By using medicines in unconventional ways and treating patients with a 'stepped care' approach (where the most effective yet least intensive treatment is delivered to patients first), scientists have successfully improved blood pressure control among patients with severe intolerance to antihypertensive medication. 

The study devised a novel treatment strategy for 55 patients, involving fractional dosing with tablets (halving or quartering pills), liquid formulations of antihypertensive drugs and patch formulations of antihypertensive drugs - plus use of unlicensed drugs that lower blood pressure. 

As a whistle-blower and interdisciplinary scientist who appreciates the strength of philosophical arguments (read: logic!), I receive idiotic rejections declining to publish my work, perusing laughably silly justifications all the time. This is understandable in today’s throughout PC, eggshell walking careerist academia and publish-or-perish corrupted scientific community. But there are different degrees of how sure-of-themselves proud the rejections are for example. Physicists usually at least pretend to argue something, no matter it is clear that the editor or reviewers have not read beyond the abstract and reference list in order to find out whether they were cited.

 

As we approach the August bank holiday and a three-day weekend, it is worth reassessing the amount of time we devote to work. What if all weekends could last for three or even four days? What if the majority of the week could be given over to activities other than work? What if most of our time could be devoted to non-work activities of our own choosing?

To even pose these questions is to invite the criticism of Utopian thinking. While a fine idea in principle, working fewer hours is not feasible in practice. Indeed, its achievement would come at the expense of lower consumption and increased economic hardship.

Australian guidelines for the ethical use of IVF allow selecting a child’s sex for medical reasons. But draft guidelines that are now open for public submissions raise the possibility of extending this and allowing the choice for social reasons.

As part of a periodic review, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is calling for public submissions on its draft guidelines on the use of assisted reproductive technology in clinical practice and research. This, in lay terms, is the practice of in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

Producing guidelines to advise the community on ethical issues relating to health is one of the NHMRC’s many tasks. Revisions aim to reflect changes in technology and social attitudes and are based on advice from the Australian Health Ethics Committee (AHEC), which I chair.

As college students have made their way back to campus this month, many also return to the habits, some good, some bad, that dorm-life promotes. A new survey finds that adults under 25, including high school graduates and college students, are more likely to rate hookah and e-cigarettes as safer than cigarettes, when compared to 25 to 34-year-olds, according to a paper in Health Education&Behavior.

Natural American Spirit has discovered how to gain market share; tout the organic, all-natural status of its product.

It must be healthier, right?

Not when it comes to cigarettes, but it has been very good strategy for the company to do what organic food and soap corporations have done so well - frame the discussion so that their process seems physically and ethically superior to "conventional." 

Despite the glitz and glory of Usain Bolt’s comeback victories and Jessica Ennis-Hill’s heptathlon triumph at the World Championships, 2015 is shaping up as quite the annus horribilis for athletics.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announces a determination of non-regulated status for a genetically engineered (GE) potato variety developed by J.R. Simplot Company (Simplot) called Innate, which has been engineered for late blight resistance, low-acrylamide potential, reduced black spot bruising, and lowered reducing sugars. 

The determination will be effective upon publication of the Federal Register notice announcing the decision on September 2, 2015, they wrote.

Nina Fedoroff, molecular biologist and former Science and Technology Adviser to Condoleezza Rice and then Hillary Clinton, says that genetic modification (GM) is the most critical technology in agriculture for meeting the challenges of feeding a growing global population. Fedoroff warns of the detrimental influence of politics and misinformation on the safety of GM crops and in contrast to anti-science marketing campaigns by groups like Greenpeace and NRDC that, "GM crops are arguably the safest new crops ever introduced into the human and animal food chains."