Medical researchers have high hopes for human embryonic stem cells: There are numerous diseases that might be treated by transplanting cells generated from such stem cells, which have the capacity to mature into a wide variety of specialized tissues.

Josh Bloom, Wall Street Journal 1/23/12
Should Patents on Pharmaceuticals Be Extended to Encourage Innovation?

While various groups have been pushing to remove soda and junk foods from the school environment, a new study suggests that the availability of such products (however they are defined) in schools may actually have no effect on childhood obesity.

As media reports continue to promote misguided claims about the risk of smokeless tobacco products compared to cigarettes, it s clear that the word still isn t out that certain types of smokeless tobacco carry both a significantly lower risk than smoking and can help smokers quit.

Contrary to the common trend of news stories that implicate phthalate plasticizers in the causation of nearly all human diseases, these compounds have played an important role in significant advances in medical equipment technology. Such compounds have allowed manufacturers to create materials that are both strong and flexible.

ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom makes a compelling case for the extension of patents on pharmaceuticals today, in a debate on the issue in The Wall Street Journal s Big Issues: Health Care report. The expiration of patents on many of the pharmaceutical industry s most profitable drugs poses an enormous threat to the industry and its efforts to continue to research and develop new drugs. As Dr. Bloom explains:

Too many Americans with mental disorders are going without professional help, a major government study reports. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA) found that, in 2010, 20 percent of U.S.

The U.S. teenage birth rate remains the highest in the developed world, a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports: 400,000 girls aged 15 to 19 years gave birth each year, on average, between 2004 and 2008.

Women with normal bone density at age 65 can safely wait as long as 15 years before having another bone density scan, researchers report in a study just published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The finding runs counter to the common practice of testing bone density in older women every two years, which happens to b