As one ACSH staffer has remarked, Dr. Keith Ayoob s nutrition articles in USA Today are a breath of fresh air. Dr. Ayoob is a dietitian and associate clinical professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

Some good news for residents of the Big Apple: New Yorkers can expect to live longer than ever before, and longer even than our fellow Americans, on average. The life expectancy for a baby born in 2009 has risen to an impressive 80.6 years, while the national average is 78.2-years.

More than one in four Americans suffer from at least two chronic health conditions and, among the elderly, this number rises to two out of three.

It used to be that a person diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) was often subject to the dismal prognosis of a gradually but inexorably progressive disease. But developments over recent years are starting to change that outlook. New and more sophisticated drugs have been approved, and more are currently in Phase 3 clinical trials. So, patients with MS can now be more optimistic abut their future than ever before. As Dr.

As ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom notes in his latest blog post for Medical Progress Today, In the past year, much has been written about the shortage of critical generic drugs in this country. Now, though, there is a shortage of a very different kind of drug. Sodium thiopental, one of the three drugs typically used in lethal injections, which the U.S. purchases almost exclusively from European manufacturers, is no longer being sold.

Babies have to wait until they re at least six weeks old to get the DTaP vaccine, which protects them from tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (whooping cough). Thus, during these early weeks of life, their undeveloped immune systems make them especially vulnerable to these illnesses. However, the family members who surround these infants can effectively shield them from these diseases by making sure that they themselves have been inoculated.

Doctors may soon be able to more readily determine whether patients are having a heart attack when they arrive in the emergency room with acute chest pain.

What are the top ten unfounded health scares this year?

ACSH is proud to announce the latest installment of its annual publication, The Top Ten Unfounded Health Scares. Before we officially ring in 2012, we d like to reflect on the most popularized yet most inaccurate health scares of the past year. From Dr. Oz s nonsense arsenic and apple juice scare to unfounded fears of eating supposedly contaminated Gulf seafood, ACSH debunks these allegations and more. Click here for the full list.

ACSH friend and former FDA Assistant Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, writes about the trials and tribulations of current pharmaceutical R&D in a new op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.