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Until recently, New York had seemed poised to approve the method of natural gas extraction dubbed fracking, which would have not only allowed access to vast amounts of safe and clean natural gas, but would also have provided an economic bounty for depressed New York State areas, including more jobs for struggling communities along the Pennsylvania border. But now Gov.

When The Pill was developed back in the early 1960s, medical and social philosophers predicted a sexual revolution, as reproductive and sexual fulfillment were, it seemed, finally untied from each other. However, complications ensued.

An old wives tale makes a comeback: Cranberry juice

With states cracking down on so-called pill mills that dispense painkillers willy-nilly, some doctors and patients are complaining it s become too difficult to get legitimate prescriptions for chronic pain. The Wall Street Journal describes a pharmacy crawl in which patients have to go to multiple pharmacies and several towns to get their pain medication.

A fear campaign has dissuaded some parents from vaccinating their children with Gardasil, one of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, a Merck product on the market since 2006.

Ordering drugs over the Internet may seem convenient, but the Food and Drug Administration is warning that the vast majority of online pharmacies are fake and probably selling counterfeit drugs.

The Oklahoma Legislature is scheduled to have a committee hearing this Wednesday to discuss using tobacco harm reduction strategies as a means to reduce the health damage from cigarettes.

Last week, the Canadian government reaffirmed the safe use of bisphenol A (BPA) in food packaging, upholding its 2008 stance that dietary exposure to the chemical does not pose a health risk to the general population, including newborns and young children.

An interesting op-ed in The New York Times had ACSH staffers questioning the mantra: Always wear a helmet while riding a bike!

In what ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross calls one of the worst studies ever, a team of researchers from the University of Texas School of Public Health reported in the Journal of Pediatrics that exposure to a widely used herbicide during pregnancy may raise the risk of a birth defect.

In addition to voting for president, this election season residents of California will be determining the fate of Proposition 37, which would mandate the labeling of foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients.

It s official: The flu season is upon us, and ACSH would like to join the ranks of other leading health organizations in encouraging everyone over the age of six months to get their flu vaccine as early as possible.
And for those of you who may think that you needn t worry about getting immunized, given last year s mild flu season, we d like to remind you that the CDC reports that influenza-associated deaths range from 3,000 to nearly 50,000 each year. And, unfortunately, last year s vaccine will not offer much (if any) protection against this year s flu virus.

A new study by the CDC is providing at least a glimmer of hope that certain intervention and prevention strategies may be reversing the trend of extreme obesity among young children.

In 1999, ACSH assembled a Blue Ribbon Panel of physicians and scientists, chaired by former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. The panel, after a thorough review of the literature, gave two members of the family of chemicals known as phthalates a clean bill of health. Phthalates (pronounced thal-ates) are used to soften plastics, which would otherwise be hard and brittle.

On his Tobacco Analysis blog, ACSH advisor Dr. Michael Siegel of the Boston University School of Public Health excoriates the European Union s revised Tobacco Products Directive. The already restrictive Directive now recommends banning the marketing of all smokeless nicotine-containing products (NCP).

Just last week, the first ultrasound device to improve breast cancer detection in women with dense breasts won FDA approval.

In January 2011, the New York City Department of Education implemented a pilot program to distribute birth-control information and supplies in 13 schools across the city. The program is part of a wider effort to lower the rate of teen pregnancy, as some 7,000 NY high-school students become pregnant by age 17 each year.

For years, breast cancer awareness campaigns have urged women not to miss their scheduled mammograms. Yet there are some women for whom a regular mammogram is not enough. The latest research shows that women whose breasts are composed mostly of dense tissue can have a mammogram year after year and still have their breast cancer go undetected.

The debate over whether organic is better came to a head recently when a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that there are no nutritional or safety differences between foods produced according to organic standards and those cultivated by conventional methods.

We recently reported on a study published in BMJ finding that procedures involving radiation to the chest, including chest X-rays or mammograms, may significantly increase the already high risk of breast cancer that women with certain genetic mutations (BRCA1 or BRCA2) face.

Although in the U.S. the age at which someone can legally consume alcohol is set at 21, it is quite clear that many adolescents start drinking much sooner. In light of these facts, then, parents often face a difficult decision: At what age is it appropriate to introduce their children to alcohol?

Almost exactly one year ago, television s Dr. Oz scared the American public by warning parents that the apple juice they were giving their children could be toxic. The culprit? Arsenic.

If you re pregnant or even contemplating it I m sure you ve heard the mantra about drinking while gestating: Just Say No. Everyone knows that there s no amount of alcohol you can safely imbibe if you re pregnant. Right?

In 2008, The American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute both recommended that yearly screening for high blood pressure should begin as early as age three. However, according to a recent study published in Pediatrics, pediatricians are still failing to take kids blood pressure at about one-third of routine check-ups.