotine patches.

The American College of Physicians (ACP) announced new guidelines for the assessment of lower back pain that call for fewer imaging scans. According to the ACP “best practice advice,” routine, imaging such as X-rays and CT or MRI scans often reveal abnormalities that are not, in fact, life-threatening.

There’s good news for women worried about their annual mammogram — the FDA has just approved a new 3-D mammography device that may help doctors more accurately detect breast cancer.

City Council member Peter Vallone, Jr. was not happy with ACSH’s recent response to his efforts to ban the fluoridation of New York’s tap water. Ignoring decades of evidence that the addition of fluoride, a substance that protects against cavities, has been one of the most effective public health measures of the century, Mr. Vallone insists that its continued use poses a health risk. Mr.

Late last week brought news that the World Health Organization (WHO) has been working to facilitate a worldwide ban on ads for foods high in sugar, fat and salt intended for children. To that end, the WHO has arranged for a meeting of heads of state to discuss restrictions on ads for foods the WHO considers unhealthy.

Yesterday also brought word that the widely-read online journal Salon was deleting a 2005 story by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the purported — but actually non-existent — relationship between autism and childhood vaccination.The son of the former U.S. Attorney General, Kennedy is a lawyer with an undergraduate degree in literature and history.

ACSH has long been a leader in the fight against cigarettes, and we take pride in the work we have done to inform the public about the vast (and little-known) spectrum of real risks posed by cigarettes.At the same time, we firmly believe that educating the public on this important issue requires truth-telling and not appealing to hysteria.

Three different heart groups — the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology and the Heart Rhythm Society — all have just announced that the recently approved anticoagulant dabigatran (Pradaxa) should be considered as an alternative to warfarin (Coumadin) as treatment for patients suffering from atrial fibrillation.Researchers have concluded that Pradaxa offers some significant advantages to Coumadin.

In a surprise ruling, the FDA decided yesterday to reject the weight-loss drug Contrave even though an advisory panel ruled 13-to-7 to recommend its approval in December. Developed by Orexigen Therapeutics Inc., Contrave was shown to reduce body weight by 5 percent or more in at least 35 percent of patients, but the agency dismissed the drug’s potential benefits after research revealed it caused a slight increase in blood pressure and pulse rates compared to placebo.