Inspired by Rachel Carson s anti-science book Silent Spring, the ban on the chemical DDT has cost countless lives through an upsurge in malaria. (DDT is used to control mosquito populations, which spread the disease). Now it seems the United Nations Environmental Programme is violating the Stockholm Convention by pressuring the seven remaining countries still actively spraying to stop using the cheap and effective chemical, as well as pressuring India to stop making it.
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All pregnant women should receive Tdap shots, a combination vaccine that protects against whooping cough (pertussis), tetanus and diphtheria, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced yesterday.
Body mass index (BMI) may provide better accuracy than cholesterol levels when used in a prediction algorithm to estimate cardiovascular disease risk, according to a recent Swiss study.
Lyme s disease is usually contracted through the bite of an infected deer tick during a summer stroll through the underbrush. It can last a week or a month, occasionally longer, causing fever, fatigue, arthritis and even neurological problems. It can be treated highly successfully with a combination of antibiotics for 3-6 weeks. Rarely, a second course of treatment is necessary.
For years doctors practiced bloodletting therapy, based on faulty assumptions and bad observations about its apparent benefits. Today medical science is more advanced or is it?
The European Food Safety Authority has joined us and scientists around the world in rejecting as junk a study purporting to link genetically modified corn to cancer in rats. The study by French researcher Gilles-Eric Séralini was clearly a deeply-flawed, politically motivated effort to derail the vote against California s Proposition 37, which thankfully did indeed fail.
Are the prices of brand-name drugs really increasing, as claimed in a report published by the pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts? According to the report, which tracked commonly used drugs from September 2011 until September 2012, the price of brand-name medications increased 13 percent and the price of generic drugs decreased by 22 percent. Express Scripts chief medical officer, Dr.
For many years, women have been urged, cajoled, brow-beaten even, to be sure to get their annual mammogram. Starting shortly after puberty s arrival and breast development, young women get the word: the annual mammogram is necessary to save your life!
It s the American Cancer Society-sponsored 37th annual Great American Smokeout today an appropriate day to take a moment to spare a thought for the 44 million Americans in the grip of a deadly addiction, ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross writes in the pages of the American Spectator. Over half of all smokers tried to quit last year, and an estimated 443,000 died from cigarette-related illness.
Oh those crazy oxytocin researchers! German researchers have been doping men with the so-called cuddle hormone not to be confused with oxycodone, the addictive painkiller and introducing them to an attractive woman who moves closer and closer to them.
An estimated 1.3 million Americans suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, an inflammation of the joints that can leave patients disabled and suffering in severe pain, sometimes with terrible morning stiffness that can last for hours. But while older patients tend to have a more advanced form of the disease, it seems they are less likely to receive the latest, most effective and safer drug therapies than their younger peers, according to a study presented at the American College of Rheumatology meetings in Washington last week.
A year of maintenance therapy with Herceptin remains the standard of care for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, researchers reported at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
The new phase 3 trial involved more than 5,000 women from several countries. After completing initial treatment for their early stage HER2-positive breast cancer, the women were randomly assigned to received Herceptin every three weeks for one year, two years or not at all.
Speaking of smoking, users of the smoking-cessation drug Chantix may be at higher risk for cardiovascular problems, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration stated Wednesday.
A meta-analysis of clinical trials that compared patients who took Chantix to patients who took a placebo found that those on Chantix had a higher occurrence of major adverse cardiovascular events including death, MI, and stroke.
Reading the mainstream media s coverage of the health and nutrition issue, you d be forgiven if you thought eating everything from red meat to burnt toast could cause cancer. But a new study shows many of these reports are nothing more than bogus sensationalism just as we ve been saying for years.
Olympic athletes tend to live about 2.8 years longer than the general population, according to a study conducted at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
When paired with diet and education, a mobile app may help people lose weight, a new study suggests.
Researchers at Northwestern University studied 69 adults who participated in a yearlong weight loss program. Half of the participants used the mobile app to augment their program, while the other half did not.
A new diabetes drug called canagliflozin has been approved by a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel. The drug, developed by Johnson & Johnson, acts to lower blood sugar by increasing the excretion rate of sugar via the kidneys into the urine of patients with Type 2 diabetes. This is a new means of controlling blood sugar the majority of other diabetes drugs work by affecting the supply or use of insulin.
With the flu season getting off to a fierce start, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo followed Massachusetts lead in declaring a public health emergency Saturday, suspending a state law that allows pharmacists to vaccinate only adults against influenza. But drug stores are proving reluctant to offer flu shots to kids.
The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is becoming very common among children, especially those who have been diagnosed with chronic health conditions such as asthma, says a new study. But your child s pediatrician is not likely to inquire about these practices, and parents may not provide this information voluntarily either, increasing the potential for harmful interactions with conventional treatments.
The World Health Organization predicts that if current trends continue, the likely toll of tobacco will amount to one-billion lives cut short worldwide. By tobacco, however, anyone with knowledge of the spectrum of tobacco-related disease knows it s the inhalation of cigarette smoke hundreds of thousands of times over decades that would be responsible if that catastrophic prediction comes to pass the relative harm of non-combustible tobacco and nicotine-delivery products is in the order of one percent that of smoking.
Only a few months after cancer was added to the list of ailments covered by the World Trade Center Fund, a study conducted by the New York City Health Department has found no clear link between cancer and the environment to which those present at the world trade center on 9/11 were exposed.
When it comes to healthy living, healthcare workers may not always be the best role models for their patients, a new study suggests.
It may be beneficial to have the hearing of young children tested more frequently, according to a new study published in the Journal of Development and Behavioral Pediatrics. Currently, children are screened at birth and then just before entering kindergarten.
Women who have migraines with aura pre-headache symptoms that include visions of flashing lights or zigzag lines, for example may face a higher risk for cardiovascular problems, a new study suggests.
The study, which will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology meeting in March, included data on close to 28,000 women enrolled in the ongoing Women s Health Study at Brigham and Women s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Contrary to what most activist groups would have us think, both incidence and death rates from cancer continue to drop for American men and women from most racial and ethnic groups, according to the "Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer," appearing online today in the Journal of the National
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