The Associated Press Monday, February 5, 2007; 8:39 PM CHICAGO — New government figures show a surprising increase in youth suicides after a decade of decline, and some mental health experts think a drop in use of antidepressant drugs may be to blame. The suicide rate climbed 18 percent from 2003 to 2004 for Americans under age 20, from 1,737 deaths to 1,985. Most suicides occurred in older teens, according to the data _ the most current to date from…

By Jacqueline M. Duda Special to The Washington Post Tuesday, February 6, 2007; HE01 The muscles surrounding my pregnant belly were tightening with ominous regularity as I waited for my asthma doctor to check my wheezy lungs. I have a small frame, and it looked like I had stuffed a dinosaur egg under my shirt. Now, at 25 weeks, it looked ready to hatch. I crossed my legs. Yeah, like that would help. “Are you having contractions?” the nurse asked….

AUSTIN (AP) — Bypassing the Legislature, Republican Gov. Rick Perry signed an order Friday making Texas the first state to require that schoolgirls get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. By issuing an executive order, Perry apparently sidesteps opposition in the Legislature from conservatives and parents’ rights groups who fear such a requirement would condone premarital sex and interfere with the way parents raise their children. Beginning in September 2008, girls entering the sixth grade —…

(CNN) — When Jean Horgan complained of heart palpitations, her doctor told her it was just nerves. “I was told, ‘Go home and take tranquilizers. You’ll be fine, you’re under stress.’ ” Much later, another doctor — one specializing in women’s health — ordered an echocardiogram, an ultrasound test of her heart. The EKG showed Horgan had a heart condition, and she needed medication. When Phyllis Cruz went to the emergency room, she told the nurse she felt as if…

President Bush yesterday added his voice to the growing debate over childhood obesity, as he met at the White House with representatives of some of the companies considered responsible for aggravating the problem and urged them to stress the importance of healthful eating and physical fitness in their marketing campaigns. Among those at the morning meeting in the White House Roosevelt Room were the president of McDonald’s USA, purveyor of the Happy Meal; a senior executive of Kraft Foods, which…

By TONY PUGH Mcclatchy-tribune WASHINGTON — As scientists renewed their warnings about the possibility of a deadly worldwide flu epidemic, federal health officials on Thursday introduced a new system to gauge the severity of an outbreak and to help communities deal with the impending threat. The “pandemic severity index,” developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ranks flu outbreaks in terms of expected deaths and is modeled after the hurricane warning system that the National Weather Service uses….

Agreement with Chinese Researchers Opens Doors to Discovery of Better and Faster TB Therapies Beijing and New York (January 31, 2007) — The Institute of Materia Medica (IMM), a member of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance), a not-for-profit, product development partnership accelerating the discovery and development of new TB drugs, today announced plans to pursue a joint research partnership to develop promising, novel anti-tuberculosis agents. The TB Alliance and…

A US study has found significant links between the exposure to small particle air pollution and risk of fatal and non fatal heart disease and strokes in older women. The study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers were based at the University of Washington and used data from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) observational study. Previous studies have assessed deaths due to fine particulate air pollution and compared impact of exposure between cities. But this…

THURSDAY, Feb. 1 (HealthDay News) — Binge eating tops the list of eating disorders affecting Americans, with the first-ever national survey on eating disorders finding it much more prevalent than either anorexia or bulimia. Binge eating — a condition where people undergo frequent, uncontrolled eating binges without purging — affects 3.5 percent of women and 2 percent of men during their lifetime. The condition is strongly linked to obesity. There have been previous studies that looked at the prevalence of…

In 2004, an IARC Monograph Working Group concluded a thorough review of published literature on Tobacco smoke and involuntary smoking, with a Group 1 carcinogen classification for both active and involuntary exposure. Direct smoking and exposure to the tobacco smoke of others are clearly established causes of cancer in men and women: this IARC Monograph put a final stop to all controversies fueled at various degrees by the tobacco industry. Even the typical levels of involuntary exposure have been shown…