Physicians who prescribe hormones containing estriol have grown concerned about the FDA’s so-called “abbreviated” Investigational New Drug (IND) application for estriol. The process will effectively ban most physicians from prescribing a medication they consider best for their patients.

The IND places a significant financial burden on physicians, most notably by requiring them to submit applications to an Institutional Review Boards (IRB). Submitting necessary documentation and contracting for a private IRB can easily cost between $10,000 and $25,000 and can take months.

The FDA’s new policy threatens the access of this important medication for my patients who rely on hormones containing estriol to relieve the symptoms of menopause. It could force them off of treatment their doctors have deemed necessary, and would either deny them treatment or subject them to the unnecessary expense and inconvenience of a new treatment regime.

Millions of women have been prescribed estriol and have used it safely for decades.

Dr. Vyvyan Howard, President of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment, explains his concerns about water fluoridation. Dr. Howard is a medical toxico-pathologist who specializes in the impact of toxins on fetal and infant health. In this video, Dr. Howard discusses his concerns about fluoride’s impact on infant health.

After interviewing physicists, engineers and doctors, CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen assembled a list of simple steps you can take to lower your exposure to cell phone radiation:

Use the speakerphone

This was the favorite alternative of the experts she talked to. Every inch you can get away from your body, the radiation reduces very quickly. Six inches can make a big difference.

Get a phone that emits less radiation

To look up the radiation emission for your phone, check this list on CNET.com. But be careful — there may simply be no safe level for cell phone radiation.

Use a wired headset with a ferrite bead, or a Bluetooth earpiece properly

A ferrite bead is a clip you put on the wire of a headset. The bead is designed to absorb the radiation that the wire itself emits into your ear.

A Bluetooth earpiece still emits radiation, but it’s at least 100 times less than the radiation you get when you hold a cell phone to your head. But don’t wear it when you’re not talking, because it still sends out a signal.

Even better — use a “hollow tube” earpiece

It’s just like a regular wired earpiece, except the last six inches or so is a hollow tube. There’s no wire under the plastic.

California has become the first state to ban trans fats in restaurants. Under the new law, trans fats, long linked to health problems, must be excised from restaurant products beginning in 2010, and from all retail baked goods by 2011. Packaged foods will be exempt.

New York City adopted a similar ban in 2006, and several cities throughout the U.S. have done so as well.

But having the requirement imposed on the most populous state’s 88,000 restaurants is a major gain for the movement against trans fats. That movement has been led by scientists, doctors and consumer advocates who trace the largely synthetic fat to a variety of ailments, principally heart disease.

Here’s a new documentary from Burt Kearns and his business partner Brett Hudson: “I don’t want to make a film that says the American way is bad or doesn’t work. Doctors here do great things. They do save lives. “I want to show that when it comes to cancer, there are alternatives, and recovery begins when you take your destiny into your own hands.” So says Brett Hudson, director, writer, producer and narrator of The Klinik, a nonfiction film that shows how a groundbreaking combination o