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The struggle between conscience and refusal, or individual rights vs. that of the community good, goes far back, and is not limited to reproductive choices.

The struggle between conscience and refusal, or individual rights vs. that of the community good, goes far back, and is not limited to reproductive choices

Over-eating doubles your chances of memory loss; Patients who are "satisfied" with their doctors are more likely to die; Physicists in Germany develop first "nano ear" to listen to bacteria, cancer

There has been a lot of attention paid in recent years to parents who refuse to have their children immunized for fear that the vaccines could lead to autism. Now, more physicians are saying "no" to parents who won't immunize their child - in effect, firing their patients. Erica Hill reports, then Dr.

Is your cell phone ringtone-ing off the vestigial hook?

The short of it ( covered in depth by Michael Eisen , and Razib tipped me off to the issue ) is that Carolyn Maloney, a congresswoman funded by Elsevier, which is a major for-profit publishing company, is trying to pass the Research Works Act, which would deny Americans free access to research funded by taxpayer money. Currently, any research funded by the National Institute of Health must be made freely available to the public 12 months after publication. You can see why for-profit publishing companies do not like this policy.

Pepper spray is all over the news, following the Occupy Wall Street protests, particularly following the widely disseminated images and videos of protestors being sprayed in NY, Portland, and UCDavis . Before that, I knew and occasionally used its main ingredient, capsaicin, as a treatment for my patients with shingles, an extremely painful Herpes zoster infection. And I knew about the many of the serious side effects of pepper spray, well-described by Deborah Blum .

“So often patients aren’t satisfied with the communication they have with their doctor. And yet I know that physicians care so much about their patients.” James Tulsky, director of the Duke Center for Palliative Care

Hospital staffer mishears test results for organs of man who turned out the be HIV positive; Patients very likely to contract virus after transplant error

Serial entrepreneur and The Future Well co-founder Jay Parkinson is teaching everyone that a good idea doesn't cost much to grow. Jay Parkinson is on a mission to simplify healthcare.

Hypochondriacs rejoice! The software uses medical history, records, and experience to discover whether you're at risk for as many as 100 diseases.

Dr. Anthony Szema is used to seeing patients with red eyes and runny noses. But in the past couple of years, the New York-based allergist has been faced with an onslaught of patients complaining their symptoms are starting earlier and hitting harder than ever before