Four governmental agencies — the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) — yesterday proposed voluntary guidelines for the food industry that would limit “junk food” advertisements aimed at children up to the age of 17. The agencies’ stated goal is to counter the nation’s childhood obesity epidemic.

The results from a multicenter trial funded by the National Eye Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health) demonstrate that after one year of follow-up, both Lucentis (ranibizumab) and Avastin (bevacizumab) had equivalent effects on maintaining or improving visual acuity in the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a common cause of irreversible blindness among the elderly. Interestingly, Genentech, a unit of Roche Holding AG, manufactures both drugs.

ACSH staffers would like to take our hats off to Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent, who announced in an annual company meeting Wednesday in Atlanta that he does not believe there exists sufficient scientific evidence to stop using BPA in the epoxy linings of the company’s iconic cans.

Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency is calling for the restriction of four phthalates under REACH (the European Union’s precautionary chemical regulation protocol). The agency claims that the chemicals should be banned in products intended for indoor use as well as those that come into contact with skin or mucous membranes because they are reproductive toxins. By inference, they declined to call for restrictions on four other phthalate plasticizers.

As most virology experts predicted (including ACSH's Dr. Josh Bloom), an FDA advisory panel voted to recommend that Victrelis (boceprivir), the first specific antiviral drug for hepatitis C, be approved by the FDA. The vote was unanimous, which is unusual. This reflects the urgent need for the drug, which has excellent efficacy, a good safety profile, and fills an unmet medical need.

A new court ruling in Europe could bring the development of life-saving embryonic stem cell therapies to a halt. European scientists yesterday voiced strong opposition against a preliminary ruling by European Court of Justice (ECJ) Advocate General Yves Bot, who is calling for a ban on patents for embryonic stem cell-related technologies on moral grounds.

A new Swedish study confirms the efficacy of current medical interventions for the emergency treatment of symptoms and signs of acute coronary occlusion (i.e. heart attack).

Tay-Sachs disease, a devastating congenital error in metabolism of central nervous system fats, is caused by a rare genetic mutation. It usually leads to death by the age of four. Marked by little or no movement or trouble swallowing around age six months, children with Tay-Sachs also exhibit frequent seizures and the loss of hearing and sight.

With his website ranked the 390th most popular, Dr. Joseph Mercola uses his online notoriety to tout thermograms as diagnostic screening tools for early breast cancer detection. Marketed as the Med2000, this thermogram takes digital images of skin surface temperatures using a special camera, which Dr.

Falls are the leading cause of injury among people over the age of 65, and according to the CDC, it affects one in three adults each year. Jack Mills, a continuous quality improvement specialist for the Lake County Health Department’s Population Health Services, emphasizes that falls have “really a life-altering and quality-of-life-altering impact on older people,” which is why the Lake County Health Department established a Falls Prevention Task Force to disseminate prevention and awareness pamphlets to seniors.