The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said May 1 that it was investigating the products and facilities involved in the voluntary recall of more than 40 varieties of liquid medication for children and infants, including Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and Zyrtec.
Public Health
What’s the best way to get rid of leftover prescriptions?
Between concerns over prescription drug abuse among teens and worries over pharmaceuticals swirling in the public water supply, there’s ample cause for concern when it comes to determining the best way to get rid of leftover prescriptions. So, what should you do with them?
Graco recalls 217,000 wooden cribs
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced a recall of Graco brand wooden cribs manufactured by LaJobi Inc. All of the cribs affected by the recall have a drop side—or a side that can be lowered to facilitate reaching into the crib. So far 99 incidents in which the drop side either became unattached or the hardware
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Study: Canadians live longer and in better health than Americans
On average, Canadians enjoy 2.7 more years of “perfect health” than their southern neighbors, according to new research published in the journal Population Health Metrics. In the new study, a team from Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Oregon analyzed data from the 2002-2003 Joint Canada/United States Survey of Health to
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NIH says science is lacking for Alzheimer’s prevention
A new report fro the National Institutes of Health suggests that, currently, there is not enough rigorous scientific evidence to suggest any surefire ways of preventing Alzheimer’s disease. While small studies have suggested that everything from crossword puzzles to routine exercise can help stave off cognitive decline, the national
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Brazilian health minister recommends having more sex
As part of a national campaign against high blood pressure, Brazil’s minister of health Jose Temporao offered some tips for simple ways to improve health—among them, dancing, routine blood pressure screening, and more time in the sack, the Associated Press reports. Nearly a quarter of Brazilians had high blood pressure in 2009,
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HPV test better than pap smears for cervical screening
Two studies out this week indicate that human papillomavirus (HPV) screening may be a more effective way than conventional pap smears to identify pre-cancerous cells, enabling women to intercept cervical dysplasia before it potentially develops into cancer.
Subway, Boar’s Head join voluntary salt reduction initiative
While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is mulling possible strategies for limiting sodium content in manufactured foods—in large part in light of a recent report from the Institute of Medicine highlighting the health problems associated with the nation’s salt habit and the pressing need to cut back—the New York City-led National
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When interrupted, nurses more likely to make mistakes
When you get interrupted in the middle of something, it can be hard to regain your train of thought—which can be annoying if you’re knitting and lose count of stitches, for example, or you’re wandering through the office and lose track of whom you’d been headed to speak with. But when you’re interrupted while measuring medication for
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In spite of eradication efforts, a polio outbreak in Tajikistan
Despite the recent $700 million donation from Bill Gates to help eradicate polio around the globe, as of last summer the disease was spreading across Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And last week the WHO confirmed at least 120 cases of polio in Tajikistan, the small country of about 7.3 million people that
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Why Dennis Quaid is fighting to improve patient safety
Three years ago, a medical mistake almost cost actor Dennis Quaid’s twin children their lives. As the Associated Press reports, at “Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Thomas and Zoe Quaid were accidentally given an overdose of the blood thinner heparin.” For the next 41 hours Quaid says his children’s lives hung in the balance.
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An FDA campaign to curb salt consumption
Public health researchers have been working to highlight the dangers of excessive salt consumption for decades, and in the last year alone studies have underscored just how big a salt habit Americans have: on average, we consume up to twice the recommended amount of sodium each day, significantly increasing our risk for hypertension and
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Calling on health insurers to drop fast food stock
Health insurance companies in the U.S., Canada and Europe hold nearly $1.9 billion in fast-food company stock, according to a new study from researchers at Harvard Medical School and the department of medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance. In the study, published this week in the American Journal of Public Health researchers examined
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