Health & WellnessS


Syringe

US: Maine Middle School to Offer Full Range of Contraception

Pupils at a city middle school will be able to get birth control pills and patches at their student health center after the local school board approved the proposal Wednesday evening.

The plan, offered by city health officials, makes King Middle School the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available to students in grades 6 through 8, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

There are no national figures on how many middle schools, where most students range in age from 11 to 13, provide such services.

Snowman

FDA Advisers: No Cold Meds for the Young

WASHINGTON - Cold and cough medicines don't work in children and shouldn't be used in those younger than 6, federal health advisers recommended Friday.

The over-the-counter medicines should be studied further, even after decades in which children have received billions of doses a year, the outside experts told the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA isn't required to follow the advice of its panels of outside experts but does so most of the time.

Monkey Wrench

'Patients treat themselves' as NHS dentists dwindle

Falling numbers of NHS dentists are forcing many patients to go without treatment or even try pulling out their own teeth, a study found today.

Health

Watchdog condemns 'shocking' levels of salt in fast-food meals

Many meals in fast-food restaurants contain "shockingly" high levels of salt, with Pizza Hut the worst offender, according to a report by campaigners.

Health

Greece is letting its health slide, new study finds

Greece's failure to adopt an effective illness prevention program, combined with unhealthy eating practices and high rates of smoking among others, have led to the life expectancy of Greeks to slide down the European scale over the last 10 years, according to a study released yesterday.

Question

Swearing at work boosts team spirt, morale: research

LONDON - Regular swearing at work can help boost team spirit among staff, allowing them to express better their feelings as well as develop social relationships, according to a study by researchers.

Yehuda Baruch, a professor of management at the University of East Anglia, and graduate Stuart Jenkins studied the use of profanity in the workplace and assessed its implications for managers.

They assessed that swearing would become more common as traditional taboos are broken down, but the key appeared to be knowing when such language was appropriate and when to turn to blind eye.

Health

Virus test found to be better than pap smear for women

A test that looks for the virus found in 99 percent of cervical tumors is far more effective than a Pap smear for detecting the early stages of cervical cancer, Canadian researchers said on Wednesday.

©REUTERS/File

Comment: For more important information on the Gardasil vaccine, read:

Judicial Watch Uncovers Three Deaths Relating to HPV Vaccine

Gardasil Vaccine linked to sickness, Parents Urged Not To Panic

Outrageous: 8 more deaths connected to HPV vaccine


People

A day in the life of U.S. teens: thousands do drugs

A snapshot of an average day in the lives of U.S. teens shows hundreds of thousands are smoking, drinking and ingesting illegal drugs, according to a report from the federal government.

On an average day, nearly 1.2 million teenagers smoked cigarettes, 631,000 drank and 586,000 used marijuana, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found.

Syringe

Parents Use Religion to Avoid Iatrogenocide

BOSTON - Sabrina Rahim doesn't practice any particular faith, but she had no problem signing a letter declaring that because of her deeply held religious beliefs, her 4-year-old son should be exempt from the vaccinations required to enter preschool.

Attention

Staph infection worries close 21 Virginia schools

WASHINGTON - A county in southern Virginia closed its 21 schools on Wednesday to clean them to prevent the spread of a dangerous bacterial infection that killed a 17-year-old high school student, officials said.