Daily Rounds: Health Care Lawsuit On Again; Chelation Crackdown; Bilingualism For Alzheimer's; Digital Health Records Unveil Abuse; PCB's In Kingergarten

Challenge to Health Care Law to Advance - NYTimes.com "In a foreboding ruling for the Obama administration, a federal judge in Florida decreed Thursday that a legal challenge to the new health care law by officials from 20 states could move forward and warned that he would have to be persuaded that its keystone provision — a requirement that most Americans obtain insurance — is constitutional. 'At this stage in the litigation, this is not even a close call,' wrote Judge Roger Vinson of Federal District Court in Pensacola, Fla., before asserting that the insurance mandate was an unprecedented exercise of Congressional authority." (The New York Times)

FDA Warns Heavy Metal Therapy Not Proven to Cure Autism, Hardened Arteries : Shots - Health News Blog : NPR (npr.org) "The agency issued eight warning letters today to companies marketing chelation products without a prescription, and is telling patients not to use them. 'FDA is concerned that patients will delay seeking proven, sometimes essential medical care, when relying on unproven OTC chelation products to treat serious conditions such as heart and blood vessel disease,' the FDA said in a statement."

Can bilingualism improve your brain's multitasking power? - latimes.com "As UCLA linguist Jared Diamond writes in an editorial in the journal Science, knowing more than one language could improve your multitasking skills from infancy and delay the onset of Alzheimer’s in old age." (Los Angeles Times)

Digital Records Aid Discovery of Drugs' Side Effects - WSJ.com "The study, at Massachusetts General and Brigham & Women's hospitals in Boston and sponsored by Pfizer Inc., showed a large increase in reporting of adverse events to the Food and Drug Administration once doctors used an automated tool. "(Wall Street Journal)

PCBs continue to force Estabrook kindergarteners out of classrooms - Lexington - Your Town - Boston.com "Superintendent of Schools Paul Ash informed parents in a letter Thursday that the latest round of testing in the kindergarten wing of the 49-year-old school did not show a reduction in PCBs, and the district is now unsure if it can lower levels of the chemical to federal guidelines for kindergarten-age children." (Boston Globe)