Health News

More hugs, fewer bugs. Holiday visits have become safer for grandparents thanks to a childhood vaccine that has dramatically curbed infections spread by kids, a new study finds. Read More

Swine flu is not only dangerous to pregnant women, but it's a threat to new mothers too, the first study to document this risk shows. An analysis of pregnant women and new mothers who were hospitalized with swine flu in California found that those who had a baby in the previous two weeks were at higher risk of severe flu complications. Read More

Drugmaker MedImmune is recalling nearly 5 million doses of swine flu vaccine because the nasal spray appears to lose strength over time, federal health officials announced Tuesday. Read More

A dog in suburban New York is the first in the nation confirmed to be carrying the same strain of swine flu that is infecting humans, experts said Tuesday. Read More

Federal regulators under President Barack Obama have sharply shifted course on long-standing policy toward pharmaceutical residues in the nation's drinking water, taking a critical first step toward regulating some of the contaminants while acknowledging they could threaten human health. Read More

Emergency health alerts for the Facebook generation? The nation's ambulance crews are pushing a virtual medical ID system to rapidly learn a patient's health history during a crisis _ and which can immediately text-message loved ones that the person is headed for a hospital. Read More

A Maine legislator wants to make the state the first to require cell phones to carry warnings that they can cause brain cancer, although there is no consensus among scientists that they do and industry leaders dispute the claim. Read More

If you've had a heart attack or a bypass operation, there's an easy way to help prevent another one: stick with rehab. Read More

As Congress gets closer to a final health care bill, many Americans want to know: What's in it for me? Read More

An extremely rare infection has been passed from an organ donor to at least one recipient in what is thought to be the first human-to-human transfer of the amoeba, medical officials said Friday. Read More

The government's top public health agency frequently failed to police its outside experts for conflicts of interest, according to a new government report released Friday. Read More

Procter & Gamble Co. is recalling 700,000 packs of Vicks DayQuil capsules because they are not childproof. Read More

About 1 in 110 children have autism, according to the government's latest estimate released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read More

Austria's health ministry says the contraceptive morning-after pill is now available in pharmacies without a prescription. Read More

After weeks of shortages, swine flu vaccine is plentiful enough that nearly half the states now say everyone can get it, not just people in high-risk groups. Read More

A British medical journal has published findings saying a mistress of 16th-century French King Henry II may have died from consuming too much drinkable gold. Read More

The World Health Organization plans to start shipping swine flu vaccine to Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and Mongolia in the next few weeks, flu chief Keiji Fukuda said Thursday. Read More

Yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus. And he's a public health menace. Read More

Sex researchers who tracked teenage girls in Indianapolis found that half of those studied had at least one sexually transmitted infection within two years of first having sex. Read More

Hundreds of thousands of swine flu shots for children have been recalled because tests indicate the vaccine doses lost some strength, government health officials said Tuesday. Read More