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Health officials from the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization announced at a meeting last week that rubella, or German measles, has officially been eradicated from the Americas.

In 2012, Washington state had an outbreak of pertussis (whooping cough). Nearly 5,000 people mostly babies and children caught the disease. Surprisingly, many of the affected adolescents had been vaccinated on schedule, a new study finds. The recent analysis of that epidemic, published in Pediatrics, reports that the effectiveness of

This week New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced an ambitious plan to significantly reduce the state s AIDS population. Several obstacles exist to achieving his goal of reducing the virus prevalence, but one many point out is the high number of people with an

This week in health news: Oprah Network pulls the plug on the Dr. Oz radio show, the European Commission says sick cattle to be treated with homeopathy, and the FDA takes a closer look at the efficacy of antimicrobial soaps and hand sanitizers

For all those in science, educating people is a major part of the job. Whether its a professor teaching students in a classroom, a physician teaching a patient about a procedure, or a non-profit, like ACSH teaching consumers the difference between good and junk science, the work of those in the sciences should always be characterized by teaching in some form. When this system breaks down and the

A Columbia faculty Chair and even Oprah seem to be distancing themselves from Dr. Oz. It s about time, given both his unprofessional demeanor and potentially harmful medical advice on his TV show, and his attempt to distract attention from his own malfeasance.

The latest in health news: The very first GMO wasn't grown by a big corporation or in a lab, it came form Mother Nature, autism rates are not on the rase, but detection is, and a Texas high school without a sex-ed program is seeing an outbreak of chlamydia.

Genetically engineered crops (GMOs) are never far from the news these days, what with groups like EWG and NRDC, the organic lobby, and environmentalists of all stripes inveighing against them for a host of implausible reasons.

According to new research published in JAMA, one in three US adults are at risk of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke due to metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is present when someone has three or more of the following conditions: increased blood pressure, elevated blood sugar

Two large meta-analyses in JAMA shed light on the link between Alzheimer s disease and amyloid beta (A-β). The key findings indicate that it is likely to take up to 30 years of amyloid deposition before clear signs of dementia are manifest but such deposits are not diagnostic.

When it comes to government policies regarding health policy, we've seen pretty much every type: Meaningless, but mostly harmless, anti-science, money driven, and ill-conceived and harmful.

According to numerous news reports, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced in a letter to USDA employees that the department is developing a new type of certification protocol that companies could use to label their products non-GMO.

The long and winding road which led to 2009 s Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA, or TCA), which bestowed regulatory authority over tobacco products to the FDA, had many bizarre twists

In March, we wrote about Indiana Governor Pence and his decision to finally allow for a clean needle exchange to stem the outbreak of IV-drug-induced HIV in Scott County, IN. Federal law currently

A recent study shows that early treatment for HIV results in a significant decrease in early illness and death. "It's just more scientific evidence to back what we've been saying for a time now," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health which funded the

Last week we wrote about Jane Brody s New York Times article on solutions for cognitive decline. And this week, she covers cognitive decline once again, this time focusing on different tests for early signs of dementia.

California seems to get all the attention when it comes to the anti-vaxx movement, but the epidemic of non-medical exemptions exists in other states too, and in many cases it s worse. In fact according to data from 2012, Cali

A new study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, which never encountered a health scare it didn t exaggerate, tries ever so hard to link ambient radiation exposure to childhood cancer, but fails.

Last year a Senate committee dragged Dr. Mehmet Oz over the coals for his promotion of dubious supplements on his TV show. Earlier this year Eric T. Schneiderman, the NY State attorney general, accused several stores of selling mislabeled and adulterated herbal supplements. After that, 14 state attorneys general asked Congress to further investigate the supplement industry.

A new series of articles by the NYTimes Gina Kolata focuses on improvements in dealing with emergency cardiac events, and indeed the progress has been remarkable. But that s not the solution to reducing the toll of our nation s leading killer: coronary disease.

Two large data-mining studies show an association between the most common type of medication for heartburn and ulcers PPIs (e.g., Nexium, Prilosec) and heart attacks. This type of analysis cannot support cause-and-effect, but the data encourage prospective trials.

Yes, if you have hypertension (HTN, or high blood pressure), your risk of cardiovascular ills heart attack or stroke is increased.

ACSH s Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Dr. Josh Bloom, penned a glowing review of Pharmaphobia- How the Conflict of Interest Myth Undermines American Medical Innovation by Dr. Tom Stossel.

This week, Senate Republicans released a budget proposal that would significantly cut funding for Title X (the federal family planning program) and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) program. This comes just a week after the House of Representatives proposed eliminating Title X altogether.

Last November, Maui voters through a ballot initiative passed a ban on the cultivation of genetically engineered crops.