Free Republic

The rash of tough pro-vaccine bills that infected state legislatures after the Disneyland measles outbreak has largely faded, and based on the uproar in California, it’s not hard to see why. The state capitol has been flooded off and on for months with parental-choice advocates drawing thousands for protests against Senate Bill 277, which would eliminate personal belief or religious exemptions and require all children without a medical exemption to be vaccinated before entering public school. And the outcry has only grown louder as the bill nears passage, spreading beyond the issue of vaccination safety and morphing into a full-blown...

Health groups are petitioning the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban eight synthetic flavors in food that are known carcinogens. The petition, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said the flavors, which have been used for over 40 years, are found in ice cream, candy, baked goods and beverages. The petition asks FDA to revoke its 1964 approval that allowed seven of the eight flavorings to be used in food and overturn the industry’s 1974 self-approval of the eighth synthetic flavor, which they assert can be used under a loophole in the law for chemicals that are...

A female patient with an extremely hard-to-treat form of tuberculosis is being treated at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington D.C., and federal and state officials are now tracking down hundreds of people who may have been in contact with her. The woman traveled to at least three states before she sought treatment from a U.S. doctor. While TB is not easily caught by casual contact, extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB is so dangerous that health officials will have to make a concerted effort to warn anyone who may be at risk.

San Francisco officials are deciding whether to impose a warning on ads for a favorite drink of children and a bane of public health advocates: Sugary soda pop. The "Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Warning Ordinance" would require health warnings on advertising within city limits — on billboards, walls, the sides of cabs and buses. Supporters and opponents say San Francisco would be the first place in the country to require warnings on ads for soda, which is linked to rotting teeth and obesity.

During the Great Recession, involuntary part-time employment surged. So, now that the economy is recovering, shouldn't involuntary employment return to prerecession levels? Perhaps not, according to new research from the San Francisco Fed. Changes in the U.S. economy's industrial composition toward services combined with shifting demographics and changes in labor costs appear to have caused a permanent increase in the percentage of people forced to accept involuntary part-time employment.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that a record 54% of Americans oppose Obamacare–the highest disapproval rating ever in the Post-ABC poll–and a six point increase in unpopularity since last year. Support for President Barack Obama’s unpopular signature legislative achievement registered at just 39%, which “ties the record low” as seen in April 2012.

Characteristics passed between generations are not decided solely by DNA, but can be brought about by other material in cells, new research shows. Scientists studied proteins found in cells, known as histones, which are not part of the genetic code, but act as spools around which DNA is wound. Histones are known to control whether or not genes are switched on. Researchers found that naturally occurring changes to these proteins, which affect how they control genes, can be sustained from one generation to the next and so influence which traits are passed on. The finding demonstrates for the first time...

Scientists now know that our DNA is being altered all the time by environment, lifestyle and traumatic events. Genetic faults caused by trauma, poor lifestyle or environmental stress can be passed down to future generations, scientists at the University of Cambridge have discovered. Previously large studies have shown that devastating events such as famine can scar future generations, making them more prone to obesity and diabetes. However it is the first time that the biological mechanism for the effect has been seen. Although the same genes are passed down through generations, scientists now know that our DNA is being altered...

Former president Bill Clinton will be the keynote speaker at a conference of health-insurance executives this week. America's Health Insurance Plans, the largest health-insurance provider trade group in the country, is holding its Institute 2015 conference in Nashville this week. Clinton, whose wife Hillary is running for president, will close out the conference Friday afternoon with his address to attendees. "The session is open to Institute attendees (who have registered and paid for the entire Institute) and Friday only registrants," says the conference's website. "No press allowed."

A new report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest has identified the unhealthiest restaurant meals in America.For the center's annual "Xtreme Eating" list, its nutrition experts reviewed menus at 200 restaurant chains in the US to find the meals heaviest in calories, saturated fat, sodium, and sugar.Restaurants that made the list include The Cheesecake Factory, Outback Steakhouse, and Red Lobster.Here's the list, ranked lowest to highest by calories.9. The Cheesecake Factory: Warm Apple Crisp (1,740 calories) Center for Science in the Public InterestThis decadent dessert has whipped cream, caramel sauce, apple crumble, and two scoops of ice...

In March, the federal government removed the latest vaccine injury court statistics—more than a year’s worth of data—from one of its publicly reported charts. It was an abrupt departure from the normal practice of updating the figures monthly. Wiping the latest data means the “adjudication” chart on a government website no longer reflects the recent, sharp rise in court victories for plaintiffs who claimed their children were seriously injured or killed by one or more vaccines. Since January of 2014, twice as many victims have won court decisions than the previous eight years combined.

WASHINGTON -- About a decade ago, a doctor friend was lamenting the increasingly frustrating conditions of clinical practice.

A person infected with measles was at a New Jersey funeral home two times earlier this month, the state Department of Health announced Thursday. The department confirmed the measles case Thursday, saying the individual may have exposed people at a funeral home in the Fords section of Woodbridge in Middlesex County on May 11 and 14. Measles is a highly contagious viral illness that can cause serious medical complications. As a result, the department recommends that anyone who visited Flynn and Son Funeral Home, 23 Ford Ave., Fords, on Monday, May 11, between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., and on...

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) is leading a new push to allow women to buy birth control without a prescription, hoping to deliver on one of the biggest promises of his freshman Senate campaign last year.A half-dozen Senate Republicans have signed onto Gardner’s bill, which would require drug companies that sell contraceptives to file an application to sell their products over the counter. “Most other drugs with such a long history of safe and routine use are available for purchase over the counter, and contraception should join them,” Gardner wrote in a statement. He said his bill would benefit women in...

I received the bill for a single porcelain crown today. It was almost $900. That got me to thinking, what would it cost if you had to pay for all of your body parts one piece at a time? At today's prices, probably way more than a lot of us are worth. God sure was good to us. He gave most of us all the body parts we needed for free. Of course good ol' mom and dad helped! Just something to be thankful for and a break from thinking about all the trouble in the world today.

The news from Africa and the Third World is seldom good, and much of the bad news is about disease born of ignorance, superstition and primitive sanitation, news dispatched by a media addicted to tales of unrelieved gloom, certain doom and inevitable disaster. We were all supposed to be dead by now from strange diseases reduced in the public prints to acronyms and bold initials — AIDS, SARS, MERS, swine flu, avian flu and most recently Ebola. These diseases are rightly feared, but in most places they’re diseases only of a tiny part of the population of a country or...

Proposals set the stage for debate over federal health law’s impact. Major insurers in some states are proposing hefty rate boosts for plans sold under the federal health law, setting the stage for an intense debate this summer over the law’s impact. In New Mexico, market leader Health Care Service Corp. is asking for an average jump of 51.6% in premiums for 2016. The biggest insurer in Tennessee, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, has requested an average 36.3% increase. In Maryland, market leader CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield wants to raise rates 30.4% across its products. Moda Health, the largest insurer on the...

Despite fury from lawmakers the day before, Colorado’s health exchange board voted on Thursday to collect millions of additional dollars from all Colorado health insurance customers, even those who have nothing to do with the exchange. On top of that “broad market assessment,” the board also voted to more than double the user fees levied on people who buy insurance through Colorado’s exchange. .. The higher broad market fee is projected to allow Connect for Health Colorado to scoop up about about $20 million in 2016. It has been set at $1.25 per member per month on all health insurance...

Nearly two in three Americans who bought subsidized health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges this year had to pay some of the federal dollars back, according to new data from H&R Block. That's because they presumably collected more federal aid than their income qualified them for. In that case, consumers must either pay some of it back or — in most cases — the IRS will subtract it from their tax refund. Policymakers have expressed concern that low-income people could struggle with paying back the subsidies — or suffer if their tax refunds are greatly reduced because of overpayments. The...

iFixit’s teardown of the Apple Watch has revealed that the sophisticated heart-rate monitor used is actually capable of acting as a pulse oximeter, allowing it to calculate the oxygen content of your blood by measuring how much infrared light is absorbed. This data would be useful for health and fitness monitoring, but the functionality is not currently enabled in the watch. As iFixit notes, there are a couple of possible reasons Apple is not currently allowing to watch to display this data … First, it may simply be that the company hasn’t yet achieved the necessary accuracy and reliability from...