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Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr gives us a new way to think about stopping the HIV epidemic: "treatment as prevention." If implemented across the globe, it may be the key in stopping new cases of HIV -- and stopping the epidemic once and for all. 

We let Dr. Wells loose on the mean streets of New York City to see if people can guess her profession.  Learn why here.

Junk science is everywhere. This is why our mission is so important. If journalists and advocates don't speak up for good science, cranks and quacks will take over. As part of our ongoing effort to eradicate nonsense, here's our list of the top junk science stories we debunked this year.

Many Americans are deprived of sleep, which leads to daytime drowsiness. At the office, it can cost employers millions of dollars in productivity loss. But behind the wheel, it can cost lives.

A small, yet promising, brain trauma study may someday lead to a time when doctors can forecast which patients who incurred concussions or repeated blows to the head will be at risk for future neurological problems.

The nutrition pendulum is still swinging, and there's yet another report about the dangers of diet. You thought dietary fat had acquired a clean (OK, cleaner) bill of health compared to dietary sugars. But we seem to still have some anti-fat folks out there. Should we worry? Probably not, and here's why.

An increasing regulatory burden has a disproportionate impact on the small farmer. Larger farms can absorb the high cost of increased compliance, and can afford to hire lawyers and compliance personnel to navigate regulations. As a result, farms and agricultural businesses are forced to get big, or shut down.

The prestigious school is growing its list of misguided "experts" while thoroughly undermining its great reputation. Columbia's latest hire is former New York Times food writer Mark Bittman, who calls biotechnology "overrated" while endorsing the mandatory labeling of GMOs, a policy rejected by every major mainstream medical and scientific organization in America.

Vitamin D is crucial for normal growth and development, and in North America much of a child's vitamin D comes from fortified dairy milk. Parents have been advised to give their children reduced fat rather than whole milk — supposedly to decrease the risk of obesity. A new report by Canadian researchers indicates that this advice just might be counterproductive — especially when it comes to vitamin D absorption, and even to obesity.

Andrew Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy and their anti-vaccination groupies are making less and less of an impact, according to a new report released by the CDC which analyzes vaccination data on kindergartners.  

The first scientifically-sound research study digs into whether or not chiropractic manipulations are useful in treating migraines and finds -- not surprisingly -- that they are not. Hopefully, there will be many more studies like this in the future. 

A report released by the American Osteopathic Association discusses the potential uses and pitfalls of the controversial (non)supplement kratom. It may have some use in treating pain, but it should not be sold in supplement stores. Nor should it classified as Schedule I by the DEA, since this prevents research from being done. Let's call this "govern-medical malpractice."

Although they have been prominently featured in the news since March, the herpes vaccines GEN-003 and Theravax are not the only kids on the block. Here are some of the others you should know about.

Since kids under age have a limited ability to know themselves physically, and express themselves, is what they're saying always accurate? That's one of the important questions clouding the results of a study which determined that little kids can be influenced to eat by TV food commercials when they are not hungry.

Are the very real physical costs of your outrage worth it? Albeit the election, contentious divorce or nonstop negativity, there are tangible prices to our responses to these and other types of triggers.

The tobacco industry certainly earned its reputation for undermining public health. But now anti-soda activists are using the sobriquet "Big Soda" to get people to think that soda consumption is as bad as cigarette smoking. And thus to enact taxes on sugary beverages as many jurisdictions have on tobacco. Whether this move could really benefit public health remains to be seen.

With 140 million citizens in Russia, there's an estimated 1.5 million who have been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS. And the rate of HIV infection is rising 10 to 15 percent each year. To demonstrate just how backward Russia's public health policy is, take a look at its HIV statistics as compared to those of the United States.

Molecular biology never ceases to amaze. The 15-year-old question — why world-saver Jack Bauer never pees, eats or poops has been answered. Hint: He's got some very foreign DNA.

Richard A. "Red" Lawhern, Ph.D. is an advocate for pain patients and has given a report card on our healthcare system. It is not good. 

It isn’t hard to imagine that as our enlarging and ever-stiffening polarized political spheres come to a head, an article about what maintains the penis’ potency might be a kind of crowning glory.

By Stephanie Bucklin, Live Science Contributor
Men still aren't living as long as women — and that holds true for humans' primate cousins as well, a new study shows.

About 1,500 cooking fires occur every Thanksgiving, mostly from deep frying turkeys. While this practice is fairly new, my family was exposed to a very different Thanksgiving hazard many years ago: Aunt Wilma's turkey. Which is worse? Hard to say.

Tossing and turning in bed all night long, it can feel as if you're the only person in the world unable to sleep. It may be a small comfort to learn, however, that you aren't the only one. Millions of other Americans also struggle to sleep.
In the latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the CDC reports data on the prevalence of sleep trouble by age group and sex. (See chart below.)

Only 1 in 8 women are aware that density is a risk factor, and just 1 in 5 know that dense tissue reduces the sensitivity of mammograms to find tumors. Since breast cancer is second worst cancer killer among women, why hasn't there been more emphasis on the risk factors associatd with dense breasts?

The immune system has been harnessed in a number of different ways, most notably, in fighting cancer. While some results have been spectacular, there have also been some spectacular failures, something that Juno Therapeutics just found out when its experimental leukemia drug killed five people.