There was recently a case in the Cincinnati area where the parents of a young boy who had rebuffed all of his parents' efforts to persuade him to go to school had failed so they contacted the police (I want to be clear that the parents DID NOT dial an emergency number, they contacted the police via a non-emergency telephone line) and asked someone from the police to become involved. An officer did talk to the boy and found out that he was refusing to go to school because a little girl was conducting what passes for flirting at their age and he thought she was bullying him. The officer explained to the little boy that she was doing what she was doing because she liked him and not because she didn't like him and he willingly went back to school. Now, this was a harmless and somewhat cute instance of the police resolving an issue with a young child. However, it reminded me of when I have seen parents threaten their recalcitrant young children (perhaps ages 7 and younger) that the police would come and arrest the children if they didn't listen and obey the parents and it made me want to ask the question: is it wrong to use the police as a tool in the tug of war that is getting a stubborn child to mind? If so, what kind of negative consequences can such a tactic sow?

It is probably the most widespread addiction in the Western world, perhaps the entire world. It's the addiction to that little stimulant that few writers, political operatives and other people that work long hours cannot live without: caffeine. So, do you get your caffeine from coffee, tea, soft drinks, those nasty energy drinks or do you abstain from caffeine altogether?

My property is on a corner. More specifically, it is on a corner that is utilized by schoolchildren to wait for the bus stop. As they wait, I witness them do all manner of unpleasant things such as scream at the top of their lungs, punch one another, etc. These things go away. However, the garbage that they leave behind is really starting to agitate me because it, unlike their other bad behavior, does not follow them onto the bus.

While I know this sounds like a trivial issue, here are the reasons that it is not:

- The discarded wrappers that they leave behind have food on them that can induce a fatal anaphylactic shock event for me
- They leave not only wrappers that can be consumed by my small dog which could more than likely choke and kill her, but they also leave behind half-eaten apples and other foods that draw vermin to the neighborhood
- The litter is obviously having a negative effect on the neighborhood's image

My question to my readers is this: do you have any suggestions for solutions to this problem that are at the very least non-lethal? ;-) Being serious, however, I need a solution that will not result in legal action against me nor physical harm to those that are littering but that will teach them a strong, negative association between littering and the consequences of doing so on my property. Help me, this is getting extremely annoying.

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In Danny Thrall's heart, he was a swimmer. But his heart betrayed him.

A new study is investigating whether a tea tree oil body wash can prevent the drug-resistant super bug MRSA in critically ill hospitalized adults.

Children who are breast-fed for at least 4 months may have better lung function than those breast fed for shorter periods of time and kids who are bottle fed, a new study suggests.

China's worst product-safety scandal in years has hit home for thousands of U.S. adoptive parents who are seeking answers about potential effects of melamine in tainted formula.

The nation's first face transplant is a big risk not just for the severely disfigured woman who received it, but also for the surgeon who has made it the highlight of her career.

U.S. scientists have developed a tiny sensor that can detect small amounts of cancer-causing toxins or trace the effectiveness of cancer drugs inside living cells.

A new test to predict an ordinary woman's odds of getting breast cancer works better than a method doctors have relied on for decades, researchers reported Friday.

Government health officials Wednesday publicly aired deep differences over the safety of long-acting asthma drugs and called on outside medical advisers to help settle the issue.

State-by-state graphic of American College of Emergency Physicians' report on emergency care.

Women hospitalized with heart attacks still don't get the treatment they need and are more likely to die than men if they suffer a massive heart attack, a new study shows.

State laws meant to keep teens out of indoor tanning booths haven't made a dent, a new study has found, disappointing doctors hoping to reduce deadly skin cancers.

We've all heard it: 60 is the new 50, the new 40 and so on. But often, we need a little help. Sometimes, a lot of help.

Healthy people should have the right to boost their brains with pills, like those prescribed for hyperactive kids or memory-impaired older folks, several scientists contend.

Nigerian food and drug regulators on Tuesday updated the death toll to 34 in an outbreak of fatalities among infants given a locally-made teething formula tainted with a toxic agent.

More than 50 mentally disabled patients in the large state-run institutions of Texas died in the past year from preventable conditions often related to poor care, an investigation shows.

An intriguing Israeli study found adding photos of patients' faces to the file made radiologists more meticulous when looking at the X-rays

Babies born by Caesarean section are more likely to develop asthma than children delivered naturally, Swiss researchers said on Tuesday.

Older people who are depressed are much more likely to develop a dangerous type of internal body fat that can lead to diabetes and heart disease,� a disturbing new study found.

I started CancerVine in the aftermath of my grandmother's death from what started as breast cancer and ended as full body bone cancer. You can read about her and the importance of early detection here. In writing this I hope to make the Newsvine community aware of the group and its intentions.

CancerVine has a few goals as a group which are mostly outlined in the group's opening statement:

This group is for the aggregation of all news on cancer that is on Newsvine, articles discussing how cancer has impacted your life and organization of unofficial Newsvine cancer fundraisers. If cancer has touched your life, join up and let's share with each other. Together we can heal and, if not that, at least feel marginally better about cancer's role in our life.

It is a group that is meant to help Viners affected by cancer, whether they have it or a family member, cope with its presence and consequences, both the expected and unexpected ones. Cancer taking my grandmother has made it a lifelong enemy of mine at 26 and CancerVine is my avenue to getting down in the trenches and fighting back against cancer. Aside from that, it will become what the group's members make it. As the group goes on and we all get to know one another I will hold elections for administrator posts.

All are welcome and if you are reading this I hope you will join but the group is most for those that have been adversely affected by this horrible disease. Those that have it themselves, those whose relatives or friends have it or those who have lost someone to this vicious plague.

Our mission is set in a general direction but we do not have specific plans, yet. So if you are still interested enough to be reading at this point then please click here and join now.

Government health advisers Monday recommended approval of the first new drug in 40 years for gout, a painful joint disease that mainly strikes middle-aged men.

Just in time for the holidays, some medical advice most people will like: Take a nap.

A top Russian anti-AIDS coordinator on Friday lambasted the government's approach to fighting HIV, saying the number of registered cases was growing 10 percent a year.

An independent panel of science advisers is taking issue with the FDA's assessment that a controversial chemical is safe.

In a study conducted in Florida, researchers found that drugstores in the poorest areas charge more, on average, for four widely used prescription medications.

A new antibiotic works well to reduce the misery of traveler's diarrhea, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

Fungus expert Joan Bennett did not believe in so-called toxic mold -- the cause of "sick building syndrome" and many lawsuits -- until her New Orleans home was flooded.

Chile's Health Minister is resigning amid an uproar over the government's failure to notify people who had tested positive for AIDS.

Nearly 15 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seeking medical care from the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department have suffered sexual trauma, researchers report.

Your 9-year-old's eyes hurt during homework? Your teen's a slow reader plagued with headaches? They may have a common yet often missed vision problem: Eyes that don't turn together properly to read.

Americans with diabetes nearly doubled their spending on drugs for the disease in just six years, with the bill last year climbing to an eye-popping $12.5 billion.

Hospital officials nationwide are being urged to consider hallway medicine as a way to ease emergency department crowding, and some are trying it.

A purple tomato genetically engineered to contain nutrients more commonly seen in dark berries helped prevent cancer in mice, British researchers said on Sunday.

Not only has a 56-year-old Ohio woman given birth to triplets, but they're her own granddaughters.

The government is warning parents about Carter's Inc. baby garments with tag-less labels after about 400 babies who wore the clothing developed rashes on their backs.

A doctor with a malignant tumor sets out to find his cure. And comes back with dinner.

A mutated gene previously linked to breast cancer has been found in 70 percent of prostate tumors as well, U.S. researchers reported on Friday.

Nearly a third of women in the federal Women, Infants and Children program report sharing a bed with their baby, a risk factor for sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS.

The� common cold virus activates dozens of immune system genes in the nose, including some natural antivirals that might be used as the basis of new drugs, researchers say.

Investigators think they've identified almost everyone who may have contracted hepatitis C virus at two Las Vegas outpatient medical clinics, a top public health official said Thursday.

Cast your vote: Should doctors be honest about prescribing placebo treatments for their patients?

About half of American doctors in a new survey say they regularly give patients placebo treatments - usually drugs or vitamins that won't really help their condition.

Students at a suburban St. Louis high school are headed to the gym for HIV testing after an infected person told health officials as many as 50 teenagers might have been exposed

Health care remains a huge issue for voters. It seems like everyone's got a story to tell about their medical challenges and how they do - or don't - get insurance coverage.

Time to update that old saying "cold hands, warm heart." New research shows touching something warm can make you feel and act more warmly toward others.

Want to lose weight? Try eating. That's one of the strategies being developed by scientists experimenting with foods that trick the body into feeling full.

Officials plan to start HIV testing at a suburban St. Louis high school where as many as 50 students may have been exposed to the virus that causes AIDS.

British plans to allow scientists to use hybrid animal-human embryos for stem cell research won final approval from lawmakers in a sweeping overhaul of science laws.

The ailing economy is leading many to skip doctor visits, skimp on their medicine, and put off tests. Physicians worry the result will be patients who need costly care later.

A usually harmless childhood virus may hide in the lungs and come back to cause wheezing and other symptoms of asthma, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

Food allergies in American children seem to be on the rise, now affecting about 3 million kids, according to the first federal study of the problem.

Ten hours a day, every day, Elizabeth Feudale-Bowes confines herself to a galvanized-steel-and-porcelain shed outside her house. Inside are a toilet, a metal cabinet, a box spring with the metal coils exposed, and a pile of organic cotton blankets. Aluminum foil covers the window.

Rejection can make a person more intuitive. New research suggests individuals who have faced the cold shoulder can more easily spot phony people.

News of tainted milk shocked the Zhang family and began an ordeal that would see them shuttling back and forth between their home and a hospital in Beijing, 450 miles away.

For middle-aged and older adults, searching the Internet could be a boost to the brain, a new study suggests.

If all hospitals performed as well as 5-star facilities, as ranked by an independent healthcare ratings company, 237,420 U.S. Medicare patient deaths could have been prevented between 2005 and 2007.

A global AIDS vaccine conference this week will seek fresh strategies� with experts weighing the value of basic research against human clinical trials after a string of disappointments.

Has science overemphasized the danger of a few extra pounds? What the latest firestorm among researchers means for you.

Scientists have mapped the genomes of the parasite that causes most cases of malaria outside Africa and a monkey parasite that causes malaria in people in Southeast Asia.

A biotech company today will begin offering the first genetic test to assess a woman's risk for the most common forms of breast cancer, reigniting debate about the growing number of unregulated genetic tests.

There is not enough evidence to say circumcision protects men from getting the AIDS virus during sex with other men, U.S. researchers said Tuesday.

Some of the nation's government scientists went to the computer chat room Tuesday to make talking about the ramifications of drugs a little easier for students to do.

My grandmother was born to a century that was not ready for her skills, an era not prepared to acknowledge her talents as being those belonging to and being exercised by a woman. It is a shame because she would have done exemplary things, but a blessing in disguise by relegating all of her talents solely to raising a daughter and a son and grandparenting (and so many times simultaneously parenting) two grandsons and a granddaughter.

My grandmother, Eva Miller, was orphaned at the age of 9. Given away at the grave, her uncle Hezekiah (called by the informal names of Uncle Hezzie and Kai) took her in and raised her in Richmond, Kentucky which is the home of the Eastern Kentucky University Colonels. Hezzie was a pastor, fulfilling a promise he made to God when fighting in Europe with the American contingent of the Allies. Hezzie had been attacked in the trenches by mustard gas and doctors did not think he was going to survive the initial recovery stage, much less the trip back home. To their surprise, Hezzie made a full recovery. It was a recovery that Hezzie credited to God with whom he had made a deal: if God would allow him to get back to American soil and regain his ability to speak, he would dedicate his life to speaking God's Word. God upheld his end and Hezzie proceeded to return the favor. When Hezzie returned to Kentucky he went to Berea College and was ordained a minister. Hezzie was a good man with whom my grandma credits much of her moral upbringing and sense of right and wrong. In that, Uncle Hezzie has influenced my moral compass by helping my grandma set her's. While Hezzie was a good man, he married a woman that had mental issues that played a role in the physical and mental abuse of my grandmother. As sad as it is that my grandmother had to suffer it, she reminded me all of my life that "Kill 'em with kindness" is a maxim that ought to be lived when possible because it leaves one's soul clean and of clear conscience.

My grandmother worked at the Bluegrass Ordnance Depot, fulfilling yet again Kentuckians' role in the national defense industry as well fleshing one part of my family's history in it. In those post-war years the economy in Kentucky was being eclipsed by that of its neighbor to the north, Cincinnati. Industry was growing by leaps and bounds in this area which is what drew so many people like my grandmother. Kentucky lost many of its best and brightest workers as they drove and got rides up U.S. Route 25, which loops Richmond and deposited many a Kentuckian on the far bank of the Ohio River. Many Kentuckians from that group then proceeded further north to the city that I was born, raised and live in: Hamilton, Ohio.

Hamilton was a big paper and machine tool producer in the early 1950's Grandpa and grandma both worked at Champion Paper Mill and after a quick courtship they married on Valentine's Day, February 14th, 1953. Their first child followed, coming into the world as a boy named Michael Ray Miller. Mike was named after my grandpa's father, a man of German stock named Ray Miller. A daughter, my mother, came a couple of years later on July 24th, 1956 and was given the name Phyllis Ann because my grandparents liked it and thought it had a good ring to it.

The care and raising of children and keeping of a spotless house came to be my grandma's business rather than participating in the production of paper any longer. When Mel Sirk, of the Sirk Reality dynasty offered her a job selling real estate for his firm after meeting her at a fundraiser where she had convinced him to buy a gaggle of the item that was raising funds for the school that night the decision went home with them. The answer came back to Mr. Sirk as a "No thank you, sir," because societal mores had not advanced quickly enough in suburban 1960's Ohio for a woman to hold a higher status job than her husband and my grandfather was an electrician (and a damn good one that never missed a day of work) while my grandmother would have been a real estate saleswoman. I firmly believe that my grandma would have established her own real estate firm and created a small dynasty but fate intervened in other ways.

In 1972 my grandfather ran for Hanover Township Trustee and was elected on the strength of his and my grandmother's stellar booster support and volunteer work for Ross High School, her extensive social ties and the family of four's determination to hit every door in the township. His subsequent re-election campaigns still relied on her extensive social ties, the determination of the now-larger family to hit doors as well as the placement of signs urging the re-election of Gerald Miller to Hanover Trustee. Some of my fondest memories are of going door-to-door with my grandma when I was old enough (1984, 88, 92, 96 and 2000) and talking with Hanover Township voters, listening to their concerns as well as helping her craft answers to newspaper questionnaires about grandpa's stances on the issues.

In December of 1982 my grandmother slipped on some ice at the Ross High School parking lot and fell, herniating 5 of her discs. As she went into disability my mother was preparing to return to work from maternity leave as a the secretary of a top executive at Champion's International headquarters in Hamilton, Ohio. My mother would pack me up and take me to my grandparents' house and as mom headed off to Champion's headquarters, my grandpa would head to the mill as one of the chief electricians and it would just be grandma and me. She would let me "make tea" (which consisted of repeatedly pouring water from a teapot into teacups, then back into the pot, then repeating endlessly) and "cook" (bang pots and pans around mercilessly) as well as watch Sesame Street with me and read to me. This went on for the first two years of my life, by which point she was like a surrogate mother to me.

Over the next seven years to 1991 she variously read or sang me to sleep, sometimes rocked me to sleep happening less and less as the years went on as my mother did. Then in 1991 my grandma and grandpa split up. I won't go into specifics but it was just time for them to go their separate ways. My grandma got an apartment and I would spend the night over there frequently watching television with her.

As I got into 7th grade, my mom had to return to work. Prior to that she had been picking me up from school but now my grandma would be. Starting from 7th grade onward my grandma subsidized my growing curiosity in history, military science, the history of warfare and politics (its history, nature and great figures) by taking me to the library and then materially depriving herself in the process, taking me on monthly trips to Borders Books & Music so that I could select the books I would read that month and build my own personal library. If anyone wonders why my grandmother lived like a pauper it was so that I could live as an intellectual king.

While grandpa was an important part of my political education, it was my grandma that yielded the far greater portion of my political education by subsidizing my reading and by talking politics with me frequently, which became our little thing that we shared. She was always educated, always well-read and always up on the subject. Never did a night go by that she did not read her newspaper, have a cable news channel on in the background and do crosswords. She was the first person to teach me about lifetime learning and how it is integral to success. Pursuit of knowledge out of a love of it was a reward in itself. She taught me this by example.

After she became independent in 1991, she fell prey to a practice that many women who become divorced or widowed at that age do: they do not keep up on their medical tests. Let my grandmother be a warning to you: your grandmothers, mothers, sisters, cousins, daughters, nieces and granddaughters should be tested as suggested by the American Medical Association. My grandmother succumbed to full-body bone cancer because for ten years she did not have her mammogram and for the last five of those ten years a cancerous tumor was growing in her right breast, infiltrating the rest of her body and metastasizing the cancer throughout her body to a point that it could not be stopped. Don't let that be the person you love: stay on them to get tested regularly and get tested yourself. There is only pain and heartache when a lifelong mentor & teacher, someone you love dearly and someone you wish had more time is taken away by a disease that could have been detected and eliminated 5 years before symptoms started showing. If it is you that hasn't had your testing done, it's very simple: spare them the pain of goodbyes by getting tested and, if those tests show anything, get treated. Don't let someone you love fall victim to something that could have been discovered and eliminated years before through routine testing.

My humble suggestion is that the women of your family take a single day, schedule all their appointments back-to-back and then make a day of it and go out to eat afterwards like they do shopping trips.

U.S. health officials will study 100,000 children from birth to age 21 in a $3.2 billion project aimed at examining autism, birth defects, obesity and other serious conditions.

China's Cabinet vowed a complete overhaul of the scandal-ridden dairy industry Monday, pledging to inspect every link from the farm to the dinner table to try to restore public trust.

One in 75 patients who gets a knee or hip replaced must get it replaced again within three years, new research finds.

It wasn't the gruesome costumes or gory masks turning up at Lisa Bruno's front door that spooked her on Halloween. It was the pudge lurking beneath the costumes.

A perfectly healthy human mind can trick itself into seeing things that are not there, and new research has exposed exactly the sort of conditions under which that happens.

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

Burger King Corp. said Thursday it is now cooking with trans fat free cooking oils at all of its restaurants nationwide.

A new estimate of how many Americans have the AIDS virus puts the number at about 1.1 million, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

The government approved a new genetic test for the flu virus Tuesday that will allow labs across the country to identify flu strains within four hours instead of four days.

Heart patients should be regularly screened for signs of depression, the American Heart Association recommended Monday.

Chinese President Hu Jintao lectured a dairy executive on food safety on Tuesday in a show of government resolve in the tainted milk scandal, even as another Western food brand, Lipton, was affected.

Scientists may have found the glue that keeps fearful memories stuck in the brain, a discovery that could be useful in new treatments for Alzheimer's disease.

Scientists in Japan have identified a gene variant that may be linked to narcolepsy -- a condition marked by excessive daytime sleepiness, impaired vision and muscle weakness.

British chocolate maker Cadbury said Monday tests have "cast doubt" on the safety of its Chinese-made products and ordered a recall, the latest company affected by China's tainted milk scandal.

A patient treated for agonizing abdominal pain received this surprising news in the hospital's paperwork: "Based on your visit today, we know you are pregnant."

New research suggests sled dogs are superior to most other mammals, including humans, in at least three key areas.

A regulatory group told hospitals Wednesday to adopt strict measures to prevent errors involving blood thinners including heparin - mistakes that have been made nearly 60,000 times and led to dozens of deaths in recent years.

New Jersey health officials say two men have died after contracting Legionnaires' disease in a hospital.

While China grapples with its latest tainted food crisis, the political elite are served the choicest, safest delicacies. They get hormone-free beef from the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, organic tea from the foothills of Tibet and rice watered by melted mountain snow.

Stroke sufferers can still benefit from clot-busting medicine even if they receive it an hour or so beyond the current three-hour window after symptoms start, an important new study suggests.

In an industry first, Eli Lilly and Co. says it will begin disclosing how much money it paid to individual doctors for advice, speeches and other services.

Studies are aiming to reset immunity for patients with severe scleroderma - work that, if successful, could cast new light on numerous autoimmune diseases.

I've been treated twice for severe urinary tract infection that spread to my kidneys - one 10 years ago in the U.S. and more recently in the U.K. �My experiences were a world apart.

The Australian government has issued its first license allowing scientists to create cloned human embryos to try and obtain embryonic stem cells.

As puberty kicks in �for the first children born to infertile men helped with a revolutionary technique, scientists anticipate seeing boys who've inherited the problems of their fathers.

China said on Wednesday a third infant had died after drinking contaminated milk and the number sick had leapt to many thousands, while an official said the health threat was concealed for at least a month.

China's Health Ministry on Friday ordered a nationwide probe of milk powder linked to a rash of kidney stones in infants and one death and said those responsible "will face serious punishment."

A cheap, generic drug long used to treat herpes may also help control the AIDS virus, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

There is a blueprint for writing about cancer, one that calls for an uplifting account of, say, a woman whose breast tumor was detected early by one of the mammograms she faithfully had and who remains alive and cancer-free decades later, or the story of a man whose cancer was eradicated by one of the new rock-star therapies that precisely target a molecule that spurs the growth of malignant cells. It invokes Lance Armstrong, who was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996 and, after surgery and chemotherapy beat it back, went on to seven straight victories in the Tour de France. It describes how scientists wrestled childhood leukemia into near submission, turning it from a disease that killed 75 percent of the children it struck in the 1970s to one that 73 percent survive today.

But we are going to tell you instead about Robert Mayberry. In 2002 a routine physical found a lesion on his lung, which turned out to be cancer. Surgeons removed the malignancy, which had not spread, and told Mayberry he was cured. "That's how it works with lung cancer," says oncologist Edward Kim of the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who treated Mayberry. "We take it out and say, 'You're all set, enjoy the rest of your life,' because really, what else can we do until it comes back?" Two years later it did. The cancerous cells in Mayberry's lung had metastasized to his brain—either after the surgery, since such operations rarely excise every single microscopic cancer cell, or long before, since in some cancers rogue cells break away from the primary tumor as soon as it forms and make their insidious way to distant organs. It's impossible to know. Radiation therapy shrank but did not eliminate the brain tumors. "With that level of metastasis," says Kim, "it's not about cure. It's about just controlling the disease." When new tumors showed up in Mayberry's bones, Kim prescribed Tarceva, one of the new targeted therapies that block a molecule called epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) that acts like the antenna from hell: it grabs growth-promoting signals out of the goop surrounding a cancer cell and uses them to stimulate proliferation. Within six months—it was now the autumn of 2005—the tumors receded, and Mayberry, who had been unable to walk when the cancer infiltrated his brainstem and bones, was playing golf again. "I have no idea why Tarceva worked on him," says Kim. "We've given the same drug to patients in the same boat, and had no luck." But the luck ran out. The cancer came back, spreading to Mayberry's bones and liver. He lost his battle last summer.

In a new and disturbing twist on the obesity epidemic, some overweight teenagers have severe liver damage caused by too much body fat and have even needed liver transplants.

Want to be a better father, trim that gut, blow 'em away in your next presentation and make your wife moan with delight? Take a lesson from the tortoise.

Loading up on denture cream can be hazardous to your health, new research suggests.

Although researchers have discovered ways to make powerful stem cells without the use of human embryos, the controversial use of embryonic stem cells is still necessary, a panel of experts said.

Mouth sores, unexplained fevers or joint pain, or discomfort during sex can be symptoms of three cancers - oral, leukemia, and endometrial - that don't get the attention they deserve.