Tag: Region North America

The Takeaway

CDC May Recommend Routine Circumcision

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

In an attempt to slow the spread of HIV, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might begin recommending circumcisions for all infant boys. The announcement comes out of this week's National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta. The CDC likely won't release a formal draft of the proposal for another four to six months, but speculation on it already has emotions flaring.

For more on the debate, we are joined by Dana Goldstein, public health reporter and associate editor for The American Prospect magazine; and Dr. Roy Gulick, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

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The Takeaway

The D Word: Can Divorce Damage Your Health?

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

A new study hints that losing a significant other has effects that last well after the Kleenex box has been emptied and thrown away. Linda Waite co-authored a new study on health and marriage and she joins The Takeaway with the details.

"The people who are in the worst health are the people who got divorced and stayed divorced. What we're saying here is that getting divorced increases the risks of some major health problems many years later, compared to people who never got divorced."
—Linda Waite on the health concerns associated with divorce

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The Takeaway

Hackers vs. Your Social Security Number

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Your social security number is now a part of almost every form, including health insurance paperwork and the application for your library card. In fact, researchers reporting in this week's issue of the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences used public data (hello, Facebook) to predict the first five digits of a person's social security number. And they got it right, on the first try, 44 percent of the time. With more on the dangers of our less-than-private individual identification system, The Takeaway is joined by privacy expert Peter Swire.

You can read more about the PNAS study by heading to the web site of our partners, The New York Times, and checking out today's article, Social Security Numbering System Vulnerable to Fraud, Experts Say.

"We have a known system that's leading to a lot of identity theft and will lead to a lot more identity theft. We probably have to suck it up as a society and get to a new system."
—Ohio State University professor Peter Swire

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The Takeaway

Teenage Wasteland? How Teen Texting Affects Behavior

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Teenagers send thousands upon thousands of text messages each month (some as many as 24,000!). So researchers are beginning to wonder: what’s the effect of the furious finger work? Reporter Katie Hafner joins The Takeaway with answers.

For more, read Katie's piece on texting and teens in the Science Times section of today's New York Times, Texting may be taking a toll.

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