For seniors addicted to smoking — whether they got that way from a YouTube video or not — Medicare is expanding its coverage to include tobacco-cessation counseling for those who haven’t been diagnosed with a tobacco-related disease, the Obama administration announced Wednesday.

In light of the recent egg recall, people are scrambling to get free-range chickens eggs, thinking they may be safer than those laid by caged hens, but mounting evidence suggests that this may just be a myth spurred by food activists. According to a 1994 study investigating the presence of a specific type of salmonella, the strain was present in 50 percent of free-range hens but found in only 1 percent of caged hens. Additional research of U.S.

A recent HealthDay News headlined “Nicotine Can Fuel Breast Cancer, Study Suggests” may needlessly scare readers into wrongfully assuming breast cancer may be caused by smoking. The study, which analyzed 276 breast tumor samples in vitro for a specific nicotine receptor subunit (a9-nAChR), found an over-production of the subunit in advanced-stage breast cancer compared to early-stage cancer.

It looks like Quiky the Bunny — Nestle’s Nesquik mascot — may soon be forced into early retirement as public schools across the nation consider banning fat-free chocolate milk from lunchroom cafeterias due to its high sugar content. Schools in the District of Columbia and Berkley, Calif. have already enacted bans, but some nutritionists are critical, arguing flavoring is crucial to get kids to drink milk, which contains essential nutrients including calcium and vitamin D.

The FDA issued a warning Tuesday for the portable foot tanner known as the Tootsie Tanner, stating that “flaws in the Tootsie Tanner and the instructions that accompany it could cause you to burn your feet and damage your eyes.”

Even though her provision to ban bisphenol A (BPA) was removed from the Food Safety Modernization Act, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) refuses to give up and is asking California Gov.

While electronic cigarettes are nothing new to Dispatch readers, they just today made the front page of The Wall Street Journal. The paper reports that e-cigarette companies argue they cannot afford the clinical trials the FDA wants to require for approval and warn that they will be forced to go out of business if the FDA gets its way.

Amid one of the largest egg recalls in U.S. history, some food-safety advocates are criticizing the FDA’s decision not to include mandatory hen vaccinations against salmonella in the agency’s new egg safety rules. After a similar salmonella outbreak in the 1990s, Britain encouraged farmers to inoculate their hens, and last year saw just 581 cases of salmonella poisoning — a 96 percent drop from 1997.