ACSH is happy to note, yet again, that both U.S. cancer incidence and death rates continue to fall. The latest report, issued annually since 1998 and published in the journal Cancer, is compiled by various health agencies including the CDC and the American Cancer Society and includes nearly every cancer case reported through 2008.

Doctors consider it their responsibility to encourage their patients to follow their recommendations; now they have to convince insurance providers to follow their orders as well. Dr. Stewart Segal is all too familiar with such scenarios, which he recounts in an op-ed for MedPage Today.

Approaching the topic through a scientific standpoint, a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association examines the potential effect of out-of-pocket drug costs on patient health. Specifically, researchers looked at how differences in out-of-pocket expenses for asthma medications influenced the use of drugs and hospitalization among children with asthma the most common chronic disease among American children.

Patients and pharmaceutical companies alike have been pressing the FDA to hasten the approval of new medications that could provide important innovations for treating devastating diseases. Now, Congress is considering a bill, the Advancing Breakthrough Therapies for Patients Act, that would accelerate the process of developing and reviewing what are considered to be breakthrough drugs.

A promising trend shows that human papillomavirus (HPV) infection rates may be declining, according to new research presented at a recent Society of Gynecologic Oncology meeting.

As crop growers endeavor to meet the increasing global demand for food, fuel, and livestock feed, a longstanding debate has intensified: Do the higher levels of herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizers used in agriculture today pose an environmental hazard? Groups ranging from the Union of Concerned Scientists to the Natural Resources Defense Council are lobbying both Congress and the EPA to address these concerns.

A traditional heart bypass, rather than angioplasty, may be a better choice even for older patients, as long as they are strong enough to withstand the more invasive procedure, according to a new study.

A major research trial in the UK has just underscored the inadequacy of standard nicotine replacement therapy as a means of helping smokers quit. The study, which was published in BMJ and funded by the Department of Health and the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, aimed to determine whether intensive counseling via telephone could improve smoking cessation rates among those who used nicotine patches.

The latest study to investigate the possible health benefits of chocolate has found an association between lower BMI (body mass index) and frequent consumption of the sweet stuff. A connection between eating chocolate regularly and maintaining a lower weight sounds great as the media pick-up of this research will attest.

Here s another drop in the bucket of needless health scare stories: A study presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Chicago finds that pregnancy increases the risk of heart attack by three- to four-fold. However, a look at the figures for absolute risk shows that this increase amounts to just one heart attack for every 16,000 deliveries. Not quite the crisis that the headlines suggest.