The parliament in Reykjavik, Iceland is considering some radical tobacco legislation: banning the sale of cigarettes from the usual retail outlets and allowing only pharmacies to sell them. As part of a 10-year plan, cigarettes would be legal to purchase only from pharmacies to those over the age of 20; eventually, only those with a doctor s prescription would be allowed to buy them.

In today s hectic times, moms-to-be and their OBGYN s may not think twice about scheduling an artificially-induced early childbirth for the sake of convenience. But a new study by Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare is cautioning against the practice due to elevated health risks for neonates.

While physicians may be used to screening their diabetic patients for numerous complications associated with the disease, up until now they ve had few reasons to expect to see hearing loss in these patients. However, in a meta-analysis of 13 studies comprising over 20,000 subjects, and which may be the first to quantify the association between diabetes and hearing loss, Dr.

Despite repeated requests for sensible modifications to the stringent restrictions on lead in products that might be used by children, as mandated by the 2008 Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), no such easing is forthcoming.

In May, the world marveled at news that early anti-retroviral treatment of those who are HIV-positive reduced the chance of one partner infecting another by over 96 percent. Now, in a new study led by Dr.

Researchers at the School of Medicine at West Virginia University have violated every tenet of sound epidemiology, says ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross, in their attempt to link levels of a chemical used to make teflon-like surfaces to arthritis among a population of people exposed to the tainted water.

Dr. Rosemary Stanton, a nutritionist based in Australia, writes in response to our (June 16) coverage of the E. coli outbreak in Europe:

The media have reported on a number of high profile cases of professional athletes who have died suddenly on the field most prominently, that of NFL player Korey Stinger, who died in 2001 from exertional heat stroke. In this week s Wall Street Journal, Kathleen Hobson interviewed sports medicine specialist Douglas Casa to find out the most common reasons for these tragic events.

The only ones still urging consumers to strive to drink eight eight-ounce glasses of water a day are the bottled water companies, argues Dr. Margaret McCartney in a British Medical Journal commentary. Dr.

Should a child s morbid obesity be classified as abuse and neglect on the part of the parents, and thus grounds for state interventions like moving a child to foster care? According to the authors of a commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the answer is yes. Harvard School of Public Health s Dr. Lindsey Murtagh and Dr. David S.