Grist is a reliable minor league version of Mother Jones - no amount of exaggeration is worth leaving out and no amount of imaginative 'you agree all pesticides are killing Gaia or you are an industry shill' narrative goes un-exercised.

It s been in the works for some time now, but on Wednesday, three U.S. cancer groups proposed new cervical cancer screening guidelines. The American Cancer Society, the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, and the American Society for Clinical Pathology jointly proposed guidelines that largely accord with two recent evidence reviews by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

We may have run out of clever puns, but yet another, very large study has refuted the spurious link between cell phone use and brain cancer. Read more, here, about a team of Danish researchers findings that long-term data do not support the too-often cited link.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. However, its prevalence also makes it the focal point of researchers who aim to prevent and treat it and it seems that now we re seeing the positive effects of their efforts. Last week, the CDC reported that there had been a continued decline in coronary heart disease incidence, as well as its associated mortality.

Shoppers might soon be seeing stars in the grocery aisles, if recent recommendations from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on food labeling are accepted by the FDA. The IOM s report, requested by Congress, recommends that the FDA develop a single system of standardized symbols one that should reflect food s healthfulness to appear on the front of all food and beverage products.

A previously feared link between ACE inhibitors (a common treatment for high blood pressure) and congenital heart defects may actually be unfounded, a recent study suggests.

A new prenatal blood test made by Sequenom will test for Down syndrome less invasively in the early stages of pregnancy. Known as MaterniT21, the test determines with a high degree of accuracy whether the baby will have Down syndrome. This condition, in which the child has some degree of mental retardation, is caused by Trisomy-21 three copies of the chromosome 21, instead of the normal set of two.

Over one in 10 Americans aged 12 and over are currently using antidepressants, according to recent data from a federal health survey. Indeed, antidepressants are the most commonly prescribed drug for adults ages 18 to 44.

Radiation following breast conserving surgery for women with smaller cancerous lesions is beneficial in terms of both recurrence and mortality, according to the results of a large meta-analyis of 17 studies published in The Lancet. The analysis was performed by researchers from the Early Breast Cancer Trialists Collaborative Group.

In other tobacco-related news, four U.S. senators have sent a letter to the Major League Baseball players union, asking them to agree to a ban on chewing tobacco during baseball s World Series, which begins tonight with Texas visiting St. Louis.