Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder use 400 percent more emergency room services than peers without it, which puts more strain on an over-burdened health care system and may mean that they need better access to primary care.

A new observational study claims that cheese increases breast cancer risk, while yogurt can lower it. Since both are dairy, that means they would be suggesting a dairy process causes or prevents cancer.

The case control study has numerous confounders that will not be noticed by most journalists so media outlets looking for context beware.

A new fMRI study used neural activity in 80 people to accurately predict the virality of 80 New York Times health articles.

Well, it's the New York Times, a top five newspaper in the U.S. so the results are going to be skewed by that, as were the articles selected; the public loves weak observational claims about health and the demographic that reads the New York Times is most inclined to believe claims about miracle vegetables, scary chemicals and diet fads. 

There are multiple food fads trying to catch on per year but as the saying goes in science, if one epidemiology study counted, everything would cause or prevent cancer.

One long-held epidemiology belief is that the more vegetables you eat, the healthier your heart will be.  While vegetarians and animal activists tout such claims, the actual evidence is not clear. In recent decades we've been told bacon, butter and red meat all cause heart disease. But the same groups scaremongering food have also claimed that coffee causes breast cancer, that cell phones cause all kinds of cancer, and that BPA can be an endocrine disruptor, even though they are biological and toxicological impossibilities. 

You might think that after the November elections, the last group anyone will listen to for guidance on the American public are partisan pundits. But they are still lobbying for an alternative result, now saying that if President Trump wants to honor his commitment to repealing the The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) while allowing more coverage, better benefits, and lower costs, the only choice is a Single Payer system; socialized medicine.

They list now-famous pretend money, the same optimistic estimates that led to the Obamacare system being financially viable, savings of $504 billion annually on health care bureaucracy and profits.

Zika virus can cross the placenta, intended to protect the developing fetus, and appears to lead to a high percentage of miscarriages and to babies born with thin brain tissue and inflammation in brain cells, at least in mice.

Mice are not little people, of course, or every disease would have been cured by now and every chemical would be toxic, but it's a starting point for understanding the role of zika in birth defects beyond vague epidemiology.