Jan 31 White House to parents: science shows vaccines are effective By Nedra Pickler, Associated Press Amid the measles outbreak stemming from California, the White House is telling parents that science indicates they should vaccinate their children. Continue reading
Jan 30 Watch 7:43 A push to use the human genome to make medicine more precise By PBS News Hour President Obama introduced a new plan to create a database of genetic information of a million Americans in order to better tailor medical treatments for groups of patients. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien interviews Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes… Continue watching
Jan 30 Are vitamin drinks providing too many vitamins? By Anna Sillers Health and sports drinks like Vitaminwater and Naked Juice pride themselves for containing high amounts of vitamins or nutrients. But a new study finds that many of these beverages often have excessive amounts of vitamins, sometimes in harmful dosages. Continue reading
Jan 29 Why hospice care could benefit your loved one sooner than you think By Leah Eskenazi, Family Caregiver Alliance Bettina's dad Paul (89 years), a once robust and active man, was getting weaker every day due to heart failure. They met with a surgeon to consider his options but the proposed medical intervention was fraught with complications and no… Continue reading
Jan 28 Watch 7:28 Why a promising heroin addiction treatment is unavailable in many states By PBS News Hour More than 90 percent of heroin users who detox cold turkey will relapse, but there’s a dispute over prescribing drugs to help addicts get clean and keep them from deadly overdoses. Hari Sreenivasan talks to Ryan Grim of The Huffington… Continue watching
Jan 28 How playing with dangerous x-rays led to the discovery of radiation treatment for cancer By Dr. Howard Markel When the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen's announced his discovery of the x-ray in December of 1895, he was lauded on the front page of just about every newspaper in the world. Indeed, many journalists called this phenomenon "X-Ray… Continue reading
Jan 28 Poll: Congress should restore insurance subsidies if Supreme Court rules against them By Julie Rovner, KFF Health News A new poll finds that most people think Congress or states should act to restore health insurance subsidies if the Supreme Court decides later this year they are not permitted in states where the federal government is running the marketplace. Continue reading
Jan 28 Loss of honey bees and other pollinators could mean malnutrition for millions around the world By Adelyn Baxter New research from scientists at the University of Vermont and Harvard University demonstrates the devastating impact the continued loss of pollinators like honey bees could have on millions of people in the developing world. Continue reading
Jan 27 'Baby-talk' might not be easy to understand for kids, study finds By Anna Sillers Parents may be using “baby-talk” when speaking to infants with the goal of making it easier for babies to understand, but a new Japanese study shows this may have the opposite effect. Continue reading
Jan 27 In Vietnam, learning to embrace life with HIV By Larisa Epatko Lu Thi Thanh, a 28-year-old woman residing in northern Vietnam, speaks matter-of-factly about living with HIV. The words didn’t always come so easily, but things changed after she joined a support network called Sunflower. Continue reading