A supplement some people turn to in hopes of losing a few pounds may have some previously unknown, unsavory side effects, suggest two new studies.Researchers studied how mice and rats responded to the supplement conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), an essential amino acid found in trace amounts primarily in beef, lamb and milk. [click link for full article]

Reports earlier this month that a team from New York Downtown Hospital has begun to screen women who are unable to have their own children for the first uterus transplant in the U.S. were criticized by many fertility physicians, medical ethicists and patient advocates, but many women have called the hospital to volunteer to become donors or recipients, the [click link for full article]

Journal article outlines mouse-free and animal-serum-free method of producing cruelty-free ELISA for human insulinIn the January issue of Clinical Biochemistry, scientists and physicians with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) outline the method used to develop a cruelty-free ELISA for human insulin that uses monoclonal antibodies produced by cells cultured in an animal-serum-free medium. [click link for full article]

Sifting through the pages of newspapers, most people reading stories about autism would think scientists are primarily grappling with understanding how environmental factors, such as childhood vaccines, might contribute to the condition. But the truth is quite different. The efforts of the scientific community to explore autism lie predominantly in brain and behavior research. [click link for full article]

This initiative sets out some novel concepts which accord with the RCOG guidelines Umbilical Cord Blood Banking (Opinion Paper 2) published in June 2006. We are pleased with the honesty of the Health Bank statement that the likely need of a child in a low risk family for its own cord blood as a personally assured alternative to bone marrow transplantation for serious haematological conditions is remote. [click link for full article]

Many U.S. women are traveling abroad for cheaper fertility treatments, while many French couples are seeking more accessible egg donors abroad, the AP/North County Times reports. [click link for full article]

Alternative medicine has become increasingly popular in recent years. “Specialized” tests such as neutralization-provocation, applied kinesiology and body chemical analysis claim to diagnose and treat “toxic build-ups” in the body,…

JHPIEGO, an international health affiliate of The Johns Hopkins University, has received several awards totaling more than $2.2 million to strengthen maternal and newborn health services in Cambodia, Kenya, Nepal, and to evaluate the AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s HIV Medics program in Uganda and Zambia. The JHPIEGO led ACCESS Program has received a three year, $1. [click link for full article]

Dr. Hillel W. Cohen, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health criticized the CDC guidelines for pandemic flu announced at a news conference today by CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding. According to Dr. Cohen, the CDC guidelines “repeats the errors that were made in preparation for Hurricane Katrina.”In particular, the guidelines acknowledge but do not provide any means to account for the great social inequalities that exist based on race and class,” he said. [click link for full article]

Girl soccer players may be sustaining more injuries than boys, but boys are twice as likely to be hospitalized for their injuries, according to the first comprehensive look at U.S. emergency room data on youth soccer injuries. The review appears in the February issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine.Coauthors Robert E. Leininger, Christy L. Knox, MA, and R. [click link for full article]