Another study in Human Reproduction, which examined 13,815 Danish women, reported that women who smoked for part or all of their pregnancy bore daughters began menstruating at a slightly younger age than the daughters of non-smokers.Menarche is the age at which a girl has her first period.

A new study reported in the journal Human Reproduction provided welcome news for women suffering from infertility.

Under the enthusiastic leadership of First Lady Michelle Obama, late last week Congress approved the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, legislation intended to make school lunches healthier. The bill, which merely awaits the President’s signature to become law, requires schools to use more whole grains, fresh fruits and fresh vegetables in cafeteria meals.

In Wednesday’s Dispatch, ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross commented on the new Food Safety and Modernization Act that was recently approved by the Senate. Dean O. Cliver, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis, calls attention to an interesting point:

A harmonious symbiosis between Big Pharma and academia will hopefully lead to the speedier development of better medications for the treatment of a spectrum of psychiatric disorders. Nine pharmaceutical companies have teamed up with a group of academic institutions to create a large database that will share results from previous clinical trials on drugs that have already gained market approval.

The saga over genetically modified sugar beets continues to unfold with the latest ruling on Tuesday by Judge Jeffrey S. White of the United States District for Northern California banning farmers from planting Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beet seeds next spring. Judge White also ordered farmers to pull 256 acres of the GM baby beet plants from the ground. Currently, these genetically modified seeds make up 95 percent of the total U.S.

A new Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) information database designed to document complaints about consumer products will create a burgeoning market for false reports that can be wrongfully used in litigation, writes Walter Olson in the Cato @ Liberty blog. As part of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) of 2008, the CPSC voted 3-to-2 last week to create a government database that will allow members of the public to post unverified criticisms of products for any reason.

As we round the corner after Thanksgiving, many Americans will shift into high gear, heading down the straightaway toward tacking on an extra few pounds during the infamous season of holiday weight gain. But a new meta-analysis of 19 long-term studies consisting of approximately 1.5 million white adults finds that those who are overweight have a 13 percent increased risk of death.

Unfortunately, many people have a poor grasp of the hierarchy of health-related risks, write ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross and former ACSH Trustee Dr. Henry Miller, a Hoover Institution fellow, in an op-ed for Investor’s Business Daily.

If you were to view a map of the world and light up all of the countries who use biotechnology to generate more abundant and nutritious food supplies, all of Europe would be dark, says ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. This is the subject of an op-ed published in yesterday’s The Wall Street Journal by Irish agronomist and farmer Jim McCarthy.