The FDA and Painkillers: What’s Safe Now?

The June 30 vote by a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee to lower the maximum dose of over-the-counter drugs containing acetaminophen and to eliminate prescription acetaminophen-combination painkillers raised questions about what changes consumers should expect in the availability of the popular drug. The commonly used pain- and fever-reliever known as Tylenol is found in several nonprescription cough and cold remedies including NyQuil and Theraflu.

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Study: Honey can kill superbugs

Honey has been used to treat wounds since ancient times, but recent years have seen a surge of medical interest in the sticky stuff. Manuka honey has been the subject of particular interest, with the results of a study just published by Sydney University finding that it has powerful antibacterial properties, and is even effective against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

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Report: China extends deadline on filtering software

China on Tuesday announced it would indefinitely postpone a mandate requiring all personal computers sold in the country to be accompanied by a controversial content-filtering application, state media reported. The announcement came one day before a government-set deadline that would have required the software, called Green Dam-Youth Escort, to come with all PCs, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The Chinese government has said the software is chiefly a way for parents to protect children from pornography.

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Bariatric Surgery: Does the Weight-Loss Procedure Work?

As popular as bariatric surgery has become — each year, more than 200,000 people undergo stomach-shrinking procedures in an effort to lose weight — the reality is that there is still little information about which patients should be getting the surgeries or how effective they really are as a treatment for obesity. That may change with BOLD, the Bariatric Outcomes Longitudinal Database, the first repository of patient information and outcomes related to bariatric surgery — procedures that include gastric bypass, in which the bulk of the stomach is tied off and food is rerouted directly to the bottom half of the intestine, and gastric banding, in which the stomach is simply squeezed into a smaller size with a rubber-band-like device

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Straying Governor Mark Sanford

It’s become something of a club, and not a particularly exclusive one at that: promising political figures with presidential aspirations knocked dramatically off course by marital infidelity. The latest member is Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina. In a bracing news conference June 24, the 49-year-old confessed to an affair with an Argentine woman following a bizarre six-day disappearance that grabbed national headlines when his own staff and family claimed ignorance about his whereabouts

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Iran attacks against U.K. tap into centuries of suspicion

With protests flaring on the streets of Iran, Tehran has singled out one foreign power for particular criticism — and it’s not the one you might expect. There has been criticism of the United States, known in Iran as “the Great Satan” since the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago, but it’s the United Kingdom that Iran’s supreme leader has accused of treachery

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Baby Einsteins: Not So Smart After All

The claim always seemed too good to be true: park your infant in front of a video and, in no time, he or she will be talking and getting smarter than the neighbor’s kid. In the latest study on the effects of popular videos such as the “Baby Einstein” and “Brainy Baby” series, researchers find that these products may be doing more harm than good. And they may actually delay language development in toddlers.

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