The FDA has announced a plan to reduce patients' unnecessary exposure to radiation from three different medical imaging tests. The three-pronged strategy will focus on increasing the safety of the devices, increasing patient awareness of risks, and improving the ability of patients and doctors to make informed decisions.

The tests in question are computed tomography (CT) scans, nuclear medicine studies and fluoroscopy. CT scans produce three-dimensional images of different areas of the body, nuclear medicine studies involve consumption of a radioactive substance to observe its motion through the body, and fluoroscopy uses a continuous beam of radiation to produce a real-time, moving image.

"The FDA continues to support a strong dialogue between patients and physicians over the medical necessity and risk associated with these types of imaging studies," the agency said. "However, like all medical procedures, CT, nuclear medicine, and fluoroscopy pose risks."

It did not even occur to me that people thought frozen yogurt was a "health food" until I spent some time in the USA. There, people line up in droves at frozen yogurt stores to buy a junk food that they're convinced is good for them. And why is it good for them, in their own minds? Because it's "yogurt."

I actually went to the trouble of visiting a line of people at a frozen yogurt store and asking several people there if they could name the ingredients in the frozen yogurt they were buying. Not one of them could. Most just said, "Yogurt." (Are you detecting a pattern here?)

Upon further investigation, I found that frozen yogurt retailers don't make it very easy for you to find out what's actually in their products in the first place. They don't print ingredients on the products they sell, and even their websites make it virtually impossible to find this information.

University of Ulster scientist, Anna Soto, just issued a warning that bisphenol A - BPA - can set off toxins that lead to cancer, wrote the BBC. According to Soto, a link has been found between BPA use and mammary cancer in laboratory rats, the BBC added.

The BBC also pointed out that BPA has been banned or limited in three countries: Canada, Denmark, and France. In the United States, a number of bans are in place in a variety of states and counties; others are underway and under consideration.

Professor Soto collaborated with Professor Carlos Sonnenschein from Tufts University in Boston; the team discovered that fetal and neonatal BPA exposure increases the risk of developing "malignant tumors later in life," wrote the BBC. "I would call for a banning of the use of BPA giving the growing evidence and increasing concerns that research has shown. The fetal and neonatal life are crucial for a child's development and parents should consider the advantage of using BPA-free products," said Soto, quoted the BBC.

Charleston, West Virginia - Children exposed to higher levels of C8 are at an increased risk of developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to a scientific paper published this week.

The study, by researchers at Boston University and the Harvard School of Public Health, also found higher risks for children exposed to other similar perfluorinated chemicals.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is one of the most common neuro-developmental disorders in children. Kids diagnosed with it are often inattentive, impulsive and hyperactive.

Researchers compared parental reports of ADHD diagnosis from Centers for Disease Control Data and blood samples for the chemicals. They found that, for example, for every additional 1 part per billion of C8 in the blood, children faced a 12 percent increased risk of ADHD.

When a person signs up to participate in medical research, he or she is given a form to sign that is supposed to state the goal of the study as well as all the known possible risks of the drug or procedure being tested. But a new report by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Columbia University concludes informed consent forms are often too long and complicated -- full of legalese and technical gobbledygook -- for many people to understand.

For anyone who takes a look at the sometimes shameful history of human experimentation in this country, even the slightest concern research subjects are not fully informed is worrisome. One of the most heartbreaking cases of study participants denied informed consent involved the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

Between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service conducted experiments on 399 poor African-American men suffering from syphilis. The men were never told what disease they had or its seriousness. Instead, they were told they were being treated for "bad blood" by doctors who had no intention of curing them of syphilis at all. In fact, the goal was to collect data from the men's bodies after they died from the excruciating effects of untreated syphilis.

In 1966, Henry K Beecher, M.D., published a scholarly article, "Ethics and Clinical Research," that documented 22 unethical research trials published in U.S. medical journals since World War II. The paper revealed horrendously dangerous experiments conducted on unsuspecting research subjects. For example, malignant cells from cancer patients were injected into elderly and debilitated inmates of the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital -- people who were incapable of giving informed consent.

Australian courts recently ruled that Vioxx, a popular prescription painkiller, should never have been approved and allowed on the market. The case represents the world's first successful class action lawsuit against a drug company for damage caused by its drugs.

Merck, the drug giant that produced Vioxx, was deemed by the courts as negligent for failing to properly inform doctors who were prescribing the drug about the dangers and health risks associated with the drug. As a result, thousands of patients around the world have suffered severe injury or death because of Vioxx.

Graeme Peterson, a 59-year-old man represented in the case, was awarded the equivalent of about $266,000 for injuries inflicted upon him by Vioxx. He suffered a heart attack from the drug in 2003 that has left him unable to work since. He took the drug for more than four years, and still keeps a Vioxx tablet with him as a reminder of what almost killed him.

Dhaka - Up to 77 million Bangladeshis have been exposed to toxic levels of arsenic from contaminated drinking water, and even low-level exposure to the poison is not risk-free, The Lancet medical journal reported.

Over the past decade, more than 20 percent of deaths recorded in a study that monitored nearly 12,000 people in the Araihazar district of the capital Dhaka appear to have been caused by arsenic-tainted well water.

By some estimates, between 35 and 77 million people in Bangladesh have been chronically exposed to arsenic-contaminated water as a result of a catastrophically misguided campaign in the 1970s.

The role of viruses and lectins in the development of disease has been one of the most amazing topics that I have researched over the past seven years. I include these together because there is a fascinating interaction between these two entities that helps to explain many of the conditions we still refer to as "idiopathic", a term to which I now take exception. The only concept that upsets me more is "autoimmune disorder", a term that implies that our immune system does not know what it is doing. I wholeheartedly disagree with that premise and a better understanding of viruses and lectins supports my dissent.

Let's start with lectins. In my quest for solutions to "idiopathic" problems, the study of these antibody-sized proteins/glycoproteins yielded answers to many of the questions that were haunting me as I tried to explain how my dietary changes could yield such phenomenal results. Lectins are carbohydrate-binding glycoproteins or proteins that are ubiquitous in nature, with plants, animals and even bacteria producing these remarkable compounds. Although the true role of lectins in plants is still under investigation, we know that these proteins play numerous important roles in animals and man. They serve to bind circulating glycoproteins to cells, such as those in the liver, to facilitate their removal. Our body produces lectins that are involved in immune responses (e.g. mannose-binding lectin), the adhesion of cells, and the removal of pathogens through binding to carbohydrates on their surfaces. In the case of neurons, the oligodendrocyte produces two different lectins- one that helps nourish the neuron and another that can kill it. Bacteria produce lectins that enable them to adhere to tissue. Finally, certain foods contain lectins that can do serious harm to susceptible individuals. Therefore, there are "good" and "bad" lectins in nature- those that promote health and others that contribute to disease.

Watching the news some days, you'd think a lot of companies were run by psychopaths. And, according to a recent study, some might well be. One of the authors of the study was hired by companies to evaluate managers - mostly middle-aged, college-educated, white males - for a management development program. It turns out that these managers scored higher on measures of psychopathy than the overall population, and some who had very high scores were candidates for, or held, senior positions. In general, managers with higher scores were seen as better communicators, better strategic thinkers, and more creative. However, they were also seen as having poor management style, not being team players, and delivering poor performance. But, apparently, this didn't prevent some of them from being seen as having leadership potential. The authors conclude that "the very skills that make the psychopath so unpleasant (and sometimes abusive) in society can facilitate a career in business even in the face of negative performance ratings."

Babiak, P. et al., "Corporate Psychopathy: Talking the Walk," Behavioral Sciences & the Law (March/April 2010).

The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences.

It was Christmas Eve 1926, the streets aglitter with snow and lights, when the man afraid of Santa Claus stumbled into the emergency room at New York City's Bellevue Hospital. He was flushed, gasping with fear: Santa Claus, he kept telling the nurses, was just behind him, wielding a baseball bat.

Before hospital staff realized how sick he was - the alcohol-induced hallucination was just a symptom - the man died. So did another holiday partygoer. And another. As dusk fell on Christmas, the hospital staff tallied up more than 60 people made desperately ill by alcohol and eight dead from it. Within the next two days, yet another 23 people died in the city from celebrating the season.