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The Health Department in the nation's largest city reports that 867,000 adults and 15,000 adolescents use tobacco products. In this new, citywide media campaign, the goal is to encourage "all New Yorkers to quit smoking, regardless of the number of times they’ve tried to stop."

For roughly 1 in every 10,000 people who are exposed to common viruses, like herpes simplex or the flu, encephalitis develops. This potentially deadly disease, an inflammation of the brain, is caused by the viruses ability to invade the brainstem. But why does this happen to a small subset of otherwise healthy children? 

Quackery can be appealing because it's consistent with the American notion of freedom and individuality and resistance to control and dogma. And a major logical failing of the educated – although it's rarely recognized for what it truly is – is simply prejudice, where everything "natural" is good and everything "artificial" is bad.

While BPA hysteria has been going on for many years, for just as long we've been writing that the chemical is safe. As it turns out, we've been right all along (while, as usual, the Joe Mercolas and NRDCs of the world were not).

In the first of a series for the FOX podcast network, the Council's medical director clarifies misperceptions surrounding infant nutrition. This includes new trends, like importing specific organic formulas from overseas for being so-called "more pure" or "natural."

CDC data shows that for the past few weeks, of sick people who went to the hospital and got tested about 26% of specimens were positive for influenza. Now in Week 7 of 2018, it has dropped to 25%. Finally, we appear to have turned the corner on this awful flu season.

Are those of us who want, expect, or even request opioid medications doing something wrong? Should we see each medical encounter for pain as an opportunity to be part of the solution to the opioid crisis? An academic who wrestles with the ethics of pain management explores this important issue.

There's no shortage of places to look for ways to help stop America's agonizing and ongoing school-shooting epidemic. And a recent study has identified one. It found that in homes where a child has mental health issues, only 1 in 3 gun owners take the recommended safety precautions to prevent unsupervised access when storing their firearms.
 
 

1. In USA Today, Dr. Alex Berezow had some context for the CNN organization about socialism, which has grown increasingly shrill and bizarre as its market share and credibility have declined. 

Your donations at work: We were at the FDA, the National Institutes of Health, as well as Congress. And that's only when we weren't getting hate mail from anti-science activists, who simply can't accept that they're slowly losing ground in popular culture.

Although you might think that living in an urban setting is worse for your lungs, recent data from the CDC point out that there's more Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in rural areas. Why? Possible reasons include a higher smoking rate as well as more environmental exposures.

A surprisingly low number of women consider sudden, but persistent bloating as a serious condition — one with a serious underlying cause. The news comes from a recent study which showed that women are more likely to make dietary changes if they experience bloating — rather than contact their physician. Persistent bloating is the lesser known symptom of ovarian cancer.

The stated mission of 314 Action, a group that supports scientists in their bids for U.S. congressional seats, is laudable. Among its objectives is a desire to "elect more leaders ... from STEM backgrounds." However, if you're a Republican don't expect much action at all.

I have had the flu for two weeks. Well, to be honest, I never did get the test to confirm that it was, indeed, the flu. But, I am ok self-diagnosing this one based on the high fever, aches, chills, headache, sore throat, and barking cough. Rapid flu test or not, I'm going to call flu on this one. 
Did I get the flu shot? Yes. 
Was it worth it even though I ended up with the flu? Yes. 

Although we're used to hearing about studies in which people are given candidate drugs – which may or may not be safe or effective – this purposeful infection of healthy people with parasites seems to be a different type of experimental paradigm. Is this really ethical, or does it contradict the principle of "do no harm"?

Without actually knowing how many hours participants watched TV, and by comparing groups with very different risks, researchers concluded that TV watching is associated with clot formation. By extension, does this mean that binge-watching is harmful to our health?

A newly-developed genomic technology has solved part of an age-old mystery: What killed millions of humans 500 years ago in southern Mexico during the "huey cocoliztli" ? This work shows that one of the players in the epidemic was the bacteria Salmonella. 

Diabetes is a chronic disease and the longer it's present, the more it adversely impacts other body functions. Especially the cardiovascular system. 

We want American scientists to know as quickly as possible when an unusual case of the sniffles occurs in Africa or Asia. From there, we could be able to model the likelihood of the disease spreading beyond its origin. Such a strategy could help prevent Ebola from making a return visit to the United States.

Anthem's new policies contribute to the detriment of patient safety. The insurers "cost-saving" measures create more problems than solutions, while generating questionable financial benefits. 

You best get your drink on this week, while beer and wine consumption is good for you!
Over the years, there have mixed results on alcohol consumption and benefits to the body. This week, having two glasses of beer or wine could cut one's risk of premature mortality by 18 percent. At least that's the conclusion from one study which studied the habits of people who live past their 90s, since 2003. 

Nate Archibald, whose 14-year NBA career included a championship season with the Boston Celtics, suffers from an incurable heart disease, which he discovered by accident. Amyloidosis can affect any organ or tissue. But when it plagues the heart, death can arrive at any moment. 

Sufferers of asthma and eczema should be very thankful that drug companies continue to do research. There are now biological drugs that are very effective in treating both conditions. I should know. I take two of them. 

Anthem continues to practice medicine without a license in determining which patients should have anesthesiologists providing care during cataract surgery. 

A high-quality meta-analysis in the journal Scientific Reports tells us what scientist have known for years: That GM foods – in this case, corn – are not only not harmful to you or the environment, but may actually be superior.