FRIDAY, Oct. 3 (HealthDay News) -- With the Chinese milk products-melamine scandal generating fresh headlines, U.S. health officials on Friday unveiled what they consider acceptable levels of contamination with the industrial chemical.

The bottom line: No amount of melamine is safe in infant formula.

For all other foods, only amounts less than 2.5 parts per million are risk free, U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials said.

FRIDAY, Sept. 26 (HealthDay News) -- As food-safety problems continue to rock the United States, resulting in massive recalls, illness and even death, the federal Food and Drug Administration remains underfunded and understaffed to protect consumers, a new government report concludes.

The report, released Friday by the Congressional General Accountability Office (GAO), found that the FDA lacks the inspectors, staffers and scientists to safeguard the food supply, particularly fresh produce.

(HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned companies making unapproved eye wash solutions and a widely used but unapproved skin cream to stop making and marketing the products or face enforcement actions.

The agency took this action Tuesday because of reports of serious adverse events linked to these prescription products.

The Ovasure test has been removed from the website I wrote about (http://www.personalabs.com). There is no explaination on the site, but there has been questions on its results and who should take the test. There is also news that the FDA wants to talk to Labcorp to clarify these points.
I will let you know if I can find out more info.

A new blood test that can reportedly detect ovarian cancer at earlier, and possibly treatable stages is encouraging to some women and their doctors, but the FDA says the test has not been proven, says the New York Times.

According to the American Cancer Society “Almost half (45%) of women with ovarian cancer are still alive at least 5 years after diagnosis. Women younger than 65 have better 5-year survival rates than older women.

TUESDAY, Aug. 26 (HealthDay News) -- About one in five ayurvedic medicine products purchased on the Internet contain significant levels of lead, mercury or arsenic, a new study finds.

FRIDAY, Aug. 15 (HealthDay News) -- Xenazine (tetrabenazine) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as the first drug to treat chorea, the jerky involuntary movement that occurs in people with Huntington's disease.

It's the first FDA-approved treatment of any symptom of Huntington's, an inherited disorder that affects about 30,000 people in the United States, the agency said Friday in a news release. Another 200,000 people are at risk of developing the rare neurologic disease. People who develop Huntington's typically start to have symptoms between ages 30 and 50.

I didn't need to have a hearing aid sitting in my hairdressers chair to hear all the hype about bio-identical hormones and how great these women were feeling! I mean that is where women talk about everything from relationships to health conditions to Botox. They were excited, glowing and I wondered why? Was it some new facial or something?

I have been seeing more ads for Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT), and was wondering if it really is as effective as the advertisements claim.

According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), "Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) involves the breathing of pure oxygen while in a sealed chamber that has been pressurized at 1.5 to 3 times normal atmospheric pressure".

A test that helps identify the type of cancer cells present in a tumor has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The Pathwork Tissue of Origin test compares the genetic material of a patient's tumor with genetic data stored in a database from evaluated cancers. The test, which is able to analyze thousands of pieces of genetic material at a time, considers 15 common cancer types, including those of the bladder, breast, and colon.