Fetal Tissue Research Uncovers New Information About Zika | ThinkProgress

New medical research has quickly advanced doctors’ understanding of how the Zika virus infects a fetus and how to detect its presence much earlier in a woman’s pregnancy. These findings — released Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine — would have been impossible to uncover without the help of one crucial, yet controversial, resource: tissue collected from an aborted fetus infected by Zika...
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/03/31/3765233/fetal-tissue-zika-study/

Zika Is Headed For States With Harsh Abortion Restrictions. What Happens When It Gets There?

Zika’s Spread Across The U.S. May Change The Narrative Around Abortion.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/03/30/3764270/zika-comes-to-anti-abortion-states/

Researchers Discover a Crazy-Simple Way for Kids to Fight Obesity, and It's Not About Eating Less

A new study shows that making water fountains more available in schools can help children keep the pounds off...
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/researchers-discover-crazy-simple-way-kids-fight-obesity-and-its-not-about-eating

One Small Fix To Help People Who Leave Their Jobs To Care For Loved Ones

“I heard these heartbreaking stories of people who were fearful of losing everything that they had saved because they had to leave a job in order to come home and take care of a loved one,” he said. Time out of the workforce caring for an elderly parent or a young child means lost income...
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/03/18/3761628/murphy-social-security-caregiver-credits/

Rick Snyder Testified Before Congress On The Flint Crisis. It Didn’t Go So Well.

Keri Webber got on a plane to fly from her home city of Flint, Michigan to Washington, DC this week in the hopes of finally being able to meet with her governor. “We’ve tried to meet with him in Lansing, we tried to meet with him in Flint,” she said of Rick Snyder. “We came to DC [to] meet on neutral ground. We never got a response.”
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/03/17/3761413/flint-congressional-hearing-day-two/

Study: vaccine refusers helped spark recent measles and whooping cough outbreaks - Vox

Measles and whooping cough, two infectious diseases US public health officials had gotten pretty good at preventing, have made a disturbing comeback in recent years...
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/15/11239858/whooping-cough-measles-vaccines-outbreak

Weird Ailments, Toxic Water, Dismissive Officials—and No, This Isn't Flint

The environmental justice disaster you've never heard of...
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/environmental-racism-coal-ash-explainer

Snyder Aide Says Governor Knew About Flint Water Issues A Year Before Action Was Taken | ThinkProgress

Snyder Aide Says Governor Knew About Flint Water Issues A Year Before Action Was Taken...
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/02/26/3754137/flint-snyder-aides-emails/

Medical Neglect in the Name of God -- part 1 (Seth Andrews, The Thinking Atheist)

There are two words that, too often, mean the difference between life and death: Religious. Exemption. Individuals and families who reject necessary medical care in favor of prayer and adherence to strict church restrictions often pay with their lives, or the lives of their children. Rita Swan is the director of CHILD, INC, and she has firsthand experience with this. Rita has since dedicated her life to child advocacy and the fight to protect children from (often well-meaning) parents who keep them far from hospital care, and far from the health solutions they desperately need. It's a difficult subject, but a necessary discussion about faith, parental responsibility, and the need for real-world solutions to real-world problems. This is part one of a two-part show on this subject. Part two features Dr. Paul Offit, author of the book, "Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine," which airs February 2, 2016. CHILD, INC LINKS:
http://www.childrenshealthcare.org
http://www.idahochildren.org
Interview:
http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/podcast/medical-neglect-in-the-name-of-god--part-1-of-2-with-rita-swan

All Workers In This State Will Soon Be Guaranteed A Paid Day Off When They Get Sick | ThinkProgress

On Wednesday, Vermont’s House approved a bill that would guarantee workers in the state the ability to earn paid sick days, sending it to Gov. Peter Shumlin (D)’s desk. Once the governor signs it into law, as he has said he will do, Vermont will become the fifth state in the country to ensure employees the right to a paid day off for their own illness or that of their loved ones...
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/02/18/3750721/vermont-paid-sick-leave/

Will Pro-Life Lawmakers Support A New Bill To Prevent Infant Deaths? | ThinkProgress

Of all things, we should certainly be able to agree about saving infant’s lives...
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/02/12/3748704/moore-infant-mortality-bill/

Coal Waste Water Was Dumped Into A Virginia Creek Last Year And Groups Are Furious

Just days after Dominion Virginia Power, a utility company, confirmed it released 33.7 million gallons of coal ash water into a tributary of the Potomac River last spring, county officials say they distrust the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the company alike...
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/02/12/3748646/coal-ash-dumped-into-quantico-creek/

Flint Water Crisis Is What Happens With A Republican Government

Every day we’re learning more about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and each piece of the puzzle that falls into place paints an ugly picture of how Republicans run the government.

Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins and attorney Howard Nations discusss everything we know so far about the water crisis in Flint…
https://youtu.be/LYip3mINt48

Teens can drastically reduce their risk of breast cancer by consuming more of this.

A large U.S. study involving 44,000 women just released recommends that women get more fiber in their diet, according to a Reuters report...
http://www.morningticker.com/2016/02/breakthrough-this-common-substance-could-slash-breast-cancer-risk/

President’s Budget Supports Adolescent Sexual Health Promotion Programs and Calls for End to “Abstinence Education”

Choosing instead to focus on investing in programs that support youth access to the information and education they need to lead sexually healthy lives, the president’s FY 2017 budget request proposes increased investment in the Office of Adolescent Health’s (OAH) Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP) and maintains current funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH)...
http://www.siecus.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Feature.showFeature&FeatureID=2438

Stand Up. Right Now. (Tom Ashbrook, On Point)

We all know that just sitting on our duffs at the office is no good for our health. But the news on just how bad it is just keeps coming. Get up, stand up is the word from all over now. And better yet – get up, stand up and move. Easy to say. Many are already well down this road. A lot of others, still on their keisters. To be the first one to start standing in the office can be awkward. First treadmill desk, can get crowded. First “walking meetings,” may challenge the culture. But it’s time! This hour On Point, all the latest how and why on the urge to get up, stand up and move at work. — Tom Ashbrook
Interview:
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2015/10/01/standing-desk-dangers-of-sitting

Scientists Are Building A Case For How Food Ads Make Us Overeat

Two new meta-analyses may help put the nail in the coffin of doubt about whether food ads are bad for our health and partly to blame for our obesity epidemic. While different in size and scope, both papers show how food advertising influences eating behavior — and can have a major impact on eating and eventual weight gain...
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/29/462838153/food-ads-make-us-eat-more-and-should-be-regulated

These Low-Wage Workers Want The GOP Candidates To Know How They Live

Alicia McDonald’s son sleeps on the floor of her small trailer home because she can’t afford a bigger home. Her two children, now 11 and 12, will probably not go to college unless they receive full scholarships. She’s worked at McDonald’s, off and on, for 12 years, and makes $8 an hour...
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/01/28/3743990/fight-for-15-protest-iowa/

U.S. Lags Behind Other Countries In Reducing Stillbirths

In the U.S., the stillbirth rate is 3 per 1,000 births, putting it 22nd among 186 countries...
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/01/22/463954283/the-u-s-lags-behind-in-reducing-stillbirths-late-in-pregnancy

Governor Rick Snyder Completely Failed The People Of Flint

Recently, a class action lawsuit filed in Michigan claimed that the state Department of Environmental Quality in the city of Flint, had failed to treat the tap water with proper chemicals, causing unsafe levels of lead to end up in peoples drinking water. Joining us to talk about how this happened is investigative journalist with the ACLU, Curt Guyette.
Interview:
https://youtu.be/RnvblTqtu4I