Health News

As flu season approaches, many New Jersey parents are furious over a first-in-the-nation requirement that small children must get a flu shot in order to attend preschools and day-care centers. The decision should be the parents', not the state's, they contend. Read More

Drink a milkshake and the pleasure center in your brain gets a hit of happy _ unless you're overweight. It sounds counterintuitive. But scientists who watched young women savor milkshakes inside a brain scanner concluded that when the brain doesn't sense enough gratification from food, people may overeat to compensate. Read More

Operating room nurse Pauline Taylor knows her refusal to get a flu shot is based on faulty logic. Read More

A federal appeals court appeared skeptical Tuesday that a landmark tobacco judgment could be supported under racketeering laws, questioning whether cigarette makers had conspired to hide the dangers of smoking and would continue deceiving the public. Read More

The global economic turmoil is likely to take its toll on AIDS research funding and add to the problems plaguing the search for a vaccine against the virus, scientists warned Tuesday. Read More

Nearly one in three patients who need a kidney transplant may never get one because their bodies are abnormally primed to attack a donated organ. Now doctors are trying new ways to outwit the immune system and save more of those so-called "highly sensitized" patients _ often with kidneys donated by living donors, considered the optimal kind. Read More

Attorneys general from Connecticut, New Jersey and Delaware sent letters Friday to 11 companies that make baby bottles and baby formula containers, asking they no longer use the chemical bisphenol A in their manufacturing because they said it was potentially harmful to infants. Read More

The European Union told music lovers Monday to turn down the volume of MP3 players, saying they risk permanent hearing loss from listening too long at maximum levels. Read More

The nation's leading pediatricians group says children from newborns to teens should get double the usually recommended amount of vitamin D because of evidence that it may help prevent serious diseases. Read More

When drug makers made a surprise announcement this week that they no longer recommend cough and cold remedies for youngsters under 4, they didn't let on that it was the government's idea. Read More

One in four teen girls have rolled up their sleeves for the relatively new vaccine against cervical cancer, federal health officials said Thursday. Read More

A German farmer who received the world's first complete double arm transplant said Wednesday that incredulity gave way to joy when he woke from surgery to discover he had arms again. Read More

A German farmer who received the world's first complete double arm transplant is recovering well and able to perform some basic tasks, though doctors said Wednesday it still could take up to two years before he relearns how to use his hands. Read More

The University of Minnesota has concluded that falsified data were used in a 2001 article published by one of its researchers on adult stem cells. The school is asking that the article be retracted. Read More

Using a fan to circulate air seemed to lower the risk of sudden infant death syndrome in a study of nearly 500 babies, researchers reported Monday. Placing babies on their backs to sleep is the best advice for preventing SIDS, a still mysterious cause of death. Read More

Get moving: New exercise guidelines released Tuesday set a minimum sweat allotment for good health. For most adults, that's 2 1/2 hours a week. How much physical activity you need depends largely on age and level of fitness. Read More

Children under 4 should not be given over-the-counter cough and cold remedies, drug companies said Tuesday in a concession to pediatricians who doubt the drugs do much good and worry about risks. Read More

Most people over 75 should stop getting routine colon cancer tests, according to a government health task force that also rejected the latest X-ray screening technology. Read More

One in 75 patients who gets a knee or hip replaced must get it replaced again within three years, new research finds, although the studies underscore a question: Just how much pounding can a new joint take if you want it to last? Read More

Three European scientists shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for separate discoveries of viruses that cause AIDS and cervical cancer, breakthroughs that helped doctors fight the deadly diseases. Read More