Nickelodeon launched its campaign against bullying, particularly digital bullying. The TV network is the most-watched channel among kids and they began Monday on-air public-service messages aimed to stop bullying. Some of its biggest stars offered pieces of advice on what kids should do when faced with bullies.

Ashley Argota and Gage Golightly both said that teens that are attacked online should not reply to hurtful messages and just turn off the computer. Golightly further said that kids should also make a copy of those antagonistic messages and show them to an adult. That is the best way to “stand up for yourself”, she said. Miranda Cosgrove, lead cast member of ICarly is also part of this campaign which is expected to last for at least two years.

The problem gained attention when teenagers committed suicide after being cyberbullied. Earlier this month, President Barack Obama held a conference in the White House addressing the concerns regarding bullying.

A survey conducted by MTV and The Associated Press in 2009 showed that 50% of people from age 14 to 24 are victims of cyberbullying. The aim of this campaign is to fight bullying the same way we are fighting against people who drive under the influence. Right now, there are no concrete laws against bullying, cyber or not.

Nickelodeon is in collaboration with Common Sense Media in their fight against teenage bullying. Discussion boards about bullying will also be prominently featured on Nick’s website. The discussion board will cater to parents who are interested

The radiation levels in the air outside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant continue to fall. The world nuclear agency said on its website that radiation levels continue to decrease. However, people are still concerned as radiation levels remain high in waters in two different locations.

A representative of the company operating the nuclear plant – Tokyo Electric Power Company – said that water samples from reactors 1 and 2 showed high levels of radiation. What is even more disturbing is that radiation levels from water samples of reactor 3 are twice as high. Some analysts say that the radiation levels in reactor number 3 suggest a possible leakage from the reactor’s core.

Work around reactor number 3 has been stopped after some men have accidentally stepped on contaminated water. Those men were exposed to around 175 millisieverts of radiation. Just to give you an idea of how high this is, people who work in highly industrialized areas generally receive 3 millisieverts of radiation every year. After having been admitted for four days in a hospital in Chiba, the men simply had injuries that can be akin to really bad sun damage.

Experts have over and over said that reactor number 3 is their main concern because among all reactors, it is the only one that has used uranium and plutonium fuel which is more dangerous than pure uranium fuel.

Nishiyama accepted that they had a difficult time controlling the pressure and temperature within the reactors. However, they have declared reactor number 1 to be stable Friday.

Actress Elizabeth Taylor has died of congestive heart failure at the age of 79 in the hospital where she was admitted, her publicist informed in a statement on Wednesday.

The Hollywood icon died on the evening of March 23 because of the heart condition she has suffered since November 2004. Last month, she was admitted at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center located in Los Angeles, California for close monitoring.

Liz Taylor died peacefully and was surrounded by her children namely, Christopher Wilding, Michael Wilding, Maria Burton and Liza Todd, at the hospital, her publicist said.

Apart from her children, the British-born American actress is survived by her ten grandchildren, as well as four great-grandchildren.

Elizabeth Taylor has been considered as one of the most legendary actresses of Hollywood’s golden age and a fearless activist.

She turned 79 on February 27, but she celebrated her birthday a month earlier with her family and friends as she was brought to the hospital ten days later to undergo a surgery for her leaky heart valve.

Dame Elizabeth had battled with her health condition for several years. She was often seen in a wheelchair at various events. She had at least five back injuries and three attacks of pneumonia.

She was also considered as a gay icon and has devoted much of her time to AIDS activism. She received a humanitarian award at the 2007 Macy’s Passport HIV/AIDS gala.

Instead of giving flowers, her family requested that people offer donations to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.

A transplant patient was infected with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or AIDS after he had received a new kidney from a living donor. This is the first case documented in the United States ever since HIV screenings were employed in the mid-1980s.

It was identified that the donor had an unprotected sex within the 11 weeks span from when he tested negative to the time the surgery was performed in 2009.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that organ donors should repeat screening tests for HIV one week prior to surgery, based on the report on the New York case on Thursday.

Dr. Colin Shepard of the New York City Health Department said that the HIV test must be performed as close as possible to the scheduled date of transplant.

The CDC also reminded future organ donors to refrain any behavior that could raise their risks of infection.

Health officials only released a few details about the recipient and the donor because of laws pertaining to patient confidentiality. The relationship of the recipient and the donor, as well as the hospital where the surgery was performed was also kept confidential. The only detail they released is that the case happened in New York City.

According to the report from CDC, the donor and the recipient did not know they had HIV until almost a year after the surgery. But, the recipient’s HIV developed into AIDS most likely because the patient was taking drugs that are used to suppress the immune system in order to avoid organ rejection, the health officials said.

Today, both the donor and recipient are receiving treatments for HIV. However, their conditions were not revealed in the report.

Life expectancy has reached a new record of more than 78 years in the United States, a preliminary report given by the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention showed on Wednesday.

The report said the life expectancy of a baby that was born in the United States in 2009 has increased to 78 years and 2 months from 78 years in 2008. Also, the life expectancy of women increased one-tenth of a year to 80.6 years while the life expectancy of men rose two-tenths of a year to 75.7 years.

In 2009, an estimated number of 2.4 million deaths were recorded in the United States. However, the number was 36,000 lesser than the recorded deaths a year ago.

According to the report, deaths decreased for various kinds of causes such as heart diseases and homicide cases. Thus, experts believe there is no one plain reason for the rise in life expectancy. But, enhanced medical treatment, increased campaigns for vaccinations and better public measures to prevent smoking are thought to have a significant impact on the increase.

Since the 1940s, life expectancy in the country has been increasing, although there were some years that it held even and there were few times when it momentarily dipped.

In 2008, the CDC believed that life expectancy dropped to 77 years and 11 months. But, the agency corrected the estimate to 78 years in the report released on Wednesday. CDC said it was due to an error in computer programming.

The 2009 preliminary report by the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics is based on almost all of the death certificates issued that year. The agency is expected to submit a final report later this year.

Menthol cigarette use is particularly high among teenagers, as well as in young minorities, the government advisers informed as part of a draft report that was released on Monday.

The Food and Drug Administration advisers said further than 80 percent of adolescent smokers from the black race and further than half of adolescent smokers from the Hispanic race smoke menthol cigarettes.

The information was part of a draft chapter to be included in a report next week. The FDA will utilize the report to help determine whether or not the agency will ban or restrict the use of mint-flavored or menthol cigarettes.

Any restrictions to the use of menthol cigarettes will certainly affect the product outflow of Lorillard Inc, the top menthol maker that sells the cigarette brand Newport. Other companies that sell menthol cigarettes include R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co of Reynolds American Inc, and Philip Morris of Altria Group Inc.

Based on the given data from Euromonitor International, menthol cigarettes account for almost one-third of the $83 billion annual cigarette sales in United States.

The draft also depicts that the increased usage of menthols among teenagers in general was brought by the remarkable increase in the quantity of white youths, aged 12 to 17, who are using menthol cigarettes.

The advisers will discuss their findings during a public meeting that will be held this Thursday and Friday. The complete report will be submitted to FDA on March 23.

Lorillard Inc has already filed a complaint that will prevent FDA from using the report given by the panel to make any official decision regarding the cigarettes.

The cost of preventing preterm labor is expected to increase in huge numbers anytime soon. The drug injected to women with high-risk pregnancies costs between $10 and $20 per dose. In just a few days, the price per dose will go up to as much as $1,500.

This drug is a kind of progesterone given weekly to prevent preterm labor and all its corresponding complications for both the mother and the child. For years, this drug was sold cheaply because they are mixed in pharmacies that are not approved by the Bureau of Food and Drugs. Just recently, however, KV Pharmaceutical was approved by the government to exclusively manufacture and sell the drug.

Most obstetricians backed the decision as this can ensure quality control and easy-accessibility. None of the doctors, however, foresaw the dramatic increase in size considering that research and development were not shouldered solely by KV Pharmaceutical.

Most doctors fear that the drug’s price increase will rob many women of the opportunity to prevent premature births; especially those who are not covered by medical insurances and low-income mothers. Moreover, Massachusetts’ Medicaid deputy medical director Dr. Roger Snow said that this increase can cause a massive financial blow on health insurance companies and may push them to increase health insurance package costs.

KV Pharmaceutical stands firm in their decision as they believe that the cost of the drug is nothing compared to the cost of care for children born prematurely. On Tuesday, Ther-Rx Corporation (a KV subsidiary) announced that they will launch a patient assistance program that will offer the drug at a smaller cost for low-income women.

Experts say health threats from the power reactors hit by the 8.9 magnitude quake in Japan appear relatively low. Also, winds will likely bring any contaminations to the Pacific Ocean without harming other countries.

Japan struggled to prevent a meltdown at the three affected reactors located at the Fukushima plant. It was the worst accident in nuclear power plants, triggered by the 10-foot high tsunami, since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

Also, high levels of radiation were recorded at the Onagawa nuclear power plant.

However, U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation Secretary’s Malcolm Crick said the explosion at the nuclear power reactors is not a grave issue in public health at the present.

Crick said the accident won’t lead something similar to Chernobyl.

During the Chernobyl disaster, it exploded when the reactor was working at full power. Still, about 140,000 people living around the area in Fukushima have been asked to evacuate as a precautionary measure.

Crick said the partial meltdown of United States’ Three Mile Island plant in 1979 was rated more serious on an international extent than the accident in Japan.

The public health risk from the atomic plants in Japan remained “fairly low”, according to the World Health Organization. But, the quake and catastrophic tsunami might have killed about 10,000 people.

Japan Meteorological Agency informed that the winds in the region would move from the south to the west on Sunday night. Thus, it will blow from Fukushima toward the great Pacific Ocean.

The strongest earthquake ever recorded in Japan on Friday blew down the back-up cooling systems at Fukushima. This caused a build-up of pressure and heat, which then led to an explosion on the plant on Saturday.

Cancer survivors in United States are growing by number each year, health officials informed on Thursday. At the moment, about one out of 20 adults is afflicted with the disease.

Officials explained why more individuals are surviving cancer, and that is partly because of earlier detection and enhanced treatment.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that about 11.7 million residents in United States have history of cancer in 2007. Forty years ago, there were only around 3 million individuals who survived cancer. However, that has grown to 10 million survivors in 2001 and to 11.4 million survivors in 2006.

Health officials said eating healthy foods, decreased smoking and other steps to prevent the disease may have also played a part in the increase.

Also, demographics are a factor that could affect the increase of survivors. Cancer is an illness that is usually common in older people from 65 years old. According to the CDC, 7 million or about 60 percent of the total survivors were aged 65 years and older.

Most of the cancer survivors came from women who were diagnosed with breast cancer. They made up about 22 percent of the survivors. Meanwhile, 19 percent were made up by men who survived prostate cancer.

The estimated number of people who survived cancer came from the National Cancer Institute, as well as CDC. They based their information from nine cancer patient registries located in United States.

Anyone who was diagnosed with cancer, successfully treated, or still getting treated are included in the survivor count. Those people who might be dying from the disease are also included.

Based on the acquired information, there were about 65 percent who had survived cancer for at least five years while about 40 percent had survived it for 10 years or more.

A recent study suggests that increased levels of “good” cholesterol in the body may significantly reduce an individual’s risk to get colon cancer.

People identified with low levels of “good” cholesterol, technically known as high-density lipoprotein or HDL cholesterol, are advised to adapt a healthy lifestyle to lessen their bowel cancer risk.

Dr. Bas Bueno-de-Mesquita, a researcher from National Institute for Public Health and Environment in Netherlands, said this recommendation should be done once the above finding is confirmed by other studies.

Decreasing the in-take of “bad” or low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and increasing the “good” cholesterol is a widely known method that can greatly reduce a person’s risk for heart disease. However, this recent study offers individuals another reason to give particular attention on their blood cholesterol levels.

The new study is published in an online journal, Gut, on March 7. Researchers involved in the study compared 1,238 healthy individuals to 1, 238 individuals diagnosed with colorectal cancer.

The researchers analyzed the participants’ blood samples and dietary lifestyle through questionnaires provided.

They found out that individuals with highest levels of “good” cholesterol, as well as a certain body fat called apolipoprotein A had the smallest risk to develop colon cancer. However, it has seen no particular impact on rectal cancer.

The team of Bueno-de-Mesquita found that for every 16.6 mg/dL increase in HDL the risk to develop colon cancer was reduced by 22 percent. Meanwhile, for every 32 mg/dL increase in apolipoprotein A, the risk is reduced by 18 percent.

However, researchers said the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study had a limitation, which is a short follow-up period of only 3.8 years.