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Mother Doesn’t Always Know Best: Cold and Flu Myths Debunked
The common cold earned its moniker for a reason. According to the American Lung Association, colds are the most common reason Americans visit the doctor, with adults contracting two to four colds per year, and children enduring the sniffles six to eight times annually. For every bug and virus that we encounter, there is an [...] Continue reading
Botulism Bummer: Canning Your Own Food Carries Health Risk
If the sluggish economy has been good for anything, it has taught many Americans to move away from mass consumerism and learn how to do more with less. The recession brought a resurgence in trends such as upcycling, the DIY revolution, the locavore movement, and embracing those nearly lost home economics skills that you swore [...] Continue reading
Teens Will Be Teens: CDC Surveys Youth Risk Behavior
Despite the name of the popular television series, the lives of American teenagers are rarely secret. Teens share even the most mundane details of their lives on social media, and now, more than 15,000 high school students have further divulged their secrets to the Centers for Disease Control 2011 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) [...] Continue reading
Penicillin Panic: Drug-Resistant Strains of Gonorrhea Increase Worldwide
Nobody wants to talk about it, but there are worse things than getting gonorrhea. If you’re responsible, you go to the doctor, get a prescription for antibiotics, and take care of it. But treating gonorrhea may not always be so easy, English medical researchers say. The bacteria that causes the sexually transmitted disease is becoming [...] Continue reading
We Don’t Swim in Your Toilet: One in Five Pee in the Pool
There is no lack of television and film parodies on the dirty not-so-secret contaminants of public pools. This Memorial Day weekend, the Water Quality & Health Council (WQHC) recommends swimmers take at least one simple precaution to ensure sanitary shared pool water – take a shower before you get in the pool. A WQHC survey [...] Continue reading
Count Your Blessings: CDC Observes Drinking Water Week
We take it for granted every day –more like dozens of times per day. Turn on the tap, and more often than not, clean, safe water reliably gushes forth for the majority of Americans. Despite the proliferation of bottled water and water purification systems, the United States continues to have one of the safest drinking [...] Continue reading
Sushi Tuna Update: Salmonella Outbreak Spreads to 24 States
The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are still tracking the sushi tuna salmonella outbreak that Consumer Media Network fist reported on April 4 and again on April 17. The source of the outbreak was identified as sushi tuna from California-based Moon Marine USA raw yellowfin tuna known as [...] Continue reading
Tangerine Tinted Jersey Mom Makes You Think Twice About Tanning
From overly tan mothers to prom teens embracing their pasty skin, tanning has emerged as a hotbed issue just as the temperatures begin to heat up for the season. Many Americans turn to tanning beds to look their best in the latest spring and upcoming summer fashion trends, but the image of 44-year-old Patricia Krentcil’s [...] Continue reading
The War on Tobacco: How the CDC Is Letting America Down on Obesity
New Anti-Smoking Ads Overshadow the Ongoing Obesity Epidemic in the US You may have noticed those grisly anti-smoking public service announcements between streaming videos on the web or during commercial breaks on television. The spots typically feature a reformed smoker in some dire physical condition calmly explaining how to cope with their illness brought on [...] Continue reading
Mosquito Season: Brace Yourself for the Onslaught of Blood-Suckers
If you’re not already hearing the high-pitched buzz and feeling the itch from the vampire of the insect world, just wait a few more weeks. Americans should brace themselves for an itchy spring and summer, because experts are predicting a heavy mosquito season due to the combination of drought in some parts and warmer winters [...] Continue reading