Health & Medicine

  1. Health & Medicine

    Dangerous Practices

    Pharmaceutical companies' overaggressive marketing of risky drugs, compounded by conflicts of interest among physicians and government agencies, is hurting public safety, some researchers assert.

    By Ben Harder
  2. Health & Medicine

    Good Exposure: Contact with babies might lessen MS risk

    People who grow up with younger siblings close to them in age are less likely to develop multiple sclerosis later in life than are people without such siblings.

    By Nathan Seppa
  3. Health & Medicine

    ‘Harmless’ Alga Indicted for Mussel Poisoning

    A common algal species turns out to be a serious food-poisoning agent.

    By Janet Raloff
  4. Health & Medicine

    Urine test signals pregnancy problem

    A simple urine test can warn women that they have an increased risk of preeclampsia, a dangerous complication of pregnancy.

    By Nathan Seppa
  5. Health & Medicine

    One in a Million

    A 15-year-old girl in Wisconsin has survived a rabies infection without receiving the rabies vaccine, a first in medical history.

    By Nathan Seppa
  6. Health & Medicine

    The Beef about UTIs

    Antibiotic-resistant infections that affect some women may have been contracted from infected meat.

    By Christen Brownlee
  7. Health & Medicine

    Phage Attack: Antibacterial virus might suppress cholera

    Bacteria-attacking viruses that infect bacteria hold cholera bacteria in check throughout most of the year except during the rainy season when these viruses become diluted.

    By Nathan Seppa
  8. Health & Medicine

    Not to Your Health: New mechanism proposed for alcohol-related tumors

    New findings suggest that alcohol encourages blood vessels to invade tumors, supplying nutrients that promote tumor growth.

    By Christen Brownlee
  9. Health & Medicine

    Antibiotics could save nerves

    Penicillin and its family of related antibiotics may prevent the type of nerve damage that occurs in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other diseases.

    By Christen Brownlee
  10. Health & Medicine

    Palm-Nut Problem

    The ancient custom of chewing areca nuts is getting more popular as young Asians take up the habit, but betel-nut chewing has been linked to several types of oral cancer.

    By Diana Parsell
  11. Health & Medicine

    Bad Combo? Some antidepressants may hamper breast cancer drug

    Certain widely used antidepressants and a woman's own genes might diminish the effect of tamoxifen, a frontline breast cancer drug.

    By Nathan Seppa
  12. Health & Medicine

    Beat Generation: Genetically modified stem cells repair heart

    Tissue engineers have for the first time used genetically modified human stem cells to repair damaged hearts in guinea pigs.

    By David Shiga