- TUESDAY, July 8 (HealthDay News) — Blood letting to reduce
levels of iron in men with peripheral arterial disease may reduce their
chance of developing cancer, according to a new study.

Lower levels of iron in the blood have previously been linked with a
lower cancer incidence in observational studies.

The results were based on a randomized controlled [...]

WASHINGTON - People trust dentists with their health. Some members of Congress are more skeptical.
The dental industry, asked to testify Tuesday about pollution from mercury in tooth fillings, found itself under attack from lawmakers who blame mercury for everything from autism in children to skin discoloration.
The hearing was about whether dentists should be required to [...]

Eight-year-old Charlie Blakey, who was diagnosed with autism at age 3, says a prayer before eating dinner with his family at their home on Oak Park, Ill., on April 23, 2008. Charlie’s mother Christina, has been using an alternative treatment, chelation, along with a variety of other therapies to treat her son. A proposed federal [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
Use of antibiotic drugs such as
Bayer AG's Cipro can lead to tendonitis and ruptured tendons,
U.S. health regulators said on Tuesday, calling for new strong
warnings on the products.

The so-called black box warning would also apply to Bayer's
Avelox, Oscient Pharmaceuticals Corp's Factive, Johnson &
Johnson's Floxin and Depomed Inc's Proquin.

It would also affect Johnson [...]

WASHINGTON - Drug safety officials Tuesday imposed the government’s most urgent safety warning on Cipro and similar antibiotics, citing evidence that they may lead to tendon ruptures, a serious injury that can leave patients incapacitated and needing extensive surgery.
The Food and Drug Administration ordered makers of flouroquinolone drugs — a potent class of antibacterials — [...]

A nurse is seen in the corridor of a hospital. The United States has the least popular healthcare system out of 10 developed countries that were surveyed by Harris Interactive, with a third of Americans saying it needs a complete overhaul.(AFP/File/Pascal Pavani)

WASHINGTON (AFP) -
The United States has the least popular healthcare system out of 10 [...]

- QUACK RESEARCH? The government wants to test chelation, a treatment for lead poisoning, on children with autism — even though there’s no evidence it leads to improvements.
WHY? Proof that chelation doesn’t work might dissuade many parents from trying it, the government theorizes. Other scientists decry it as quack medicine.
CHELATION DANGERS? Chelation treatment can [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
Legislation that cut fees doctors
receive for giving chemotherapy to Medicare patients has not
affected care so far, researchers reported on Tuesday.

Some groups complained the Medicare Modernization Act of
2003, which cut payments to doctors, would prompt physicians to
drop patients or cut back on services.

But Alisa Shea of the Duke University School of Medicine [...]

CHICAGO - A prostate cancer study that could change how doctors treat some patients found that widely used hormone-blocking drugs did not improve survival chances for older men whose disease hadn’t spread.
In fact, men given the drugs alone were slightly more likely to die of prostate cancer during the next six years than men who’d [...]

OTTAWA (Reuters) -
Everyone knows what too much television
can do to the mind and what too little exercise can do to the
body, but a Canadian study has now shown that the boob tube can
also lead to an increase in how much we eat.

Studying childhood obesity, University of Toronto
nutritionist Harvey Anderson found that kids who watched [...]