But a new poll suggest that while most Americans don't support public funding for abortions, the issue plays only a small roll among those who oppose reform, according to the poll, by the Pew Research Center.

When asked directly about whether abortion should be a benefit of a government health care reform plan, the majority -- 55 percent -- said no way. But when asked to explain in their own words their opposition to health care reform, just 3 percent of opponents said their objection to reform was because of abortion, the poll found. 

While it may not be the sole reason for discontent with the health overhaul, it was among a few. About 56 percent of opponents listed abortion as one of the major factors in their opposition, the poll found. Still, concern about costs and the expanded role of the government ranked far higher.

The poll, conducted between Nov. 12 and 15 asked a little over 1,000 people their thoughts on abortion and health care reform.

Two weeks ago, the House voted to probhibit federal subsidies for insurance that covers abortion in its version of the health care bill. The Senate's version does not have that stipulation at the moment. Expect the issue to be fought hard in the Senate. An interesting side note, this Politico story explains how taxpayers already provide subsidies for health care plans that cover abortions.

Back to the poll. While many Americans had strong feelings on the legislation proposed in Congress, lots of folks said the bills were too complicated and a good 19 percent said they didn't know what to think of them. Go figure.

If you haven't heard, a federal panel of medical experts said Monday that women should delay mammograms until age 50 and doctors shouldn't bother teaching women to do breast self exams. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said its goal was to reduce the harms of unnecessary treatment.

But critics are saying its a glimpse of health care rationing soon to come under health reform. A group of Republican congresswomen said the guidelines are "a step back for women" and the beginning of rationing. The panel, critics fear will influence policy and insurance companies won't cover the screens. Many of you expressed similar worries in my last blog post on this issue.

Sebelius tries to debunk this right away: The U.S. Preventive Task Force is an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who make recommendations. They do not set federal policy and they don't determine what services are covered by the federal government. ... Indeed, I would be very surprised if any private insurance company changed its mammography coverage decisions as a result of this action.

Sebelius ends her statement by underscoring that mammograms are an important screening tool and that women should consult with their doctor about screening.

Still, don't expect Sebelius' plea to stop this issue from being political. Some say lawmakers have every intention of passing reform that supports effective treatments that also control costs, and would rely on advice from experts such as the task force to make those decision. This Chicago Tribune story lays out those arguments.

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Adults with high levels of artery-clogging "bad" cholesterol decreased by a third between 1999 and 2006, new research finds.

At the same time, though, researchers found that many adults still have very high cholesterol levels and are not being treated for them. This, despite the widespread use of drugs known as statins, which lower bad cholesterol levels.

While the use of such medications increased from 8 percent to 13.4 percent over the study period, screening rates remained unchanged at less than 70 percent, the researchers write in the article published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association,

Researchers from the CDC studied 7,044 men and women 20 years and older  and examined their levels of "bad" cholesterol, or LDL.

Overall, the prevalence of people with bad cholesterol decreased from 31.5 percent in 1999 to 21 percent in 2006. But about two-thirds of people in the highest risk categories -- susceptible to heart attack and other problems -- were not on medication, the authors found.

Why are so many people at risk not getting treated?

An accompanying editorial suggests that screening guidelines are too confusing and need to be simplified. Doctors evaluate patients with a fixed threshold of LDL levels. As a result, doctors sometimes miss people with high risk factors for developing heart disease even if their LDL levels aren't high enough to meet the threshold. In another editorial, other experts suggest factoring age into the equation -- offering generic statins (cheaper than the name brands and therefore more accessible) to all adults above a particular age.

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As we told you in a story today, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force reversed existing recommendations that women get mammograms every one or two years starting at 40. Now, it says, start in your 50s, and do them every two years.

And remember how doctors have urged women to do breast self-exams? Well, skip those too. There's no evidence that teaching women to examine their breasts actually saves lives, the panel now says. 

So what's a woman in her 40s to think? That's the tenor of the emails I've been getting in response to this story. Women are confused. For years, doctors, patient advocates and every public service announcement with a pink ribbon on it has urged women to get annual mammograms and check their breasts for lumps. So, now what? Talk to your doctor, says the panel.

But many doctors are against the new recommendations, especially cancer specialists. CNN notes that the panel of 16 medical experts includes no oncologists.

There are no clear cut answers, even among doctors. One tells the WSJ health blog that there is no downside to breast self-exams, regardless of what the data show.

Another doc, who backs the guidelines, tells NPR that he tells is patients if they find lumps in their breasts to bring them to his attention. But then he says: The harm is twice as many women finding a lump, being anxious and having a surgical procedure to remove the lump or at least to put a needle into the lump. And if this doesnt result in any improvement in mortality, were not doing these women any favors.

The new guidelines aim to prevent the harms of overtreatment. Mammograms give a lot of false positives to women in their 40s and the detect cancers in women that may not harm them, putting them at risk for unnecessary biopsies, treatment and psychological stress.

To be clear, the guidelines are advice, nothing is binding. And they apply only to women with an average risk of breast cancer -- not women who may have a genetic mutation or family history, making them susceptible to the disease.  

Still, there are many stories out there from cancer survivors who say had they not done a self-exam, or gotten a mammogram in their 40s, they wouldn't be alive today.

What do you think?

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The data, presented at this week's American Heart Association conference in Orlando Fla.,found benefits in testing athletes with both an echocardiogram, a heart ultrasound to measure heart size and an electrocardiogram, or EKG, to assess the heart's electrical rhythms.

Researchers tested the athletes, who were at state track and field championships last year, with the two screening tools and found no life threatening problems, but did find abnormalities in 36 kids. The majority of those were picked up using both screening tools.

 "What is the price for a single life?" said Dr. Theodore Abraham in a news release. "We're counting the costs upfront. We're not counting the savings on the downstream end."

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A new study from federal researchers offers the latest, albeit lower, estimate. Food allergy among children increased 19 percent between 1997 and 2007, they found. In 2007, about 4 percent of all children had a food or digestive allergy.

Between 1993 and 2007, the number of visits to clinicians for allergies tripled. Hospitalizations increased, too. In the period between 1998 and 2000 and 2004 and 2006, hospitalizations rose from an average of 2,600 to 9,500.

The research, published in the new issue of the journal Pediatrics, is based on a review of several federal surveys, such as hospital discharge data and interviews with parents of children with allergies. Researchers with the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics also looked at estimates of child food allergies by race and gender. They found that black children were twice as likely as whites to have peanut allergy and nearly twice as likely to be allergic to milk.

The study examines levels of a particular antibody, known as immunoglobulin E, or IgE. Children with higher IgE levels appeared more susceptible to allergies. Some 9 percent of children had detectable levels of IgE to peanuts, the study found.

The bottom line: food allergies are increasing for boys, girls and children of all ages and ethnicities. But how much of this is a real increase and how much is due to closer detection and increased awareness remains murky.

Regardless, the study's authors suggest that since the increases wer found across genders and races and detected in numerous surveys, the rise in allergies is likely real.  

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As the nation's baby boomers age, their health needs grow in volume and complexity. The extent of those needs and their possible impact on the nation's health care system are constantly being assessed by researchers. The latest: aging baby boomers are more likely to have disabilities, according to a new study by UCLA researchers.  

The study, to be published in the American Journal of Public Health, examined data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys for 1988-1994 and 1999 to 2004.

Researchers looked at three age groups 60-69, 70-79 and 80 and older, analyzing such mobility issues as walking from room to room, getting out of bed and doing chores around the house. They found increases in disabilities for all groups, except for those 80 and up.

Disabilities among people in their 60s increased between 40 and 70 percent in all the areas studied, regardless of socioeconomic status, health and weight. Racial minorities and overweight people had even higher increases. Researchers think the nation's changing demographics may have something to do with the trend. Blacks and Hispanics, whose populations are expected to grow the most, are more likely to be poor and obese -- factors that increase the risk of disabilities, the study states. 

Those functional limitations and disabilities are likely to add to the nation's health care costs and have important ramifications for proposals to reform the health care delivery system, the authors write.

More study is needed on why disabilities are on the rise and how much the increase could cost, researchers said.

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The "Raise your hand for chocolate milk" campaign, which starts Monday, comes with a website that asks supporters to sign a petition showing their support for chocolate milk in schools. (Get a glimpse of the campaign with this video) 

Really? And here I thought school lunches were getting healthier. The Institute of Medicine said just last month that schools needed to strip the fat and salt from their lunches and offer fat free milk -- not chocolate.

The dairy folks insist that their hope is to get children to drink milk. Without chocolate milk, they may not drink milk at all, they claim. In addition, they say they hope to draw a distinction between chocolate milk and soda, the milk lobby told the AP. Chocolate milk actually has some nutrients -- when compared to soda, they say.

Um, OK. Well, lots of folks aren't buying their claims. With child obesity levels soaring, schools shouldn't be in the business of giving kids chocolate milk-- which has more calories and sugar than the plain variety, opponents say.

Others see more sinister motives. The campaign -- costing between $500,000 and $1 million -- is supported by a group that has been fighting efforts to get chocolate milk out of schools. With millions of dollars in sales to schools at stake, this campaign is all about money, argues the Marion Nestle at the Food Politics blog.

What do you think?

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The research, appearing in the latest issue of the journal Human Reproduction, studied 634 Chinese factory workers over five years, comparing men whose workplaces had high levels of BPA to those who had none. Workers in the factories with BPA had four times the risk of erectile dysfunction and seven times more risk of ejaculation problems, researchers from Kaiser Permanente found.

While other studies have linked high BPA levels to sexual dysfunction in animals, the authors say this study is the first in humans to study BPA's impact on men's reproductive system.

BPA, or bisphenol-A, use is widespread and the chemical is present in the urine of some 92 percent of Americans, the study states. Manufacturers use BPA to make the linings of food and beverage bottles and cans because it's durable, makes plastics harder and can withstand high temperatures.

Whether it's safe remains controversial. The government has been debating BPA, while consumer groups push hard for bans of the chemical. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to release findings from a long study on the issue later this month. Meanwhile, studies continue to question the safety of BPA. Last week, we told you about a Consumer Union report that found measurable levels of the chemical in canned foods.

In the study on sexual problems linked to BPA, the authors acknowledge more study is needed on the topic. For starters, men in the study were exposed to BPA levels 50 times higher than what the average man faces in the States. But for now, they say, given the widespread use of BPA their finding should be considered as the debate continues over its safety.

Well, Google maps says it has an answer for you. The new flu shot finder (google.com/flushot) is just kicking off, so there are a few kinks, the folks at Consumerist tell us (many locations are showing up that they're out of stock).

But eventually, the tool aims to provide users with the most up-to-date locations where they can find both seasonal and H1N1 vaccines.

Google's been working with the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services on the project and apparently the tool will be available soon on the government's flu site: www.flu.gov.

And if you're local, don't forget The Sun's swine flu webpage has information on local vaccine clinics. You can find that here.

Nearly half of patients surveyed said they had lingering pain two to three years after their cancer treatment, according to the study by Danish researchers. The pain can be severe to mild, and for some women it doesn't simply come and go -- it endures. Of the 13 percent of women who reported severe pain, 77 percent said they experienced it every day.

The study, which examined chronic pain in 3,754 women ages 18 to 70, found women younger than 40 were more likely to suffer from it. Of women who had breast-conserving surgery, the highest risk of pain was in young women 18 to 39 -- much higher than those in their 60s.

The pain was due to surgery and subsequent nerve damage, as well as chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Women felt pain in their breasts, but also under their arms and on the sides of their body.

The issue demands more attention, according to an accompanying editorial, from doctors from the Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla. ...

As breast cancer survivor Ellen Currotto (pictured right) says in the story: "I don't think it ever really is done. Survivorship is still a challenge."

Baltimore Sun photo

One in four emergency room patients in 2006 waited longer to be seen than recommended -- an increase of one in five from less than a decade earlier in 1997, according to a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

With more people using emergency rooms for non-life threatening medical problems, the rates of ER usage have soared. In 1994, there were 93 million visits to the nation's ERs. In 2006 that figure spiked to 119 million visits, according to the study. And it's worst in urban areas. Three quarters of emergency departments in urban areas are at or above capacity, which means longer waits, people being diverted to other hospitals or people choosing to leave without getting care.

Overcrowding means not just unhappy patients, but can cause serious delays in treatment of conditions such as pneumonia, cardiac symptoms and abdominal pain, the authors write.

But no matter how patients were classified -- urgent patients were recommended to see a clinician within 14 minutes, while non urgent ones could be seen in up to 24 hours, for example -- patients in all categories saw their wait times increase.

The problem is not just with the ER, but it represents a "system-wide failure," says an accompanying editorial by Dr. Renee Y. Hsia and Dr. Jeffrey A. Tabas of the University of California, San Francisco. Hospitals need to reduce crowding, reduce stays and limit wait times, not only through the use of electronic medical records and quicker lab results, but with better access to care in other arenas, including more urgent care clinics and primary care offices, they write.

While health care reform offers some hope for improvement -- by expanding health insurance coverage to people who use the ER as their safety net --it's unrealistic to expect it to fix the problem, the authors write.

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Our colleagues at the Consuming Interests blog give us the full details.

The recalled strollers include 11 different models, details of which can be found at the company website www.maclaren.us/recall or by calling (877) 688-2326. The products were sold from 1999 through November 2009 at stores like BabysRUs for $100 to $360.

photo courtesy of AP

As far as flu cures are concerned, we've shared with you how to detect the real from the bogus. But what about cleaning supplies? Do disinfectants that claim to battle the flu really work?

Well, some do and some don't, according to Polly Ristaino, associate director of hospital epidemiology and infection control for Johns Hopkins. The most important thing to look for in a product is an Environmental Protection Agency label that bares the claim. These products have had extensive testing to meet standards by the EPA, which regulates disinfectants, she said. Manufacturers who tout that their potions kill flu germs without the EPA stamp are false, she said.

Another caveat: there are no EPA-approved products yet that claim to kill the H1N1 virus, but there are tons that say they fight influenza-A, or the seasonal flu. So far, experts believe these seasonal flu fighters can disinfect against the swine flu, since the viruses are similar. The EPA also makes a list of some 500 products on the market that are approved to fight seasonal flu germs and you can find those here.

Cleaning is important, but Ristaino reminds us, you don't need fancy products. "Regular soap and water is just fine," she said. Still, people are taking disinfecting seriously these days. Fears of the virus have even helped propel a 23 percent increase in first quarter sales for Clorox products.

But more important than cleaning the environment is practicing good hand hygiene, said Ristaino. And you all know what that means -- wash your hands frequently and sneeze and cough into your elbow, as public health officials have been drilling into our heads for months.

If you are convinced you must disinfect every surface to keep yourself healthy (hey, cleaning is never a bad thing, go for it) Ristaino suggests following product instructions carefully. Often, labels specify that you leave the substance on a surface for 15 minutes or more before wiping down. 

Here are some more tips on disinfecting your home.

photo courtesy of the CDC