From the time a promising new cancer drug is discovered to when it is proven to work typically takes 10 to 15 years and can cost from $1 to $2 billion. Within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries this span of time is called the “valley of death,” a term that has both metaphorical and literal meaning.

The clinical trial known as ISPY-2 is an attempt to shorten this approval process for breast cancer drugs. It is run by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health and supported in large part by the Safeway’s food chain’s charitable foundation. The trial is being conducted at 20 medical centers across the country.

Chemotherapy drugs (including hormone treatments) are normally used against cancer in one of various circumstances. One is for cancer that has spread after the initial surgery and radiation, a situation that doctors call “treatable but not curable” and want to avoid if at all possible. Another is to try to prevent recurrences in cancers that appear to have a significant risk for coming back.  If that prevention succeeds, the patient is cured. Usually doctors give this chemotherapy as so-called adjuvant treatment in the weeks and months following the initial surgery and radiation.

The key to ISPY-2 (all clinical trials these days are known by acronyms) is an approach known as neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. The patient gets the chemo-hormone combination before the surgery. Using MRI scans, the researchers can watch in real time to see if a drug combination is shrinking a tumor. Sometimes it shrinks so much that there is little to find when it comes time for the surgery. 

This procedure allows for quick comparison of an experimental drug combination with the standard care. In the future the researchers will be able to look for molecules in the tumors (so called bio-markers) that will help determine which combination will be the best. The hope is that the trial will more quickly identify drugs to help thousands of women. Most experts see this sort of “personalized medicine” playing a big role in the future.

But ISPY-2 requires a leap of faith. Does chemo before surgery do as much good as chemo afterward?  Absolutely, says Dr. Laura Esserman of the University of California, San Francisco, who heads the effort.

“The truth of the matter," she says, “is if you're going to die of breast cancer you're not going to die of the tumor that's in your breast. You're going to die because the tumor has spread outside the breast and those cells can take up residence someplace else in your body. The only way you're going to save that person is to make sure that you eradicate all of those cells wherever they may be and the sooner you start with the whole body treatment the better off you’re going to be.”

featurepics.com

What's he writing anyway?

Have you ever been tempted to sneak a peek at those notes your doctor is scribbling about you? If you have, you’re like most patients, new Harvard research shows. 

But chances are, your doctor would rather you keep your nose out of his notes. A poll of 100 primary care doctors nationwide conducted by Truth On Call for msnbc.com found that 68 percent of physicians have written something in a patient's chart they wouldn't want that person to see.

Wendie Howland took a look at her chart while she waited alone in an exam room. The notes revealed that years earlier a doctor had stitched her up in the wrong place during surgery, and that’s why she developed an infection that was so bad it landed her back in the hospital for 10 days.

“The nurse left it, and I picked it up and started reading it,” says the 60-year-old nurse from Cape Cod, Mass. “I went through it because I didn’t have anything better to do. It angered me because I was pretty uncomfortable for a couple months. God knows I was.”

Deciding it was time to allow patients access to written notes in their charts, researchers at the Harvard University Medical School and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston created a new system called Open Notes, and invited patients to take a look.

 “You’re allowed legally to get ahold of those notes, but we make it as difficult as possible,” says Dr. Tom Delbanco, a professor of medicine at the Harvard University Medical School and senior author of the report published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

“Legally to do that, you may have to pay for it; you’ve got to see it with a nurse sitting next to you. There are all kinds of impediments. We say that’s a lot of nonsense. We want to open the black box. It’s your body; therefore we invite you to read what we wrote.”

When they asked nearly 40,000 patients in Boston, Seattle and rural Pennsylvania what they thought about seeing their charts, the team of researchers led by Jan Walker, a nurse at Harvard and Beth Israel Deaconess, found that 90 percent wanted to see their primary doctor’s written notes.

More than half thought they would take their medications better if they were taking any, and 90 percent felt they would be in more control of their care. At least 80 percent of patients also felt they would take better care of themselves if given the opportunity to read their notes and gain greater understanding about their medical situations, and half thought they would share their notes with others.

Doctors, however, didn’t like the idea at all.  

What are they hiding in there anyway? In a famous “Seinfeld” episode, Elaine peeked at her chart and discovered her doctor called her a “difficult” patient. When she asked about his note, he pretended to erase it, and failed to treat her rash. The “difficult patient” note followed her to a second doctor, so she hatched a plan for Kramer steal her chart.

Weigh in on Facebook: Why do you think doctors don't want you to see what they're writing?

In this study, doctors were divided into two groups: 114 doctors who participated in the study and 140 who were surveyed, but didn’t participate. Across the three study sites, about 84 percent of doctors who didn’t participate in the study said they were concerned that if patients saw their notes, they would bombard them with questions between visits, researchers said.

“We tend to sell patients short, and we don’t realize how resourceful patients are; we are still learning about that,” Delbanco says. “As far as confusing or worrying you, we are going to scare some patients. But if something is going to scare you, we should be talking to you about it anyway.”

Next year, the researchers will report back on what happens when doctors and patients get on the same page.

The health care practitioner polling firm Truth On Call contributed to this report.

Straight men are already known to thrive after getting hitched, but the marriage effect might be just as strong for gay men’s health.

In fact, just the possibility of legalized marriage might make gay guys healthier, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

Columbia University researchers looked at the health effects on gay men from legalized marriage, surveying 1,211 patients from a large Massachusetts health clinic focused on the gay, lesbian and bisexual community. The researchers examined the clinic’s billing records 12 months before and 12 months after Massachusetts passed the law in 2004 allowing same-sex couples to get married.

In just 12 months after the same-sex marriage law was enacted, doctor visits declined 13 percent and health care costs decreased 14 percent for gay men, compared to the year prior, the researchers found.

Most of the decrease was in the number of visits men made for conditions such as high blood pressure, depression, anxiety, and sexually transmitted diseases, said the study’s lead author Mark Hatzenbueler, a researcher at the School of Public Health at Columbia University. The boost in gay men’s health is likely connected to both the institution of marriage and also the societal changes associated with the new laws.

“What we are saying is that when you legalize same-sex marriage it kind of changes the social environment around gays and lesbians,” Hatzenbueler said. “And that reduces social stigma and stress that has downstream health consequences.”

There weren't enough lesbians in the study to determine legalized marriage's impact on their health. But earlier research by the same researchers found that marriage impacts mental health similarly in gay men and women.

The new study “is adding to the growing body of evidence showing social, economic and health benefits of same-sex marriage,” Hatzenbueler said.  

By Rachael Rettner
MyHealthNewsDaily

Mental stress at work may increase the risk of stroke, a new study says.

The results show that among men in middle and high social classes, those who experienced psychological stress at work were about 1.4 times more likely to have a stroke than others who did not.

All in all, that means about 10 percent of strokes in this group can be attributed to work stress, the researchers said. The rest of the strokes were related to other risk factors, such as smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes.

The findings are based on information from nearly 5,000 men ages 40 to 59 living in Copenhagen, whom researchers surveyed in 1970 to 1971 and followed for 30 years (until 2001). The men were given a physical exam and answered questions about their alcohol consumption, smoking habits and if they received treatment for diabetes. Men were not included in the study if they had a history of heart disease or a heart attack.

Researchers asked, "Are you under psychological pressure when performing your work?" and the men responded with “rarely" or "regularly."

During the study period, 779 men suffered a stroke, and 167 died from one.

The participants were divided into five groups based on social class, which took into account education level and job position.

No link was found between psychological stress at work and men in the two lowest classes.

Among men in the three highest classes, the risk of stroke increased 38 percent among those who reported experiencing stress at work regularly, compared with those who reported it rarely, the researchers said. The risk was most significant for younger men, likely because these men were exposed to work stress for a longer period. (Men who were among the oldest at the start would have retired shortly after the study began.)

It's not clear why the link was found only for men in higher social classes, according to the study. It may be that high-status jobs come with increased mental stress. Fewer men in the lower classes reported regular psychological work stress, the researchers said.

The study was published in the December issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

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Commentary

Giving clean needles to IV drug addicts saves lives – and money. That’s why the federal government should be spending your tax dollars to keep drug users -– and the people who have sex with them -- from getting AIDS and hepatitis.

But Republicans in Congress have decided that despite a veritable mountain of scientific evidence showing that needle-exchange work, they are not going to pay for this sort of program any more.

They just yanked it out of the end-of-year spending package.

Shouldn’t public health policy be guided by the best evidence we have about what reduces the dangers and costs of AIDS and hepatitis?

Studies done over more than 15 years across the U.S. and in Australia, Hungary, Holland, Ukraine, Canada, Portugal, Switzerland, Brazil, Belgium and Germany show that there is no doubt that needle- exchange programs lower infection rates for HIV and hepatitis C.

Less infection not only means fewer deaths, but lower costs associated with caring for infected people. 

So what reason might Congressional Republicans or anyone else have for deciding to ignore the evidence and let people die, increase the infection rate and add to the cost of your medical insurance?

It’s not about the money. These programs are inexpensive for such a highly effective public health measure.

The reason is a belief that simply won’t go away: Giving out free clean needles sends the message that injecting drugs is OK.  That belief just happens to be completely unsupported by any evidence at all. 

Whatever leads people to decide to ruin their lives by becoming injection drug users, it is certainly not the chance to get free needles. 

Policy involves more than scientific evidence when it comes to touchy subjects like drug addiction. However, morality cannot ignore the facts. 

If needle-exchange programs do reduce risk, suffering, deaths and costs and it is beyond dispute that they do then it is bad ethics to insist on a moral message that is utterly disconnected from the harsh realities of drug abuse.

Art Caplan, Ph.D., is the director for the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.  Follow him on Twitter @ArthurCaplan.

By Natalie Wolchover
LiveScience

Louisiana's state health department has issued a warning about the dangers of improperly using nasal-irrigation devices called neti pots, responding to two recent deaths in the state that are thought to have resulted from "brain-eating amoebas" entering people's brains through their sinuses while they were using the devices.

Both victims are believed to have filled their neti pots with tap water instead of manufacturer-recommended distilled or sterilized water. When they used these pots to force the water up their noses and flush out their sinus cavities — a treatment for colds and hay fever — a deadly amoeba living in the tap water, called Naegleria fowleri, worked its way from their sinuses into their brains. The parasitic organism infected the victims' brains with a neurological disease called primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAME), which rapidly destroys neural tissue and typically kills sufferers in a matter of days.

Jonathan Yoder, an epidemiologist with the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said the Louisiana cases are still being investigated to ascertain that the deaths did indeed result from exposure to treated tap water in neti pots, rather than exposure to untreated water in a pond or lake. If so, they are the first known incidences of the disease in the U.S. resulting from N. fowleri organisms surviving the water treatment process.

"Nearly all the cases have resulted from exposure to warm recreational water, such as ponds, rivers and lakes, and the kind of exposure where the water would be forced up the nose — for example, diving and water sports," Yoder told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience. The amoeba thrives in natural waterholes, especially those in the South, and several Americans die every year from swimming in these waterholes, or using untreated water from them. However, "in the last 15 years, I'm not aware of other cases [in the U.S.] associated with treated drinking water," he said.

Municipal water undergoes a rigorous purification process to make it potable, including being treated with chlorine to kill microorganisms, he explained. "We consider chlorination to be effective in killing [N. fowleri]. I can't comment on any water system in Louisiana, but in general … you may start out with 1 million amoebas and your goal is to reduce it with chlorine, and you might get 99.9 percent out. But you're probably never going to eliminate 100 percent. That goes for amoebas, parasites, bacteria, viruses. So while we say our drinking water is safe, it's not sterile." [Can Your Tap Water Kill You?]

N. fowleri only seems capable of reaching the brain if it's given a big boost by being squirted deep into a person's nasal passages. That's why water that is considered safe to drink or bathe in isn't necessarily safe to use in a neti pot, Yoder said.

But if you only use distilled or previously boiled water in your neti pot, and you avoid snorting water when diving into waterholes, can you be sure you won't get PAME simply by splashing your face with the water out of your faucet — especially if you live in Louisiana?

Yoder said the CDC maintains that the risk of getting PAME from normal exposure to tap water is very low, but they are helping Louisiana's health department investigate the water treatment process in the state. "In general, what we're committed to is even though there are very few cases, CDC is very committed to learning more about the organism so we can prevent further infection by developing science-based prevention methods. But it is a very tragic infection and we're very sad for the families."

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msnbc.com

Are you afraid of elevators?

Stories this week about shocking elevator deaths in New York -- including one in which a woman was crushed and killed and another in which a woman was attacked and set on fire -- horrified millions, but none as much as those who suffer from severe elevator phobias.

Such events are rare, but they rivet the attention of people who have trouble even riding an ordinary elevator to the next floor, sufferers and experts say.

"That was the first and maybe the only article I read in the New York Times," says Jane Murphy, a 52-year-old Dallas business owner, referring to the crushing accident. "It was horrible and I felt bad about her but in my mind it was just another confirmation as to why I don't like elevators."

Murphy says she's had her phobia for decades and can even remember walking up 14 flights of stairs to her family's condo as a teenager.

"I've even gone to meetings with clients and gotten them to open the door for me on the 10th floor since those doors are always locked," she says. "Sometimes I can force myself to ride one but other times, I can't step on. I don't have a choice. It feels like a do or die decision."

For Murphy, it's not so much a fear of dying in the elevator as a fear of getting trapped.

"I don't worry about tragedies, I worry about getting stuck," she says. "I think it's a control factor. It's all about being stuck in this sealed container."

According to Elizabeth Lombardo, a clinical psychologist who uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help people overcome fears, elevator phobias are relatively common (although not so common to be included on this comprehensive phobia list) and are definitely treatable.

"They're common and the reasons are twofold," says Lombardo, author of "A Happy You: Your Ultimate Prescription for Happiness." "One is the lack of control and the potential for death, i.e., the elevator is going to drop 20 stories and kill you and you have no control. The other component is claustrophobia because you're in a confined space. I have some clients who will only go in an elevator if there's only one person or no people in it. I've had clients not take jobs because they couldn't ride an elevator to their office."

Lombardo says the problem with elevator phobias is that it's actually possible for an elevator to suddenly drop a few floors or crush someone's limb -- or worse.

"When I was doing my pre-doctoral training down in Houston, there was a doctor who stuck his head into the elevator but not his legs and the sensors didn't go off and he was decapitated," she says. "Elevators can be dangerous and deadly. But so can vacuum cleaners. There are freak accidents everywhere."

What's important to remember, she says, is the difference between possibility and probability. The chance of a freak accident causing an elevator to malfunction or the chance of being attacked by a fire-wielding assailant are very small, of course, Lombardo said.

According to the New York Post, many New York office workers are already shunning elevators due to the accident. Will this week's tragedies have a bigger effect on those with elevator phobias?

"I will absolutely be getting more calls," says Lombardo. "For them, it's like, 'See? It really can happen. I'm justified in having this fear.'"

Murphy says that's certainly how she felt after reading this week's news.

"I got a vision in my mind about what kind of elevator it was," she says. "And could picture one of those old buildings in New York where the elevators have gold doors and they just look like such a barrier. That once you're in them you can never get out. And I just thought, 'Where's the stairs, man?'"

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by Joseph Brownstein
MyHealthNewsDaily

Testosterone therapy, in which testosterone is administered to men with low levels of the hormone, has been a controversial topic, with some advocating for the therapy as a way to restore vitality in older men, but others are concerned about the health conditions, such as heart problems and cancer, it may bring along.

Now, a new study shows that men taking testosterone therapy for just over half a year could gain a few pounds of muscle mass and lose a corresponding amount of body fat.

But while the authors find the study encouraging, it may not do much to change the minds of those skeptical of the risks and benefits.

While other research has also established that testosterone can help build muscle mass, there are concerns that it may raise the risks for prostate cancer. And some studies, such as a Boston University study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year – a study that was ended early because of these very concerns — have shown an increased risk for heart problems on men taking the therapy.

"By and large, the medical community is not certain [about the] benefit from testosterone," said Dr. John Amory, an internist who researches the effects of testosterone at the University of Washington.

The study was published online Dec. 6 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

Testosterone and muscles

Researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston measured the testosterone levels in the blood of 58 men, and started them on testosterone therapy. At the outset, 20 of the men had low testosterone levels, and 38 had normal levels but had other symptoms associated with low testosterone, such as erectile dysfunction, a reduced sex drive and fatigue. They were followed for roughly six months, and given testosterone as a topical gel or as injections.

The study was retrospective, Amory noted, meaning that patients were not randomized to receive or not receive testosterone. Instead, the researchers grouped them by their testosterone levels – but all were being treated anyhow.

While muscle mass increased in those treated, Amory said, it was only about 2.5 pounds. "The effect is not that marked," he said.

But the study's senior author said the muscle gain and fat loss were more than they might seem.

"That may or may not sound impressive, but for most of us, if we were to gain a pound of muscle, it would actually feel quite significant," said Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, urologist and founder of Men's Health Boston, the hospital clinic where the study was run.

Morgentaler is an advocate for testosterone therapy and an author of "Testosterone for Life: Recharge Your Vitality, Sex Drive, Muscle Mass, and Overall Health" (McGraw-Hill, 2009). He said concerns about the therapy are excessive.

The risk of developing prostate cancer, or of an existing cancer growing, may be mitigated by testosterone, Morgentaler said, citing to a recent small study he led where 13 men with prostate cancer did not see their cancer worsen while on testosterone therapy.

While that study was too small to say if testosterone was harmless, Morgentaler said that "it certainly shows that the old fear that higher testosterone necessarily causes rapid prostate cancer growth cannot be true."

About the Boston University study that was stopped early, Morgentaler said that while the number of heart events was high, they were not as severe as one might expect, and may not be because of the testosterone.

That study "came as a surprise, and created quite a stir because we live in a society that is very focused on medical risk," he said. "It's important to realize what that study showed, and what it did not show."

First, he said, the patients in the study were older men and relatively frail. As to the heart risks, he said. "When we hear about cardiovascular risks, normally what we think of is heart attacks and strokes.” In that study, there were only two heart attacks and…one stroke.” (Other heart events included trouble breathing and irregular heartbeat.)

That study included 209 men, whose average age was 74.

"In my opinion, these results were simply an aberration, which is something that happens in medical science all the time," Morgentaler said.

For now, the debate goes on.

"It's a risk-benefit [analysis]. It's very similar to the situation with estrogen for women," Amory said. "Doctors of good faith can disagree about things when there's an absence of data."

An answer?

Amory said that some of that disagreement should be cleared up by an ongoing randomized clinical trial, which is expected to be completed in 2015.

That study, known as The Testosterone Trial, is expected to enroll 800 men, and is being led by Dr. Peter Snyder at the University of Pennsylvania and sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

Each participant will apply a topical testosterone gel, or a placebo, to his chest or arms daily, and the researchers will monitor factors such as walking speed, memory and sexual activity, to see if the treatment is having its intended effect.

Morgentaler is less optimistic the trial will provide an answer. He said that while it may help with acceptance of the therapy, the timeline is not long enough for a thorough investigation of risk associated with prostate cancer.

"I think it's an important study, but it's not going to be able to address everything," he said.

For now, Amory likens the debate to the one surrounding hormone replacement therapy. Older women were routinely given estrogen, until a large study found that this raised the risk of breast cancer. So now, fewer women are given the treatment, and it is restricted to those with strong indications they will benefit.

While there are some cases, Amory said, where testosterone appears to have clear benefits, such as young men who for medical reasons have their testicles removed and need testosterone, it's less clear how widely the treatment should be used in older men seeking added vitality

"What we don't know — in the 65-year-old man who is having sexual problems, obesity, maybe some other problems… does the testosterone do more good than harm?"

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Chris Langer for msnbc.com

Kate Skinn, 32 of Sheffield Lake, counts out the remaining doses of Adderall that treat her attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Skinn is among millions of Americans affected by a lingering shortage of vital medications.

After nearly 10 months, the nationwide shortage of ADHD drugs has taken a toll on Kate Skinn.

The 32-year-old Ohio woman had to take a medical leave from college because she can’t focus on her reading. She’s lost income from her job as a waitress because she’s distracted at work. And she’s had to struggle even harder than usual juggling the needs of her boyfriend and their four children, all because she can’t reliably get the Adderall that helps her cope.

“It’s impossible to manage all the facets of my life and do my schoolwork,” said Skinn, of Sheffield Lake, Ohio, who was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder three years ago. “When I can’t take my medicine, I can’t concentrate. I’ll start everything I need to do, but never complete any of it.”

She’s among millions of Americans struggling to deal with the worst drug shortage in United States history. ADHD drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin, first reported as scarce last spring, are only a fraction of the 251 medications in short supply so far this year, up from 211 in 2010, according to University of Utah Drug Information Service.

The issue drew renewed attention Thursday, when the White House issued an interim rule that requires drugmakers that are the only producers of certain critical medications to report to the Food and Drug Administration all manufacturing interruptions that could disrupt supplies.

It follows an October executive order in which President Barack Obama directed the FDA and the Department of Justice to take bolder steps to resolve the worsening scarcity.

Shortages of life-saving drugs, such as those used to treat cancer, and medically necessary drugs, such as anesthetics and painkillers, have sparked the most dire concerns, experts say.

But shortages of the ADHD drugs widely used to help an estimated 5.4 million children and 1.5 million adults concentrate daily are also worrisome, especially as the problem continues.

“We get those reports from patients saying I had to drive three hours to get my ADHD prescription and this is the third, fourth or fifth time,” said Erin Fox, manager of the Drug Information Service, which tracks drug supply issues. “We’re hearing from moms who are so worried and upset about not getting the drugs their kids need every day.”

FDA officials, too, say the ADHD drug shortage has drawn a lot of attention.

“We’re hearing the same thing: that patients aren’t able to get these drugs,” said Valerie Jensen, associate director of the FDA’s drug shortage program. “We’re continuing to check with the companies about their expected resolution dates.”

Drugmakers say that increased demand and difficulty obtaining supplies of the raw materials used to manufacture the drugs are behind the ongoing ADHD pill shortages. But an official with the government agency that allocates those controlled substances says from his vantage, there’s plenty of raw material out there.

Chris Langer for msnbc.com

Kate Skinn watches TV with her 4-year-old son, Markus, who also needs medication to treat his ADHD.

The DEA allocates an aggregate amount of medically necessary supplies of controlled drugs -- for instance, 56 million grams of methylphenidate in 2011 -- and then doles out confidential portions to each drugmaker.

“We’ve given them quota sufficient to meet the needs and then it’s up to them how they manufacture their product,” said Gary Boggs, a supervisory special agent for the Office of Diversion for the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.

Company business decisions surrounding competition, marketing -- and profit margins -- are behind many of the troubles that patients have encountered, Boggs added. Manufacturers might make more of an expensive brand-name drug and not enough of a generic version. Or they may distribute too much product in one place, causing a shortage somewhere else.

“This isn’t just a clean there is either product or not product,” Boggs said. “There’s a whole lot of different dynamics in here.”

Drugmakers declined to discuss specifics of their DEA allocations.

Still, those dynamics have reshaped Kate Skinn’s life.

In the past 10 months, she’s had to drive to multiple pharmacies trying to get the different ADHD drugs used by four members of her family, including her 4-year-old son, Markus.

“I have to actually block out a whole day of my life to figure out if I’m going to have medication for the next day,” said Skinn.

Because the drugs are controlled substances, she and other patients have to follow strict rules governing prescriptions and refills. Skinn sometimes skips a dose at night in order to hoard them for times when she might run out.

“For people with ADHD, there’s already a stigma attached to it,” she said. “You end up feeling like you’re drug-seeking. It doesn’t make you feel good.”

In recent weeks, the ADHD shortage has shown signs of easing. Brand-name Adderall XR, the extended-release version produced for the drug company Shire Pharmaceuticals, has been logged as available in “adequate” supplies. Company spokesman Matt Cabrey said that’s because the DEA granted an increase in the firm’s allocation of amphetamine mixed salts used to make the drug.

Other firms, as well, say that as they receive their new DEA allocations in the new year, the shortages may subside.

That would be welcome news for patients like Skinn, but drug supply experts say they've heard that before -- and no one should count on it.

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Getty Images stock

Want to delay death? Pick up the pace of your walking, suggests a new study.

Seniors who walk briskly may be able to delay death, essentially outrunning the Grim Reaper, a new study suggests.

Australian researchers with a wry sense of humor say they have calculated the average walking speed of the specter of death -- and it’s about 2 miles per hour.

Walk faster than that and you may outrun the Grim Reaper, too, they argue in a new study published in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal.

"As none of the men in the study with walking speeds of [3 miles per hour] or greater had contact with Death, this would seem to be the Grim Reaper's most likely maximum speed; for those wishing to avoid their allotted fate this would be the advised walking speed,” the authors wrote.

The team of researchers, based at Concord Hospital in Sydney, followed more than 1,700 older men for five years, studying the walking speeds of those who died and those who didn’t.

The men were timed with a stopwatch as they walked about 20 feet at a normal pace. During the five years that the men were followed, 266 died. Overall, their pace was slower than that of those who survived, leading the researchers to determine that people need to walk at least 3 miles per hour if they want to outrun death.

Despite its tongue-in-cheek style, the report still sends a serious message: Slow walking can be a sign that death is nipping at your heels. 

Slow walking is probably both a marker for poor health and an alert that some things need to be changed to improve the health of a senior, said Dr. Anne Cappola, a gerontologist and a professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Researchers are looking into the theory that you can get people to live longer if you can get them moving faster, Cappola said.  “People are trying things like resistance training and getting people to walk more,” she added. “That can be difficult when older people are living in confined living spaces or are afraid to go outside because of where they live.”

While other researchers have noticed that slower movers tend to die sooner, the approach of the humorous new study might spur more seniors to speed up their pace, Cappola said.

''People need to walk faster,” she said. “And if they’re doing it to outrun death that works just fine.”

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Babies can tell if an adult is reliable nor not, a new study finds.

Babies may be a lot more savvy than we think.

A new study has found that babies little more than a year old can tell whether we’re trustworthy enough to listen to, according to a report published in Infant Behavior and Development.

“Even at a young age, children do not blindly swallow information,” said the study’s lead author Diane Poulin-Dubois, a professor of psychology at the Centre for Research in Human Development at the University of Concordia. “Doubtful or contradictory information is automatically screened by their cognitive system. Young children are not gullible.”

To determine whether babies took everything at face-value or whether they actually mull over the credibility of the people around them, Poulin-Dubois and her colleagues set up an intriguing experiment involving 60 babies aged 13 to 16 months.

Half the babies would interact with a “reliable” adult, while the other half would interact with an “unreliable” one, while playing with a box that in some cases contained a toy and in others was empty.

In the first part of the experiment, the adult would look inside the box and express excitement and happiness. Then the babies were invited to look inside the box themselves to see what the fuss was about.

Unreliable adults were the ones who ooo’d and ah’d over empty boxes, while reliable ones made a fuss only when there was a toy inside.

The second part of the experiment used the same adult-baby pairs. This time the adult used her forehead instead of her hands to turn on a push-on light. The idea was that babies who trusted their new adult friends would try to imitate them.

Sure enough, babies were much more likely to try using their heads to turn on the light if they’d played the “what’s in the box?” game with a “reliable” adult, compared to those who’d played with an “unreliable” one.

For little ones, what it all comes down to is survival.

“We are a very social species and human offspring are dependent on their caregivers for a long time,” Poulin-Dubois explained. “Learning from others is key to cultural learning but it comes with potential costs, such as inaccurate information. Being equipped with an ability to detect ‘unconventional’ or unreliable people is a protection against acquiring false information.”

One of the simplest examples of this is the credibility conferred on adults, Poulin-Dubois said.

“Age is one of these cues and is used by infants and preschoolers,” she added. “They will imitate an adult more than a child unless the adult seems unreliable and the child reliable.”

A California man is vowing to continue his do-it-yourself sperm donor operation, despite efforts of federal health officials to crack down on the free service.

Trent C. Arsenault, 36, of Fremont, Calif., told msnbc.com that he has fathered 14 children -- with four more on the way -- and donated sperm to between 60 and 75 families since he started the online operation in 2006.

“Every time I log into Facebook, I’m overwhelmed with all the pictures from the families,” said Arsenault, who regards his donations as a way to help low-income people struggling with infertility.

Last year, federal Food and Drug Administration officials delivered a letter ordering Arsenault to “cease manufacturing,” or halt his service, because the computer security expert had not followed regulations governing safety precautions for transmission of human cells or tissues through donor clinics.

“We have legitimate concerns,” said Shelly Burgess, a spokeswoman for the FDA.

But Arsenault was allowed to continue the operation while the agency decided whether to grant him a hearing on the matter, according to his lawyers.

The lawyers, who work for the nonprofit legal firm Cause of Action in Washington, D.C., argue that Arsenault shouldn’t be held to clinic sperm donor standards because his contracts with recipients are individual intimate partner arrangements allowed under the law.

No hearing has yet been scheduled, Burgess said. Arsenault could face penalties including court action if the agency concludes that his acts were a violation of federal regulations. 

Sean Locke / Getty Images

The more attractive a man finds a woman, the better he thinks his chances are, according to the inexplicable findings of a new study.

Consider Howard Wolowitz and Rajesh Koothrappali.

They may be fictional characters on a popular sitcom, "The Big Bang Theory," but new research suggests there’s a lot of truth in how they interact with women.

Wolowitz is a teeny guy with dorky hair and dorky clothes. He’s brilliant and gainfully employed, but on the attractiveness scale, he’s maybe a 2, possibly a 2 ½. Despite his physical shortcomings, though, he imagines every hot woman who glances his way wants to jump his bones. Of course, he’s always wrong.

Then there’s his buddy Raj, a pretty nice-looking guy once you get past his haircut. But he’s so insecure around women he can’t even talk to them unless he’s drunk.

What’s the deal?

There are "tons" of studies that show men think women are interested when they’re not, says lead author Carin Perilloux, a visiting professor at Williams College. But her study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, found that not all men do. And surprisingly, it appears that the dorky, less attractive guys are more likely to think they’re babe magnets than their more attractive counterparts.

Perilloux was an unattached graduate student at the University of Texas when she decided to look into how men perceive women’s level of sexual interest and vice versa. She and her coauthors enlisted the help of about 200 straight undergrads, split evenly between the sexes, with an average age just shy of 19.

The researchers asked each of their subjects to rate their own attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 7. The students then had three-minute one-on-one conversations with five members of the opposite sex, a setup the scientists describe as "speed meeting." (The goal wasn’t to get a date, because some of the participants already were involved with people outside the study.) After each conversation, they rated the other person’s attractiveness and sexual interest.

The more attractive the woman was to the guy, the more likely he was to overestimate her interest in him, researchers found. And it turns out, the less attractive men (who believed they were better looking than the women rated them) were more likely to think beautiful women were hot for them. But the more attractive guys tended to have a more realistic assessment.

And the women? Perilloux and her coauthors found that women underestimated men’s sexual interest.

Believe it or not, this all probably makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, the scientists say. Attractiveness is linked to fertility, so if guys keep hitting on hot women, they’re bound to score occasionally and father sons who act the same way. Those attractive men don’t have to try as hard. As for the women, their underestimation of guys’ sexual interest might help prevent them from developing a reputation as a slut

Of course, if men and women were more explicit about their level of interest, they wouldn’t be so confused, Perilloux points out. But it’s unlikely either sex is going to use the line "hey, I’m 75 percent interested in you."

So here’s Perilloux’s tips: "For men, the best piece of advice is to be more cautious if you’re interested in someone." For women, she says, save the flirting for guys you actually are interested in sleeping with. "Men seem to take any flirtatious signal and run with it."

Readers, this is basically the plot of some of the most frustrating rom-coms over the years. Which cinematic pairing did you find most unbelievable? Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel in "Elf"? Seth Rogan and Katherine Heigl in "Knocked Up"? Tell us on our Facebook page.

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By Rachael Rettner
MyHealthNewsDaily

Here's a reason to get your flu shot that you probably haven't considered: infection with swine flu may trigger baldness.

A new report from Japan suggests a link between alopecia areata, a condition in which patches of hair fall out, and swine flu. The researchers report that seven patients experienced hair loss one to four months after developing the illness.

The exact cause of alopecia areata is unknown, but it is thought to occur when the immune system attacks a person's hair follicles, causing the hair on their head to fall out. Rarely, patients may lose all the hair on their head, or on other parts of their body. While the condition may have a hereditary component, a "trigger" from the environment, such as a traumatic event or illness, may also be needed to set off the disease.

Previous studies have linked viral illnesses, including infections with the Epstein-Barr virus, and onset of alopecia areata. The new findings suggest flu infection may be another trigger of this form of baldness, said study researcher Dr. Taisuke Ito, an assistant professor of dermatology at Hamamatsu University School of Medicine in Japan.

Between 2009 and 2010, the researchers examined seven patients with hair loss following swine flu infection s that caused high fever. Four of the cases were recurrences of the condition, and three were first-time occurrences. On average, hair loss occurred 1.5 months after swine flu infection in those who experienced recurrences, and 2.7 months after swine flu infection in those who experienced first-time hair loss.

All of the patients were under 30 years old, and four were under 10. Three of the cases involved females.

In one case, a 4-year-old girl first experienced alopecia areata in 2006, but recovered completely. Then in 2010, she contracted swine flu and had hair loss two months later.

"I consider it very plausible," that a flu infection could trigger hair loss, said Nanette Silverberg, director of pediatric and adolescent dermatology at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City, who was not involved in the study. "I definitely have seen individuals develop autoimmune conditions," after infection with common viruses, Silverberg said. (An autoimmune condition is one in which the immune system attacks the body's own tissues, rather than foreign germs.)

The fact that more than half of the cases were recurrences of alopecia areata further suggests that certain people are genetically predisposed to develop the condition, Ito said.

Individuals who have had alopecia areata in the past should consider getting their flu vaccination, Silverberg said.

The study was published online Dec. 5 in the Journal of Dermatology.

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If you're the dance floor of a crowded bar - watch out for fisticuffs, says a new study.

By Cari Nierenberg

If you shake your booty on the dance floor of a crowded bar, you could be in for a world of hurt. And your lousy dance moves are not to blame. 

A recent study shows that the dance floor is the most likely place for fights to break out inside a large drinking establishment. The findings suggest that roughly 20 percent of the most harmful incidents took place on the floor itself; another 13 percent of them occurred near it.

The research, published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review, looked at "hotspots" for aggression in bars and clubs.

In the study, researchers made more than 1,300 visits to 118 bars and clubs in Toronto over a two-year period. They went to bars that could hold more than 300 people, and they went on Fridays and Saturdays between midnight and 3 a.m.

Researchers observed the customers for aggressive behaviors, and they rated them on a scale of 1 (minor non-physical harm) to 5 (actions causing pain, including punching and kicking). They even gauged how intoxicated the customers seemed that night.

They found that the dance floor was the top spot for aggressive behavior. "There's a lot of sexual aggression and aggressive horseplay on the dance floor in late night, large-capacity bars and night clubs," says study author Kathryn Graham, a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

Sometimes it was just sheer numbers -- the dance floor was the most crowded place on the premises and this sparked more incidents. And partly it was because that's where the most rowdiness between dancers and even bystanders took place.

But Graham was a little surprised that the area at or near the serving bar was the second most common location for bad behavior. She figures this was mainly a traffic and congestion issue.

Tempers there could also flare between patrons and staff over drink service. And when hot heads get hammered, it can get ugly.

"I suspect that a lot of the aggression near the serving bar was in the form of male-to-male violence where egos are on the line when people get bumped," says Graham.

Then again, "It may also be that this is a good place to hang around if you're looking for trouble," she adds.

While the dance floor was the #1 hotspot for aggressive behavior and the space near the serving bar was second, the tables came in third. This was followed by the hallways, aisles, and stairs in fourth, the entrance was fifth, and the pool tables were sixth.

Although only 4 percent of incidents took place at pool tables, the area had a high rate of barroom brawls likely brought on by people's competitive juices mixing with alcohol.

So, when you head out for a night on the town, now you'll know the high-risk locations at your favorite watering hole. And feel free to pass along this research to the bar staff so they'll keep things from getting out of hand in these potential trouble spots.

The worst fights? They took place outside the bar, of course.

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By MyHealthNewsDaily

Mothers who have jobs are healthier than those who are not employed, at least when their children are very young, a new study finds.

Working mothers in the study were less depressed and reported better overall health than moms who stayed at home with their young children, though this benefit of working did not extend into children's school years.

There was no difference between the health of mothers who worked part time and those who worked full time, the researchers said.
Stay-at-home moms may be more socially isolated than working moms, which might increase their chances of being depressed, the researchers said. Stay-at-home moms might also be under more stress as a result of being at home with their children all day. This stress may be relieved somewhat when their children start school, which may explain why the link disappeared when children entered preschool.

The study is published in the December issue of the Journal of Family Psychology

The results are based on interviews, starting in 1991, with 1,364 mothers from Arkansas, California, Kansas, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. Researchers interviewed women throughout their children's infancy, preschool years and into elementary school.

The researchers defined working part time as working one-to-32 hours per week. About 25 percent of mothers were employed part time during the study period, although mothers moved in and out of part-time work. Mothers reported whether they experienced symptoms of depression and rated their overall health as "poor," "fair," "good" or "excellent."

The mothers also answered questions about conflicts between their work and family lives, and how involved they were in their child's schooling.

Working moms reported fewer symptoms of depression and were more likely to rate their health "excellent," compared with nonemployed mothers, according to the study.

Mothers working part time tended to report less conflict between work and family than those working full time, the researchers said.

Mothers employed part time reported being just as involved in their child's schooling as stay-at-home moms, and more involved than moms who worked full time. In addition, mothers working part time provided more learning opportunities for their toddlers than stay-at-home moms and moms working full time, the researchers said.

Couples' emotional intimacy did not appear to be affected by the mothers' employment status: the level of emotional understanding between partners was similar for working moms and stay-at-home moms.

The findings in the study held even after the researchers took into account factors that could have influenced the results, including the mother's education and certain personality traits.

The researchers noted they examined the mother's well-being in relation to one child only, and additional siblings should be considered in future studies. 
 

Moms, how does this finding line up with your own experience? Tell us on Facebook.

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Shopping cart handles are even grosser than you think.

We've all been warned about the germiest areas of the shopping mall -- the bathroom sinks, escalator handrails and dirty food court tables.

But what about those hacking, sniffling people standing next to us in the checkout line?

"I've had people cough all over me or cough into their hand and then hand me money," says Lisa Phillips, 49, of Eugene, Ore., who's worked in retail for six years. "It's like they want to share. ... I feel like saying, 'Have you heard of online shopping?'"

Dr. Paul Kassab, who practices internal medicine at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, says going out shopping with a bad cold or flu can definitely put others at risk.

"I wouldn't call them walking germ factories but you could do some serious germ spreading without knowing it," he says. "If someone has a cough or is sneezing or blowing their nose, then basically the germ -- whatever it is -- will be on their hands. If you're handing people your credit card, looking at stuff on the shelves and putting it back, using a shopping cart -- anything you handle will have germs on it."

Shopping carts, in particular, have been shown to harbor all kinds of germs -- and not just cold and flu bugs. A study in March found that 50 percent of them carried E. coli and 72 percent carried markers for fecal bacteria.

Colds and the flu are what most people pick up this time of year, though. And Phillips, who's sold everything from toys to books to women's lingerie, says she's experienced plenty of germ warfare during the holiday retail season.

"People will have little kids with them and they'll have a nice croupy cough and green stuff coming out of every orifice and then they'll let their kids gnaw on all kinds of toys and clothes," she says. "And then they'll hand it to you and say, 'I don't want this' after their kid has totally germed it out. It's disgusting. You have to put on gloves and throw it away."

Kassab says sickos who still feel the need to shop should make sure they wash their hands with soap and water or use hand sanitizer as much as possible.

"Obviously, if you're coughing, cough into your sleeve," he says. "But it's really more the touch. If you're out shopping and you have a cold, using Purell would tremendously reduce the chance of giving it to others."

Is it possible to pass along a cold or flu bug to someone in a gaily-wrapped holiday package?

"That's a tough one to answer," says Kassab. "Probably not if the gift has been wrapped for more than a day or two. Most bugs need a host or they'll die."

Last minute sickly shoppers may want to take advantage of a store's gift wrapping service, though.

 If you’re one of the many who often sneak bites of cookie batter while forming little mounds of the sticky, sweet stuff for baking, government scientists have a message for you. Stop it now!

A new report shows there may be some nasty germs lurking in ready-to-bake cookie dough.

“What our report shows is that you shouldn’t eat cookie dough raw, no matter where it comes from,” said the report’s lead author Dr. Karen Neil, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It’s supposed to be baked.”

Neil and her colleagues concluded that raw, ready-to-bake cookie dough was what caused 77 people in 30 states to become ill, 35 of whom became so sick that they needed to be hospitalized.

After learning about the outbreak, the researchers were able to track down the culprit by comparing the eating habits of 36 healthy volunteers to 36 people sickened by a deadly strain of E coli bacteria in 2009. Raw cookie dough consumption was the thing all 36 had in common.

When the researchers visited manufacturing plants where the cookie batter was being made their suspicions were confirmed: they found E coli in the samples they collected at the plants, according to the report which was published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Despite an exhaustive investigation, Neil and her colleagues still aren’t able to say which of the ingredients, or what part of the manufacturing process, led to the contamination of the cookie dough. It’s possible, Neil said, that flour might have been the problem.

Flour, she explained, doesn’t go through the kind of special processing to kill off pathogens that ingredients like pasteurized eggs, molasses, sugar, baking soda, and margarine do.

Neil’s investigation ultimately led to the recall of 3.6 million packages of cookie dough. The manufacturer of the dough isn’t named in the report. 

If you’re a fan of raw cookie dough and are wondering why it is that you can eat cookie dough ice cream, Neil explained that the preparation process for the dough in ice cream is different from the product that is sold as “ready-to-bake.”

“The cookie dough in ice cream was meant to be consumed raw,” she said. “It’s formulated as a ready-to-eat product. The cookie dough that is labeled “ready-to-bake” in the refrigerator section of the grocery store – or even the dough that you make at home – should be cooked before you eat it.”

Do you sneak bites of cookie dough? Tell us on Facebook.

Final tally on cantaloupe crisis: 146 sick, 30 dead

Would-be lovers wondering whether to go forward with a new relationship might heed the advice of Russian scientists: Take a deep whiff.

Sniffing a potential partner’s scent could tell whether Mr. Right has a sexually transmitted disease, according to a small study that found that gonorrhea-infected men smelled “putrid” to a bevy of young ladies.

“Our research revealed that infection disease reduces odor attractiveness in humans …” wrote Mikhail Moshkin, a professor at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia, and the lead author of research published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

The off-putting scent may be subtle, more a chemical warning than a blast of body odor, but it definitely has an effect, according to the experiment conducted by Moshkin and his colleagues.

The researchers had long observed that certain animals, such as mice and rats, were not as attracted to the scents of other critters when they were infected with disease. They wondered whether humans, too, would be turned off by the scent of an infected person, particularly one harboring an STD.

So they invited 34 strapping Russian guys, ages 17 to 25, to donate samples of armpit sweat and spit for the cause of science. The group included 13 young men with gonorrhea, 16 who were healthy and five who had had the disease but were successfully treated.

Then they found 18 female students aged 17 to 20 from Kemerovo State University in Russia who were willing to serve as sweat-sniffers.

They obtained sweat samples by dressing the men in tight-fitting T-shirts with cotton pads sewn into the armpits. After an hour of sweating, men bagged their shirts and the pads were placed in glass vials for the women to sniff.

The results couldn’t have been more obvious. The women ranked the infected men less than half as high as healthy or recovered guys on a “pleasantness score” that assessed scent.

And when they were asked to characterize the scent, the gals said that nearly 50 percent of the infected men’s sweat smelled “putrid." (To be fair, the gals also said that 30 percent of sweat from healthy men and less than 40 percent of sweat from treated men smelled putrid, but these are guys -- and it was significantly higher for the gonorrhea group.)

The take-away message, the researchers found, was that it appears that humans, like other animals, might use scent to sniff out appropriate mates.

“We can conclude that unpleasant body odor of infected persons can reduce the probability of a dangerous partnership,” the scientists say.

Heeding olfactory cures might not signal the right partner, but they could warn against the wrong one – unless, of course, the guy uses deodorant.

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Government health officials issued a final tally Thursday for a months-long outbreak of listeria food poisoning in contaminated cantaloupe: 146 sick and 30 dead.

Those numbers reflected infections in 28 states tied to tainted whole melons from Jensen Farms of Holly, Colo., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Faulty processing and shipping practices at the firm's Granada, Colo., packing facility led to the dozens of illnesses and deaths -- and decimated the melon market in several states.

The outbreak is the worst since a California listeria outbreak in 1985 in which contaminated Mexican-style fresh cheese caused 52 deaths, including many stillbirths, according to the CDC.

Among 140 ill people who offered information about what they ate, 94 percent reported eating cantaloupe in the month before they got sick, including many who said it came from one region in southeastern Colorado. The outbreak of listeria monocytogenes, the first detected in melons, led to at least 142 hospitalizations and a miscarriage.

More than 310,000 cases of potentially tainted cantaloupes were shipped to at least 24 states between July 29 and Sept. 10.

Federal health experts say Yaz and other widely-used birth control pills should carry stronger labeling information that emphasizes recent evidence that the drugs have a slightly higher risk of blood clots than older drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration's panel of experts voted 21-5 Thursday that labeling on the popular drugs made by Bayer is inadequate and should be updated with information from several recent studies.

Yaz, its predecessor Yasmin and related prescriptions use a manmade hormone called drospirenone, which mimics the naturally occurring female hormone progesterone.

Panelists spent more than nine hours discussing often conflicting data on the blood clot risk of drospirenone-containing drugs compared with older medications. While the group disagreed on the quality of the evidence, the overwhelming majority said it should be made more explicit in the label, including the potentially fatal nature of blood clots.

"Clearly the wording is inadequate and incomplete," said Dr. Richard Bockman of New York's Hospital for Special Surgery. "Adverse events have to be made graphic so physicians and patients are aware of the consequences."

In an earlier vote, panelists voted 15-11 that the pills remain a beneficial option for preventing pregnancy. The majority opinion amounts to a vote of confidence that the drugs should remain on the market, though well over a third of panelists voted against the drug's overall benefit, especially given numerous other oral contraceptives available.

"I can see no real group of patients that this drug benefited over existing alternatives," said Mark Woods of New York University School of Medicine. "Without any clear benefit, and given the potentially catastrophic risk, I voted no."

Approved in 2006, Yaz grew into the best-selling birth control pill in the U.S. by 2008, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in TV and magazine advertising that emphasized its ability to clear up acne and other hormonal side effects. But prescriptions have fallen more than 80 percent in the last two years amid safety concerns and a consumer backlash against misleading advertisements that regulators said overstated the drug's benefits.

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If you are looking for romance, is it better to have a hot or homely wingman (or wingwoman)?

We got to wondering because a study of guppies – yes, little fish -- out this week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, showed that when females don’t want attention from males, they hang out with especially sexy females (in guppies, sexy means “willing to have sex”).

Basically, when guppy gals aren’t in the mood, they surround themselves with hot-to-trot pals, so they get some peace.

But does the same hold true for humans?

There’s not a lot of evidence, but our perception of others has a lot to do with the company they keep.  It’s all a matter of relativity, according to research conducted at Stirling University in Scotland. 

In a study released this month, scientists there found that when men were asked to rate the attractiveness of a target woman who was paired with a more attractive woman, and were told the two women were friends, the men thought the target woman was less desirable.

Other research shows that men probably don’t want a wingman at all. Instead they should hang with Elisabetta Canalis.

Researchers at California State University, Fullerton, found that women test subjects rated men as being more attractive when the guys were surrounded by other women than when the guys were depicted alone or with other men.

It’s like that old Seinfeld episode where George shows off a picture of a model that came in his new wallet, claiming she’s his dead fiancé. Suddenly, he’s invited to a secret nightclub full of models.

Something called “mate-choice copying” may be at work. In nature, when females of many species see a male having sex with other females, they appear to regard him as a catch, sort of like crowd-source book reviews. If you think lots of others liked it, then it must be good.

Courtesy of Lynsey Lee

Lynsey Lee, 19, was diagnosed two years ago with a blood clot in her left lung, months after she began taking the birth control pill Yaz.

Lynsey Lee hoped Yaz would relieve her severe menstrual cramping and pelvic pain, so she began taking the birth control pills when she was only 16. But, instead of getting better, she started experiencing extreme mood swings, nausea and even more pain.

“I got really, really sick,” says Lee, now 19, of White Bluff, Tenn. “I was just constantly throwing up, and it was getting hard to breathe sometimes.”

Then, she started having unbearable chest pains that sent her to the hospital what seemed like every few days. Doctors initially couldn’t figure out what was wrong. “They kept telling me that it was just my body getting used to the medicine,” she says. “Finally, [when I was 17] I just stopped taking it.”

Later that year, after numerous medical exams, doctors diagnosed a blood clot lodged in her left lung. During one emergency room visit, doctors asked Lee what would become a life-changing question for thousands of young women like her: “Have you ever taken Yaz?”

Now, she is among the more than 10,000 American women who have filed class action lawsuits or claims against the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer, which makes Yaz, a popular birth control pill. Thousands more claims are expected. In documents released Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration raised questions about conflicting evidence about the risks of taking Yaz and other similar pills, including life-threatening blood clots, and said warning information should appear on labels for doctors and patients.

Thursday, the FDA's panel of outside experts voted 21-5 that current labeling on the medications isn't enough and should be updated with more information on the risks. But that news comes too late for Lee.

“I wish I had known before,” she says. “I never would have taken Yaz.”

A representative from Bayer said the company did not have an immediate response.

The side effects of taking the birth control pill that was touted as having fewer side effects than others have destroyed her life, Lee says.

She had been the captain of the high school dance team, but Lee said after she began developing symptoms, she had to sit on the sidelines because she couldn’t catch her breath. She ended up missing the second half of her senior year in high school, including her senior prom. But, she says, her biggest sacrifice was giving up a full dance team scholarship to Vanderbilt University -- all because of the blood clot that doctors can do little about.

Removing it is too dangerous, they say; Lee takes blood thinners and hopes the clot will dissolve and work its way through her system.

Today, Lee says, she lives with pain and fatigue and isn't strong enough to work. Instead of attending college classes to earn a business degree, Lee makes weekly visits to her doctor for monitoring.

She’s hired Oklahoma City attorney Noble McIntyre, a member of the attorney group The Injury Board, which advocates for patient safety. McIntyre represents 60 Yaz victims and partners with another firm representing 600 Yaz clients.

“She’s missed out on her youth, and she missed out on a scholarship that probably was worth $200,000,” McIntyre says. “We try to give our clients hope that somebody understands what they are going through. We’re trying to communicate with the defendant what these women, through no fault of their own, have experienced. She lost her prom. She lost her freedom, something so valuable to people, because she’s mostly confined to her home.”

Story: FDA panel: Add stronger warnings to birth control labels

Lee says she’s depressed because her compromised health keeps her from living a normal teenager’s life. “I cry a lot,” she says. "It just hurts so much."

She dreams of someday opening a pastry shop and bakes cakes now for her family when she’s up to it. Shehas helped coordinate fundraising efforts for the Ronald McDonald House and the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. But she's still not sure what her future may hold.

“I don’t pray to get better because it’s in [God’s]  hands,” she says. “I pray for happiness.  I pray for others in this world that have it much worse than I do.”

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Creativity may have a dark side.

The very same people who have the intellectual spark to think outside the box when solving complicated problems may also be the ones who can more easily indulge in cheating and general dishonesty, a new study suggests.

“Creative people are more able to come up with reasons to justify unethical behavior — they are more morally flexible,” said the study’s lead author Francesca Gino, an associate professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School. “Concluding that the rule does not make sense could be one of the potential justifications.”

To test the theory that people who score well in creativity may be more likely to cheat, Gino rounded up several groups of college students.

She and her co-author, Dan Ariely of Duke University -- who published their findings in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology -- started out by testing study volunteers’ intelligence and creativity. Then the researchers ran a series of experiments that used money to tempt people into dishonesty.

In one experiment, the researchers gave volunteers a multiple-choice quiz that tested general knowledge. For every correct answer, the volunteers would make money.

The volunteers were later asked to copy their answers onto a special form.  One of the researchers told them that the correct answers had been lightly marked on these new forms -- by mistake -- and that they should ignore the marks, be honest, and fill out the forms as they had on their original quizzes. The volunteers were then told to discard their original quizzes, which didn’t have their names on them, in a special container.

In reality, the researchers had put special, identifying marks on the original quizzes. So they were able to compare the two versions to see if there had been any cheating. Sure enough, the researchers found that the most creative students were also the most dishonest. And that pattern held up in each of four other experiments.

While the study probably isn’t the last word on the subject, it may be a “cautionary tale,” said Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and an msnbc.com contributor. “You’ve got to be careful in encouraging creativity since it probably comes with a potential for self-rationalization. Creative people will think of new ways to bend the rules to do what they want to do.”

Still, Caplan said, the researchers did load the dice in favor of their theory by choosing students for study volunteers.

“If I were trying to hunt up someone who is ethically the most willing to be pushing the limits, it would be college students,” Caplan explained. “They’re still exploring or testing ethics and morality."

The morning-after pill known as Plan B is steeped in controversy again. The Department of Health and Human Services has taken the rare step of overruling the Food and Drug Administration and its science advisors and will not allow the pill to be sold over the counter in drugstores unless a woman can prove she is older than 17. 

The stunning override of the FDA is bad public policy.  This is a case of politics triumphing over science yet again when it comes to matters of reproduction, contraception and abortion in the U.S.

Plan B has stirred strong emotions from the minute its manufacturer sought FDA approval. During the Bush administration, abortion foes tried to stifle the drug on the grounds that it works as an abortion agent even though the drug actually prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb, which is not in the scientific sense of the term an abortion. Some docs and pharmacists made headlines by saying they would not prescribe the pill even in the case of a rape.  Some hospitals will not stock it.

Plan B won't be available OTC for younger teens

But the pill has been shown safe time and time again. The FDA panel that approved it for over-the-counter use simply could not find any scientific reason to worry about its safety. The benefits of preventing unwanted pregnancies and the risks of surgical abortions are significant.

So why not let any woman, even a girl of 14 or 15, have access?  Because, politically at least, saying a young girl can protect herself against an unwanted pregnancy is not the most popular stance to take.

The fact is that many teen girls have sex – and many will not talk about it with their parents.

Sometimes that sex is coerced or forced. Sometimes it is a relative or friend who is the exploiter.

These are not scenarios that we like to admit to. But they are real. That's why the pills should be readily available on drugstore shelves, but include an insert listing resources where young girls can get help.

Making Plan B hard to get doesn't protect these young girls. It puts them in an even worse spot.

Read more columns by Art Caplan:

Shame on school for rejecting boy with HIV

Vatican push for adult stem cells can't ignore good science

Art Caplan, Ph.D., is the director for the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.  Follow him on Twitter @ArthurCaplan.