Golding seeking fluoride approval in San Diego

San Diego Mayor Susan Golding will ask the City Council on Tuesday to approve a plan to add fluoride to the city’s drinking water to reduce tooth decay. “It’s a health issue,” Golding said in a telephone interview yesterday. “San Diego is the largest city in the country without community fluoridation.” Money to pay for […]

CDC: Hip Fractures Are Increasing

ATLANTA (AP) – Hip fractures among women 65 and older have climbed 40 percent between 1988 and 1996, with about a third of older Americans suffering serious falls each year, the government said Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attributed the increase in part to a growing number of people 85 and older. […]

EPA reports no environmental threat to farm area

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Environmental authorities found no immediate environmental threat to a rural area where farmers reported mysterious maladies that made them sick and killed their livestock, officials reported Wednesday. After a 14-month study, investigators from the federal Environmental Protection Agency found many of the problems to be associated with the way farmers manage their […]

Fluoride enters Las Vegas water supply

Beaming dentists and health officials toasted each other with tap water-filled champagne glasses on Wednesday hours after Las Vegas became one of the last major American cities to fluoridate its water supply. “To a happier, healthier Nevada,” State Health Officer Mary Guinan said as she raised her plastic goblet at the ceremony outside the Community […]

Study: More Kids On Prescribed Drugs

CHICAGO (AP) – The number of 2- to 4-year-olds taking psychiatric drugs like Ritalin and Prozac soared 50 percent between 1991 and 1995, according to a new study that experts said reveals a troubling and growing trend. Doctors said the effects of such drugs are largely unknown in children so young and they worry the […]

Medical Journals Exercise Clout in News Coverage

Every week, the most prestigious medical and scientific journals in the world send advance information on their newest research findings to general interest news organizations in cities large and small. Most of the journals also send along press releases, touting the most important of their findings and hoping to see the names of their publications […]

Fluoride measure appears bottled up

Despite the fact that the House yesterday gave preliminary approval to a fluoridation bill, the legislation appears to be heading toward a dead end. Senate Health and Human Services Committee chairwoman Suzanne Chun Oakland (D-Palama, Aiewa Heights) said she will defer a decision on the governor’s bill to fluoridate the water supply “indefinitely.” She said […]

Brattleboro weighs fluoridation of water

The long-dormant issue of fluoridating Brattleboro’s water has been pushed to the forefront with a healthy shove last week from Gov. Howard Dean. Brattleboro recently applied for a $300,000 state grant to establish a free dental clinic for children, but selectmen said they hoped that Dean’s comments had nothing to do with the grant application. […]