The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has questions about the safety and legality of AeroShot, the inhalable caffeine product released last month. So does the American Academy of Pediatrics.
In a reversal, a panel of experts is advising the Food and Drug Administration to approve Qnexa, a weight-loss pill, that was rejected in 2010. The potential benefits for overweight people exceed the risks, such as birth defects and increased heart rates, the panel determined.
An expert panel is expanding an earlier recommendation that seniors be vaccinated if they have contact with very young infants. Now just about all seniors will be candidates for vaccination. Adults and teens have been on the recommended list for years already.
Women are more likely to have heart attacks that don't announce themselves with crushing chest pain. And women having heart attacks like those are more likely to die than men.
Teenagers who see drinking scenes in movies are more likely to start drinking, and to binge drink themselves, according to a new study. Drinking features in almost all movies, even in many rated for children.
A little more than a year ago, NPR launched the Road Back to Work series, following six people in St. Louis who started 2011 unemployed and were searching for work. Like so many Americans, the people we followed have had difficulty getting health coverage, even after returning to work.
Family, friends and fans flocked to New Jersey during the weekend for the funeral of Whitney Houston. The music legend was public about her struggle with substance abuse, and her daughter is one of millions who had to cope with that addiction. Host Michel Martin and a panel of parents discuss how parents' addictions affect their kids.
Researchers have shown how a bacterium resistant to antibiotic treatment passed from humans to pigs to humans. And now the new resistant human bug appears to be spreading beyond people with direct exposure to livestock.
The March issue of the medical journal "Pediatrics" features an editorial looking at Gender Identity Disorder in Children. NPR's Alix Spiegl tracks the rise of awareness about Gender Identity Disorder and how the editorial might effect how frequently the disorders are treated.
Pediatric surgeons often have to improvise the tools of their trade, because surgical instruments are not often designed specifically for children. Some surgeons are teaming up with engineers to try to change this.
Traumatic brain injuries are often caused by a blast: A bomb explodes and the concussive effect violently shakes the brain. The Army has had a mixed record treating soldiers for TBI. Now it's trying to spot the injury close to the battle and get soldiers out of the fight.
Researchers have long known that aspirin can be risky for children who have asthma. Now some researchers are pointing to data that suggests acetaminophen could be a problem, too.
Belmont Abbey College alleges that rules requiring no-cost contraceptive coverage for women violate its Catholic mission. The administration has countered that the college's health plan isn't affected by the health law anyway.
Writing in the journal Nature, UCSF pediatrician Robert Lustig and colleagues suggest regulating sugar just like alcohol and tobacco--with taxes and age limits, for example--due to what they call the "toxic" effects of too much sweet stuff. Education, they say, is not enough.
A newly designed bottle and syringe that were supposed to make it easier to give a baby the right dose of Tylenol have drawn complaints from parents. The new system is too difficult to use.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Wednesday that E. Coli bacteria are responsible for sickening 12 people in the Midwest. KSMU’s Brittany Donnellan reports.
Thousands of detailed codes form the backbone of a billing system that the federal government has been seeking to modernize for a while. The U.S., unlike other countries, is still using old codes. After doctors objected, the government agreed to delay implementation indefinitely.
Dietary cleanses that promise immediate detoxification are all the rage this time of year. But experts say the body is naturally quite good at getting rid of most toxins, and doesn't need a lot of help.
Many hospitals around the nation are perilously close to running out of a form of the old standby cancer drug methotrexate. The reason: a principal supplier of injectable methotrexate shut down in November after it flunked an FDA inspection.
In an effort to shake up a "pill for every ill" approach, the Army is making alternative treatments more widely available. Among the new options is acupuncture, which some veterans say is making them less dependent on painkillers. That doesn't mean there isn't resistance, including from many in uniform.
As of this week, the Springfield-Greene County Health Department’s Animal Control program has gone 16 weeks, or four full months, sending all potentially adoptable dogs to one of the area’s “no-kill” rescue partners for public adoption. The shelter says this milestone marks the longest “streak” that anyone from the program can recall of not putting down potentially adoptable animals. KSMU’s Rebekah Clark has this report.
The stricter the parents when it comes to teenage drinking, the less likely a teen is to succumb to an impulse to imbibe, Dutch researchers have found.
Candymaker Mars says it's setting a 250 calorie limit for all of its candy bars. That means a regular Snickers bar will lose 30 calories and the king size bar will be no more.
Counterfeit versions of diet drugs, Lipitor and a flu medication called Tamiflu have been found in this country before. But so far fake cancer medicines have been rare.
