Parents who fail to vaccinate their kids against the flu are rolling the dice with their lives, a new study suggests. Research by Karen Wong, M.D., of the Centers for Disease Control, and colleagues found that 829 children died from influenza in the United States from Aug. 1, 2004, and May 5, 2012.

The headlines were breathless: A company is developing a smart bra that could detect breast cancer and maybe even replace mammograms.

In a disappointing development for patients with type 2 diabetes and their doctors, researchers have pulled the plug two years early on a large federal study examining whether diet and exercise can prevent heart attacks and strokes in overweight and obese diabetics. The intensive intervention just was not having the desired beneficial effect on cardiovascular outcomes.

There s good news for women facing chemotherapy, and for women of a certain age who are seeking to stop their biological clock the American Society for Reproductive Medicine has concluded that freezing a woman s eggs should no longer be considered experimental.
After reviewing 1,000 published studies on the practice, the society said egg freezing to treat infertility or postpone childbearing should be considered a safe and effective clinically available technique.

The AAAS board issued a statement claiming that foods containing ingredients from genetically modified (GM) crops pose no greater risk than the same foods made from crops modified by conventional plant breeding techniques and that legally mandating labels on GM foods could therefore mislead and falsely alarm consumers.

Unless you live under a rock it would have been impossible to miss this week's big story about vitamins preventing cancer in men. A paper by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital concluded: "Daily multivitamin supplementation modestly but significantly reduced the risk of total cancer."

A new study published in The Lancet supports the use of radiation therapy to prevent recurrence after surgery to remove the prostate (radical prostatectomy).

Every October 24, people around the world join together to shed light on the importance of eradicating the devastatingly crippling disease of polio.

Blood hormone level tests can potentially predict a woman s risk for developing postmenopausal breast cancer for up to 20 years, according to data from Nurses Health study to be presented at the 11th annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom is at it again. In his latest op-ed in Medical Progress Today, Dr. Bloom examines this week s highly publicized study (covered in yesterday s Dispatch) that claims multivitamin supplementation can reduce cancer risk. All is not as it seems.