It s National Influenza Vaccination Week. What many people may not realize is that thousands of people die from the flu every year. The thing is, most of these deaths can be prevented with a flu shot. So, if you ve yet to get yours, it s not too late. Do it this week contribute to your community s herd immunity!

The results of a new nationwide survey reveal conditions that aren t favorable to improving the health of overweight children. This report, published in The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, found that more than half of the country s states and districts didn t require regular physical education classes in their elementary schools.

Although about one third of U.S. children are overweight, less than a quarter of these children s parents could recall their doctors telling them that their children were overweight, according to the results of a recent survey. Researchers led by a specialist in obesity and adolescent medicine at the University of North Carolina s School of Medicine surveyed nearly 5,000 parents of children ages two to 15 over the course of almost a decade.

Salmon, mackerel, cod, herring. Younger women can cut their risk of cardiovascular disease in half by eating fish like these that are high in omega-3 fatty acids, Danish researchers have reported. A new study in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association analyzed eight years of dietary data on about 49,000 Danish women, who had an average age of 30 when the eight-year study began.

This past spring, we discussed the dangerously cracked logic of a weight-loss fad centered on the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Dieters were duped into believing that shots of this hormone would allow them to lose 26 pounds in 26 days. However, what they actually lost was as much as $1,000 per shot, as well as money they shelled out over the Internet for lozenges and sprays containing homeopathic forms of the hormone.

Yesterday we criticized Delta Airlines for airing an in-flight anti-vaccine video. Since then, however, we received word from the company that the video was actually pulled at the end of November. Instead, Delta will now be featuring a video that encourages vaccination. The company is also implementing better policy measures in order to ensure that such misguided videos don t receive airtime in the future.

Older chemotherapy drugs from the 1980s reduced breast cancer mortality by nearly a quarter. But a new meta-analysis of 123 randomized trials that assessed nearly 100,000 breast cancer patients over a period of 40 years shows that modern chemotherapy regimens decrease mortality by about one-third. This means that these newer drug treatments have added 17 percent of all patients to the ranks of survivors, as compared to the older regimens.

Viral load tests which essentially count the number of HIV particles in a patient s circulation are routinely used to assess the status of an HIV patient. This allows them to recommend optimal modes of therapy and make more accurate predictions of the future course of the infection. The newer test has largely replaced the CD4 T-cell count, an older assay used to measure immune function in HIV positive patients.

And while Dr. Landrigan may believe that environmental toxins are the cause of several neurological disorders, a new study published in Nature Genetics supports the more likely theory that genetics play a much bigger role specifically for patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Leave it to Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, director of the Children s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai, to once again needlessly scare the American public.