Good news abounds in 2015 on the vaccine front and the CDC announced some more this week. Vaccine coverage rates among American kindergardeners is very high in most of the country. However, keep that "mission Accomplished" banner at bay. There's still advocacy work to be done.

It took a new national advertising campaign for the FDA to do what they have been saying they would do since the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 gave them the authority. We're on their side, so we don't want to be too mean, but why did it take six years?

Bees die. A lot. They die in the winter, they die in the summer. Sometimes they die in one area, which is what happened in 2006. Why? Well, it could be stress. Or that beekeeping has become a fad, where amateurs are bungling their backyard hive. So there's mounting evidence that the so-called "Beepocalypse" is not to be Bee-lieved.

A new trend among health care systems is posting patient evaluations of staff physicians, or "doctor report cards." This is a bad idea, as professional qualities of care, knowledge and compassion (much less outcomes) are not amenable to Yelp-like reviews as if doctors were personal computers on sale.

Simple lifestyle interventions are a tempting target to stave off cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease. Sadly, two new studies appearing in JAMA show no discernible benefit from exercise activity nor from omega-3 or vitamin supplementation.

First, the EPA bungled the mine disaster in Colorado, polluting a beloved river. Now, it's getting even tougher to believe its officials, when earlier this week the agency announced that an internal investigation of a separate matter cleared itself of wrongdoing.

It appears that some Indiana school children may be forced to create a secret smuggling web. Does it involve drugs, or other contraband? No. They're doing it just to get through their midday meal. Do we want to raise a generation of students who worry they can't even trust their own lunch?

There's a new sugar substitute called allulose (aka psicose), with properties that could make it a very popular, non-caloric sweetener. But it must be manufactured. It'll be interesting to see how psicose will be received by the anti-sugar substitute psychos.

Now that it's OK to eat fat again, we seem to need another dietary villain. Enter The Sugar Film, one Australian's attempt to blame sugar for his ills after he consumes way too much of the stuff. How convincing is it? Not very.

Time to stop counting calories? Really? Doctors say some dietary changes are more important for reducing heart disease. But can t we do both?