Unusual and severe impulse control disorders, including pathological gambling, hypersexuality and compulsive shopping, have been reported in patients taking dopamine receptor agonist drugs. Dopamine receptor agonist drugs, which activate the dopamine receptors, are commonly prescribed and there were 2.1 million dispensed outpatient prescriptions in the fourth quarter of 2012.

To find answers, the authors analyzed adverse drug event reports for six dopamine receptor agonist drugs marketed in the U.S. Their analysis was based on 2.7 million domestic and foreign adverse drug event reports from 2003 to 2012 pulled from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Adverse Event Reporting System database.

Vaccines have been associated with autism and various other conditions and diseases. Most recently, the hepatitis B (HepB) and human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has been linked to increased risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) and other acquired central nervous system demyelinating syndromes (CNS ADS).

A study to seek answers found no long-term association of vaccines with disease and short-term increased risk in younger patients was likely resulted from existing disease, write authors Annette Langer-Gould, M.D., Ph.D., of Kaiser Permanente, Southern California, Pasadena, and colleagues. 

New geochemical tracers can identify any hydraulic fracturing flowback fluids that could have spilled into the environment, according to field tests at a spill site in West Virginia and downstream from an oil and gas brine wastewater treatment plant in Pennsylvania. 

State and local vaccination requirements for school entry seek to protect schoolchildren from vaccine-preventable diseases.  But not all parents agree medicine is a good thing and the newest CDC results show what states are leading and what states are lagging in protection for kids.

Some people infected with pathogens spread their germs to others while remaining symptom-free - a new study may answer why.

When researchers in a new study gave oral antibiotics to mice infected with Salmonella typhimurium, a bacterial cause of food poisoning, a small minority — so called "superspreaders" that had been shedding high numbers of salmonella in their feces for weeks — remained healthy; they were unaffected by either the disease or the antibiotic. The rest of the mice got sicker instead of better and, oddly, started shedding like superspreaders.

The findings point to a reason for superspreaders' ability to remain asymptomatic and also pose questions about use of sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics in livestock.

At 2 AM local time in Hawaii, Tropical Storm Ana was just below hurricane strength with maximum sustained winds near 70 mph.

NOAA's Central Pacific Hurricane Center expects it to weaken before it intensifies again. The center of tropical storm Ana was located near latitude 20.6 north and longitude 162.6 west. That puts the center of Ana about 225 miles (360 km) west-southwest of Lihue Hawaii and about 325 miles (525 km) southeast of French Frigate Shoals.

Ana is moving toward the west near 9 mph (15 kph) and is expected to gradually turn to the northwest.