The leading sexual health care charity steps into a major row today by urging women to keep the "morning-after" pill alongside plasters and paracetamol in the bathroom, in case they have unprotected sex. [...]
However, critics said the BPAS was encouraging reckless behaviour and lack of self-control.
Vancouver- Twins Tatiana and Krista Hogan were a medical marvel when they were born sharing a skull. Now, seven weeks later, doctors say they have discovered a baffling "bridge" of tissue connecting the girls' brains, raising the spectre that they can transmit certain brain signals to one another.
Recent scans show that part of the infants' upper brain stems are connected by a corridor of tissue, doctors told reporters yesterday at the British Columbia Women's Hospital and Health Centre.
However, pediatric neurosurgeon Doug Cochrane said it could take months for doctors to determine what kind of information is carried along this brain bridge and what it means for the girls' future.
A contraceptive pill that promises to end the misery of menstruation for millions of women has been proved safe and effective for the first time.
The medicine, called Lybrel, was taken every day for a year and halted periods in more than half of the 2,000 women who used it.
It is the first pill specifically designed to eliminate the fertility cycle which many regard as central to womanhood. Ordinary oral contraceptives are taken for 21 days a month, with a break of seven days during which the woman has her period, preserving the biological rhythm.
Circumcising men cuts their risk of being infected with the Aids virus in half, and could prevent hundreds of thousands or even millions of new infections, researchers said yesterday.
Circumcising men worked so well that the researchers stopped two large clinical trials in Kenya and Uganda to announce the results, although they cautioned that the procedure does not make men immune to the virus.
Experts say the reduced risk may be because cells on the inside of the foreskin are susceptible to HIV infection.
Comment: Don't believe everything you read.
Kevin Zeese
AlterNetWed, 13 Dec 2006 12:00 UTC
The government's war on drugs is never-ending. Instead of enforcing drug prohibition, we should be spending money on treatment and rehab.
An increasingly popular doll with genitalia and pubic hair offers an alternative to Barbies for a gift that can educate about sexuality without damaging body image.
There's a slow poison out there that's severely damaging our children and threatening to tear apart our culture. The ironic part is, it's a "health food," one of our most popular.
Now, I'm a health-food guy, a fanatic who seldom allows anything into his kitchen unless it's organic. I state my bias here just so you'll know I'm not anti-health food.
The dangerous food I'm speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they're all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.
The only practicing physician in the state legislature has asked hundreds of water districts to stop adding fluoride to drinking water, citing recommendations from the American Dental Association that moms avoid using tap water to mix baby formula.
State Rep. Joey Hensley, a Republican from Hohenwald, said he mailed about 250 letters last week after hearing that ingesting too much fluoride can cause fluorosis - or staining of the teeth - in young children.
Some of Britain's most senior scientists have angrily denounced suggestions that Sir Richard Doll, who proved the link between smoking and lung cancer, had deliberately failed to disclose financial dealings with the chemicals industry.
The scientists said that tens of millions of people owed their lives and health to studies pioneered by Sir Richard. "It is with dismay that we now hear allegations against him that he cannot rebut for himself," the scientists say in an open letter.
Comment: In other words, Doll and other scientists on chemical company payrolls had a vested interest in finding something to blame for lung cancer and many other illnesses caused by industrial chemicals in the air, food and water.
Common cancer drugs may be more harmful to the brain than the tumour cells they are meant to destroy.
Laboratory tests have shown that dose levels typically used when treating patients killed 70-100 per cent of neural cells but just 40-80 per cent of cancer cells. Several types of healthy brain cell continued to die for at least six weeks after exposure.
The findings, published in the Journal of Biology, may help explain the little understood cancer therapy side effect of "chemo brain".
Comment: Don't believe everything you read.