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In yet another case of a provocative, but largely inaccurate headline, aspirin is a big item in the news today. The 100+ year-old drug in addition to being used for pain and fever is widely used to prevent heart attacks and strokes. But a group at Stanford University School of Medicine believes that, possibly because of its anti-inflammatory properties, aspirin may decrease the risk of malignant melanoma.

Seductive additive boosting addiction or harmless flavoring? ACSH examines the evidence on and complexities regarding menthol as an ingredient in tobacco products, an ingredient whose banning is often debated. This paper updates a previous research paper on the same subject.

In a move that borders on hilarious (unless you happen to live there, in which case it's anything but) Nevada state Sen. Tick Segerblom is pushing for a law that he believes will address the growing problem of opiate addiction. The new measure would permit patients who become addicted to painkillers to sue the doctors who prescribed the medications, as well as the manufacturers that made the drug.

A simple skin exam can significantly reduce the odds of being diagnosed with invasive melanoma, according to a new study. And these results hold true for patients who have had even a single skin exam as compared to those patients with no history of dermatologic examination.

We re not the only ones who think there s something really fishy about how the Obama administration is delaying AquaBounty s application to sell genetically modified salmon.

The latest food scare du jour involves an online petition by moms Lisa Leake and Vani Hari of North Carolina asking Kraft to remove Yellow Dyes No. 5 and 6 from their mac and cheese.

U.S. life expectancy at birth is among the lowest of all high-income countries. While analysis of the reasons for this unpleasant reality are complex, one example of the recent research into possible explanations showed that the lower life expectancy was largely due to premature deaths of those age 50 and younger compared to their counterparts in other industrialized nations.

Mayor Bloomberg s ban on large sugary drinks set to go into effect on Tuesday, March 12th is not only applicable to soda, but may affect your morning coffee routine as well. And those restrictions are even more difficult to understand than the soda regulations, sorry to say.

For quite a while, ACSH has been skeptical to say the least about the scientific basis of the prevailing guidelines and studies about salt and salt intake, and here s another one to add to the list: Too much salt may trigger autoimmune diseases.

After launching campaigns against soda, salt and fast food, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is at it again with a new target ear buds. But unlike some of his pervasive and ill-advised forays into dictating our health behaviors, this time the Mayor has promulgated a productive campaign to save our youngsters hearing.

Home blood pressure monitoring programs demonstrated superiority to usual care for keeping hypertension in check, a randomized controlled trial found.
Led by Dr. David Magid from Kaiser Permanente Colorado, a team of researchers followed 348 hypertensive patients, half of whom used the American Heart Association s Heart 360 Program a free, online tool for tracking heart health. Users can upload blood pressure data from their home blood pressure machines and send it to their health care providers.

Gel manicures a manicure in which a coat of colored gel is applied to the nail and dried using UV light have been increasing in popularity, mostly because they do not chip and last twice as long as a regular manicure. But doing its best to create a health scare, the New York Post blares Manicure red alert on its front page today. DOC S SHOCK WARNING.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention head Dr. Thomas Frieden calls them nightmare bacteria and they are showing up in more and more U.S. hospitals.

A new study suggests that the life expectancy for some American women seems to be on the decline, specifically in rural areas in the south and the west.
The study, based on mortality rates in U.S. counties from 1992-1996 and 2002-2006, found that women age 75 and younger are dying at higher rates than previous years in nearly half of the nation's counties - many of them rural and in the South and West. For men however, life expectancy has held steady or improved in nearly all counties.

In a Dispatch article Monday, ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom excoriated a study that tried (and failed miserably) to link exposure to BPA with childhood asthma. Apparently, he has a bit more to say on this matter. You can read his typically mild-mannered and non-judgemental op-ed, Maybe the Worst Paper Ever? here.

A new study published in the journal Health Affairs found that the rate of Caesarean deliveries varied widely across hospitals and regions of the United States, from 7 percent of all births at the hospital with the lowest rate, to 70 percent of all births at the hospital with the highest rate.

A new study, published yesterday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, suggests that screening colonoscopy may markedly reduce the risk of developing advanced colon cancer.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is not just a problem for kids nearly a third of those diagnosed as children with ADHD still have the condition in adulthood, according to a 20-year study, published yesterday in Pediatrics.

ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross appeared on The Vicki McKenna radio program yesterday evening. The discussion revolved around ACSH's newly-published "Top 10 Scares of 2012." Ms. McKenna and Dr. Ross had discussions of several of these scares, some part of which were informational and other parts were somewhat humorous.

A Mississippi baby born two and a half years ago has been functionally cured of HIV, according to doctors and scientists. The baby was aggressively treated with antiretroviral drugs starting around 30 hours after birth something that is not standard practice.
The unidentified child has been off medication for about a year with no signs of the HIV infection. This is already unprecedented. If the child remains healthy, it would mark only the second time in the world s history that a person has been cured of HIV the only other case involved a bone marrow transplant.

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop didn t live long enough to see America turned into a smoke-free society but can we? That s the provocative idea behind an op-ed in today s New York Times by Richard Daynard, a Northeastern University law professor and president of its Public Health Advocacy Institute.

BPA is in the news yet again, and this time it is being linked to childhood asthma. According to the new study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, children who are exposed to BPA are at an increased risk for asthma. But from reading the article, we found a paucity of data to support that assertion. In fact, maybe just the opposite.

ACSH has just finished conducting a rigorous analysis of the top 10 health scares of 2012 and we can hereby declare it was a pretty scary year. From phthalates in school supplies to the labeling of genetically modified food to BPA in cash register receipts, there were a number of scares out there. But we re here to tell you you don t have to live in fear get the facts about these phony scares here.

It s no secret that the US has been (and still is) facing a life-threatening shortage of common hospital drugs. Much has been written about this frightening problem, including a 2011 op-ed in the New York Post by ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom entitled Running out of Common Drugs.

Coronary artery calcification, the buildup of calcium in the coronary arteries, was found to predict the occurrence of stroke, even in individuals with low-to-intermediate cardiovascular risk, according to a new study. The coronary artery calcification score, measured using an electron-beam CT scan, had been shown previously to predict myocardial infarction as well as cardiovascular risk in the general population.