Current Events

Whether women currently taking birth control pills have a higher risk of breast cancer has long been a matter of debate with some studies suggesting that they do, and others suggesting that they don’t. But a new finding is certain to give some pill takers, like myself, pause.

Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle examined medical records from more than 1,100 breast cancer patients ages 20 to 49 and found that those taking oral contraceptives within a year of their diagnosis had a 50 percent higher risk of getting the cancer compared with healthy counterparts of the same age who weren’t taking the pill.

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Drugs that have been investigated to increase so-called “good” cholesterol may not prevent deaths, heart attacks or strokes as many hoped, according to a new analysis.

Due to limitations in existing studies and ongoing experiments involving these and other drugs, researchers not involved with the analysis caution that it’s too early to give up on medications that increase high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, however.

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U.S. safety regulators are investigating the potential for air bags to fail because of software issues in older Chevrolet Impala sedans made by General Motors Co (GM.N), after receiving a consumer complaint about an alleged incident in Texas.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday that it has opened a probe into about 320,000 Impalas from model year 2008, but would also look at 2007 and 2009 models.

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Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wrote to U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg on Monday to ask for more information regarding the agency’s efforts to curb the overuse of antibiotics in food animal production.

The senators called Guidance #213 and the proposed rule on Veterinary Feed Directives (VFDs) “important first steps” but said they “remain concerned that they may not be sufficient.”

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U.S. lawmakers on Monday said they were expanding their investigation of federal biosecurity lapses including problems at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that led to the mishandling of anthrax and bird flu pathogens.

Republicans from the House Energy and Commerce Committee said they sent a letter on Monday to the CDC director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, asking him to explain why the leading U.S. public health agency was unable to detect systemic problems involving the handling of deadly agents dating back to 2010.

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Medical researchers have found new evidence to support government agency concerns that a surgical device commonly used in hysterectomies could inadvertently spread hidden and potentially fatal cancers in women.

A study by doctors at Columbia University, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that nearly 1 in 370 women who undergoes a hysterectomy using a surgical device called a power morcellator is found to have previously undetected uterine cancers.

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Johns Hopkins, one of the world's most prestigious medical institutions, has agreed to pay $190 million to settle claims by thousands of women against a gynecologist who used a tiny camera to surreptitiously make hundreds of videos and photos of patients.

But an attorney for the Baltimore medical center on Monday described Nikita Levy as "a rogue employee'' and said Hopkins should not be blamed for his actions.

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Acura has recently issued a new recall, this time for the ILX and ILX Hybrid, because of a possible fire risk. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a total of 14,078 units of the new ILX and ILX Hybrid will be affected by this recall. Owners of the 2013 – 2014 model year units will have to take their rides back to the dealers because of a problem with the Halogen projector beam headlights, which could overheat and lead to a fire.

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General Motors redesigned even more ignition switches on more models without changing the part number, according to a letter the automaker sent this week to government regulators.

The gist of this latest disclosure is that an undetermined number of the defective ignition switches likely remained in circulation among dealers who may have installed them in cars that didn’t originally have the problem.

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Only three months ago, Mary T. Barra arrived for the first time on Capitol Hill to apologize — publicly, profusely and personally — for General Motors’ long failure to recall millions of small cars.

On Thursday, Ms. Barra returned to Washington again, and this time, she drew the line.

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The car crash that killed Gene Erickson caught the attention of federal regulators. Why did the Saturn Ion he was traveling in, along a rural Texas road, suddenly swerve into a tree? Why did the air bags fail? General Motors told federal authorities that it could not provide answers.

But only a month earlier, a G.M. engineer had concluded in an internal evaluation that the Ion had most likely lost power, disabling its air bags, according to a subsequent internal investigation commissioned by G.M.

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