The typical vaccination for influenza contains three strains of the influenza virus, carefully chosen to bring the greatest relief to the largest audience. One or two of those virus strains changes each year, based on year-round, worldwide collaboration on influenza…

The United States House of Representatives voted 326 to 102 on Wednesday to take the power of regulation out of the hands of the tobacco industry and place all tobacco products under the regulatory powers of the US Food and…

After weeks of getting blamed for causing as many as 1,200 people in 42 states and the District of Columbia to become ill with infection from Salmonella, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has canceled its warning against eating…

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just announced approval of a genetic test that will help determine which breast cancer patients will be best served by taking the drug Herceptin (trastuzumab) for treatment.  The new test, SPOT-Light HER2…

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just announced approval of a healthcare management tool developed by the innovative, high-tech company, Intel.  The device, the Intel Health Guide, allows patients to take a more active role in their health…

In January, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began the process of evaluating 199 studies of anti-seizure drugs commonly prescribed for epilepsy and other disorders due to reports of suicidal behaviors in patients taking them.  Their findings led them…

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced plans to ask that a black-box warning be required of epilepsy drug labels due to an apparent increase in suicidal thoughts and behaviors associated with some of these drugs. A black-box…

Jenny was a healthy, happy 13-year-old from Northern California until about 15 months ago when signs of muscle deterioration began appearing.  At that time, she’d also completed the third and final dose of Gardasil, the vaccine given to guard against…

The plight of 6-year-old Emily Crawley and her little sister, Claire, 3, has brought the safety of sunscreens into question.  The girls’ mother, Michelle, a self-proclaimed sunscreen “freak,” slathered her daughters with sunscreen as usual when the Ohio family recently…

The pharmaceutical company, Merck & Co. Inc., won approval in 2006 from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market Gardasil, the first vaccine ever approved for the prevention of infection from human papillomavirus (HPV), which often causes cervical…