An old legal joke goes that a man accused of lifting wallets is arrested brought into court. The judge asked if he wants a trial by judge or a jury of his peers. The accused replies, "You judge, I don't want 12 pickpockets deciding what happens to me."

It is a common psychological tendency to assume most people are 'like' us, that is why rationalization about behavior occurs so easily - everyone else is doing it. So what do we make of it when a journalist repeatedly claims that everyone else is a shill for corporate interests?

The obvious: That the journalist sees it everywhere because she assumes people are like her. I prefer to talk about individuals rather than issues but sometimes the journalist is the issue, because they make themselves into one.

Over half of patients with controlled type 2 diabetes have many more tests than is currently recommended by national guidelines, and this has been associated with overtreatment of the condition, suggests a large US study published in The BMJ.

Overtreatment is a concern because it can lead to higher costs in the healthcare system,  a concern due to runaway expenses causes by the Affordable Care Act, called Obamacare by officials and the public.

Since Type 2 diabetes is usually caused by lifestyle rather than a predisposition, "patients and doctors should question the value of routine tests."

Two studies conducted 20 years apart in England reveal an apparent increase in healthy ageing, or years lived healthily, reflecting less cognitive impairment; and an increase in the proportion of life lived healthily, through a larger proportion of years lived with disability but less rather than more severe disability. The research from Professor Carol Jagger at the Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, UK, and colleagues is published in The Lancet.

The children's flu vaccine doesn't trigger an allergic reaction in those with egg allergy, finds a study in The BMJ today, and it is also appropriate for young people with well-controlled asthma or recurrent wheeze.

Evidence suggests that children and young people are the main spreaders of influenza infection. In 2012, the UK Department of Health therefore recommended annual vaccination of those aged 2-16 years of age with live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) as part of the NHS childhood vaccination program.

At a poster session at the annual meeting of the Society for Risk Assessment, 16 experts tasked with reviewing the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) monograph on glyphosate release their evaluation. Along with European and American safety agencies, they could not find evidence for carcinogenesis and instead noted that the Working Group seemed to have exaggerated some studies and even disputed conclusions that were in studies they did use..

Early life exposures to toxic chemicals such as PCBs and DDT dampen an infant's response to the tuberculosis vaccine, according to a new study.

DDT? Banned over 40 years ago but so safe the United States EPA creates guidelines for other countries to spray it inside homes? 

It's that pesky 'persistent pollutant' designation which, like endocrine disruptor, is invoked when nothing else is available. Todd Jusko, Ph.D., an assistant professor in epidemiology at the University of Rocheste, lead author of the paper, also says PCBs - banned in the 1970s - are still impacting babies and, in case that doesn't get environmental activist fundraiser juices flowing, that thousand of other pollutants similar to PCBs and DDT have "unknown health implications."

The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is now at home on the African plains, but it started a migration 100, 000 years ago from North America towards its current habitat. The research, published in the open access journal Genome Biology, found that the migration from North America was costly for the species, triggering the first major reduction in their gene pool.

Playing three-dimensional video games can boost the formation of memories, along with improving hand-eye coordination and reaction time, this finding shows the potential for novel virtual approaches to helping people who lose memory as they age or suffer from dementia. 

For their research, scholars recruited non-gamer college students to play either a video game with a passive, two-dimensional environment ("Angry Birds") or one with an intricate, 3-D setting ("Super Mario 3D World") for 30 minutes per day over two weeks. 

Chapel Hill, N.C. (Embargoed until 5 p.m. ET on Dec. 8, 2015) - Two UNC physicians have joined other leading experts in gynecology and related specialties across the country in asking the Food and Drug Administration to rescind or revise a warning it issued severely restricting use of a device commonly employed in minimally invasive procedures to treat uterine fibroids.

Biologists have found used to characterize new antibiotics can screen natural products quickly for compounds capable of controlling antibiotic resistant bacteria. Antibiotic resistance is increasing at an alarming rate. The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, a publication established to produce an analysis of the global problems of antimicrobial resistance, recently predicted that by 2050, the worldwide toll from drug resistant bacterial infections could reach 10 million deaths per year, more than cancer (8.2 million) and diabetes (1.5 million) combined.