President Obama claimed Tuesday that air pollution from coal can cause asthma in children. Speaking at a town hall event in Annandale, Virginia, the President said that while coal is ”very cheap, it’s also dirty.

The fact that generic vicodin has topped the list of most commonly prescribed drugs reflects a growing national drug abuse problem. As an administration spokesman pointed out opiate drug overdose has surpassed motor vehicle accidents as the most common cause of injury-related death in 17 states. To combat this worrisome public health trend, President Obama has proposed an “unprecedented” initiative, instituting a government-wide approach to counter prescription drug abuse.

The seemingly immutable rise of prescription drug spending in America is slowing, according to a new report released Tuesday by the consulting firm IMS Health. In 2010, the U.S. spent $307 billion on medications — a 2.3 percent increase from 2009, the slowest rise in drug spending in recent memory.

Forty years after publishing the groundbreaking study linking in utero diethylsilbestrol (DES) exposure to a rare vaginal cancer — clear-cell adenocarcinoma (CCA) — the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has come out with a historical perspective piece on this incredible story.

A new meta-analysis warns that when assessing whether to take calcium supplements, you may need to consider that the risks to heart health could outweigh the benefits, which mainly consist of enhancing bone mineral content and reducing fractures.

Two new studies should give you two more reasons to quit smoking or even better, never to start in the first place. Published in Tobacco Control, researchers from the University of Queensland School of Population Health in Australia compared all-cause death (mortality) rates between male and female smokers in a 10-year follow-up study using the Australian National Death Index.

ACSH staffers were taken aback this morning when we read that certain insurance companies have been denying applications or offering coverage with steep premiums to healthy organ donors. Those who are insured through large companies may not run into this problem, but people looking for insurance on the individual market or who may be covered through small businesses could find themselves in hot water.

In a comprehensive review of bisphenol A (BPA) published in the journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology, the German Society of Toxicology (GST) analyzed about 5,000 studies and concluded that, “[BPA] exposure represents no noteworthy risk to the health of the human population, including newborns and babies.” But this report may come as some surprise to the (unfortunately) very few readers who will learn of it, consider

The National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Association are issuing new medical guidelines today that divide Alzheimer’s disease into three stages. The first stage, which may be considered pre-clinical — meaning before any mental dysfunction is apparent — is the most recently characterized phase.

Diplomats from the World Health Organization (WHO) announced Saturday that the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) has officially committed to providing sufficient and affordable supplies of flu vaccine to developing countries in exchange for the global sharing of virus samples with WHO’s laboratories in order to make the most effective, targeted vaccine possible. The deal is an effort to improve future flu pandemic preparedness.