Scientific American

Putting Tests to the Test: Many Medical Procedures Prove Unnecessary and Risky

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 07:00:00 EST

The routine use of 130 different medical screenings, tests and treatments are often unnecessary and should be scaled back, according to 25 medical specialty organizations. The medical societies jointly released lists of tests and therapies patients should question in their campaign, Choosing Wisely . The initiative of the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation is aimed at reducing unnecessary interventions that waste money and can actually do more harm than good.

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New Study Links BPA and Childhood Asthma

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 11:00:00 EST

Kids exposed to a commonplace chemical early in life are more likely to have asthma, according to a study published today.

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Women's Exposure to Chemicals May Explain Unexpected Breast Cancer

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 11:00:00 EST

Deep in a laboratory freezer, 100,000 vials of blood have been frozen for the better part of five decades.

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Childhood Cancer Is a Neglected Disease

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:00:00 EST

The treatment of childhood cancer is one of oncology's success stories, with five-year survival rates that have shot up from 30% in the 1960s to 80% now -- at least in high-income countries.

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The Rich See a Different Internet Than the Poor

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 07:00:00 EST

Imagine an Internet where unseen hands curate your entire experience. Where third parties predetermine the news, products and prices you see--even the people you meet. A world where you think you are making choices, but in reality, your options are narrowed and refined until you are left with merely the illusion of control.

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Trial sans Error: How Pharma-Funded Research Cherry-Picks Positive Results [Excerpt]

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 12:00:00 EST

Excerpt from Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients , by Ben Goldacre. Published by Faber and Faber, Inc. © 2013 Ben Goldacre. Excerpted with permission from the publisher. All Rights Reserved.

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A Hacked Database Prompts Debate about Genetic Privacy

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 10:30:00 EST

Linking a human genome in an anonymous sequencing database to its real-world counterpart wasn’t supposed to be possible.

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Controversial Stem Cell Company Moves Treatment out of U.S.

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:00:00 EST

US citizens who had pinned their hopes on a company being able to offer stem-cell treatments close to home will now need to travel a little farther. Celltex Therapeutics of Houston, Texas, stopped treating patients in the United States last year following a warning from regulators. A 25 January e-mail to Celltex customers indicates that the firm will now follow in the footsteps of many other companies offering unproven stem-cell therapies and send its patients abroad for treatment -- but only to Mexico.

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NIH Told to Retire Most Research Chimps

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:00:00 EST

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) should dismantle a decades-old colony of 360 chimpanzees, retiring all but roughly 50 of the animals to a national sanctuary, the biomedical agency was told on 22 January in a long-awaited report.

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Health Care Rationing Is Nothing New [Excerpt]

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 10:00:00 EST

Editor's Note: Excerpted from Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States since 1930 , by Beatrix Hoffman, by arrangement with the University of Chicago Press. Copyright © Beatrix Hoffman, 2012. [More]

Fetal Genome Screening Could Prove Tragic

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 08:00:00 EST

In a few years you will be able to order a transcript of your entire genetic code for less than $1,000. Adults cannot do much to alter their biological lot, but what if parents could examine their unborn child's genome? Without proper guidance, they might decide to take drastic measures--even to end the pregnancy--based on a misguided reading of the genetic tea leaves.

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BPA Replacement Also Alters Hormones

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 11:00:00 EST

Just like the controversial compound it's designed to replace, a chemical used in cash register receipts and other consumer products messes with hormones, according to research published today.

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A Dangerous Game: Some Athletes Risk Untested Stem Cell Treatments

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 07:20:00 EST

In 2005, at the age of 32, then Los Angeles Angel Bartolo Colón won the American League Cy Young Award for best pitcher, one of professional baseball's top honors. He stumbled through subsequent seasons, however, after a series of rips and strains in the tendons and ligaments of his throwing arm, shoulder and back. In 2009 he all but quit baseball. Desperate to reclaim his career, Colón flew home to the Dominican Republic in 2010 for an experimental procedure not vetted or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Doctors centrifuged samples of Colón's bone marrow and fat, skimmed off a slurry containing a particular kind of stem cell--immature, self-renewing cells that can turn into a variety of tissues--and injected it into his injured shoulder and elbow. Within months of the procedure the then 37-year-old Colón was once again pitching near the top of his game for the New York Yankees--commanding a 93-mile-per-hour fastball.

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Supreme Court Ensures Funding of Research Using Human Embryonic Stem Cells

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 10:00:00 EST

The US Supreme Court today ended an effort to shut down government support of human embryonic stem cell research, refusing to hear a case that challenged the legality of funding for the work by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

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How Much Alcohol Is Safe for Expectant Mothers?

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 07:00:00 EST

On the night of my 32nd birthday, my husband and I enjoyed a delicious dinner while on vacation in Orvieto, Italy. To complement my pasta, I enjoyed a single glass of red wine, my first since learning I was pregnant four months earlier. Even now my indulgence inspires periodic pangs of guilt: Did I stunt my son’s potential by sipping that Sangiovese?

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Safety Survey Reveals Lab Risks

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 12:00:00 EST

Scientists may have a false sense of security about the safety of their laboratories, according to early results from the first international survey of researchers’ workplace attitudes and practices.

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New Limb-Lengthening Tech May Reduce Complications for Sufferers of Crippling Deformities [Slide Show]

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 08:00:00 EST

Screaming woke Lanz Ellingsworth. The piercing cries were loud, they were shrill -- and they were coming from his daughter's bedroom.

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In the Flesh: The Embedded Dangers of Untested Stem Cell Cosmetics

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 07:30:00 EST

When cosmetic surgeon Allan Wu first heard the woman's complaint, he wondered if she was imagining things or making it up. A resident of Los Angeles in her late sixties, she explained that she could not open her right eye without considerable pain and that every time she forced it open, she heard a strange click--a sharp sound, like a tiny castanet snapping shut. After examining her in person at The Morrow Institute in Rancho Mirage, Calif., Wu could see that something was wrong: Her eyelid drooped stubbornly, and the area around her eye was somewhat swollen. Six and a half hours of surgery later, he and his colleagues had dug out small chunks of bone from the woman's eyelid and tissue surrounding her eye, which was scratched but largely intact. The clicks she heard were the bone fragments grinding against one another. [More]

Should Doctors Warn Pregnant Women about Environmental Risks?

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:00:00 EST

SAN FRANCISCO – When Dr. Darragh Flynn sits down with her pregnant patients, she preaches healthy habits: Don’t smoke or drink, eat nutritious foods and take vitamins.

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How We Followed the Drug Research Money

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 08:00:00 EST

I was looking for a group project for a new investigative reporting class for undergraduates that I would teach in spring 2011. I had already begun looking at the pharmaceutical industry's influence on clinical trials when ProPublica published its "Dollars for Docs" database .

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