Today is a big day. The first round of Health Care Reform provisions takes effect.

Rep. Larson gave HuffPo a rundown of 10 major benefits we’ll see. Basically, an insurance company can’t drop your policy when you’re sick, deny your kids a policy if they’… Read full post »

I've been waiting and watching for other people's responses to the health care reform that passed the House Sunday evening. There's still some tweaking the Senate needs to do, and I hope they can pull it off so the bill is the best it can be now that it's through… Read full post »

Last year, the FDA approved another cervical cancer vaccine, a product from GlaxoSmithKline. It's no wonder then that I'm now seeing ads on TV, but they're not for the product, they're fearmongering about cervical cancer and distort the facts.

The commercial I've seen multiple t… Read full post »

Remember that bill making miscarriages illegal? Yeah, the Governor of Utah signed it.

 The politician who introduced the legislation wouldn't sit down to talk with Planned Parenthood representatives to discuss the implications or the background of the legislation (the case… Read full post »

I am speechless. On the surface, there are legitimate reasons for deterring women from obtaining pregnancy-ending services from non-physicians, though criminalization is harsh. But Utah is waiting for the Governor's signature on a bill that would make any miscarriage a potential murder case.

It's a r… Read full post »

The Lancet has officially retracted the 1998 study by Wakefield that linked the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine with autism.

The retraction comes amidst pressure from another British medical journal in efforts to curb misunderstandings of the findings by the general public as well as upholding… Read full post »

Mistletoe...usually it invokes thoughts of stolen smooches, or if you're a pet owner you may think of it as a no-no because it's toxic to most pets. But there are some who think of it as a therapeutic.

Last year around this time I researched the literature on mistletoe as an… Read full post »

Last night, the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress passed their health care bill. 220 representatives, including 1 Republican (Cao of Louisiana), decided that the bill they had before them was what they wanted to contribute to health care reform in this country. The v… Read full post »

I ran across this interesting, though intuitive, study in the International Journal of Obesity. It is currently open access, so I wanted to share it while you can still read it.

The researchers looked at twins in Finland to determine the extent physical activity can overcome ob… Read full post »

I missed this news when it came out in May. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a spending program to push research on rare diseases, the ones that affect less than 200,000 Americans. They also want to include research on neglected diseases, those that affect low income or undeveloped r… Read full post »

There are many conditions known to be the result of both genetics and environment. Despite extreme environmental variations that can overcome genetics, and genetics that can overcome environment - the majority of individuals who are susceptible lie somewhere in the middle, strad… Read full post »

Although the government (both state and federal) has been one of the constant players in the tobacco sale game, even making money off of it, there's been a slow war waged against smokers. It started with laws banning smoking in certain establishments, slowly in some cities and states. Then there were… Read full post »

The past few days have been surreal. We've been thrown out of our normal routine due to a litter of baby mice.

My significant other (otherwise known as Courtney) works at a store that had a mouse problem earlier this month.  So they caught the mouse in a trap, cleaned… Read full post »

This article was posted by an acquaintance on Twitter. I didn't have the space to point out all that was wrong with it, so I brought it here.

 The main idea is that GM (genetically modified) foods are bad for you and should be avoided.

The problem is… Read full post »

There are two new studies of autism that may change the understanding of the disease. In two new studies, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and copy number variations (CNVs) have been found to be associated with the disease. These genetic variations were found in genes enco… Read full post »

I'm not a climatologist, and I like to approach discussions on climate change as a student - I listen, ask questions, interject a "but what about", "I heard that", or "what if", but I try not to come to conclusions.

So I found this article interesting.… Read full post »

New guidelines for treating chronic pain in the elderly cites side effects as the reason doctors should prescribe opioids rather than over the counter NSAIDs (ibuprofen and aspirin, for example) to their older patients.

This article in the NYTimes describes the reasoning, and the comments make many… Read full post »

I don't always stick to health and science topics. One area of my interest lately has been the gay marriage debate.

Maine is the 5th state to legalize gay marriage. Hopefully New Hampshire will follow shortly. Although our governor may hold out. The letters written to the… Read full post »

Continuing on my theme of education from the past 2 days, The Globe and Mail had this editorial about education standards in Canada, particularly the push to raise graduation rates resulting in no-fail systems that pass unprepared students on to University.

 The United Stat… Read full post »

In September, The Pharmacogenetics Journal had an interesting, and brief, commentary on personalized medicine - specifically the current state of genetic testing to determine disease risk. Their point? That the science isn't in agreement with the commercial status.

During his trip to Africa this week, Pope Benedict, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, ruffled the feathers of the World Health Organization (WHO). UK news outlets are reporting that, on a plane to Cameroon, the pontiff said that AIDS “cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms,… Read full post »