News & Updates

Bullying is widespread in American schools, with more than 16 percent of U.S. school children saying they had been bullied by other students during the current term, according to a survey funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Placing tubes into the eardrums of young children who have moderately persistent accumulation of fluid in the middle ear does not appear to have any effect on the children's speech, language, intellectual, psychological, or social development by age three, according to a study funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

A drug long used to treat a rare genetic disease also has the potential to treat a form of Batten disease, a fatal group of hereditary disorders that gradually robs its victims of their eyesight and mental abilities before claiming their lives.

Researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) are recruiting women who have premature ovarian failure--formerly known as premature menopause--to determine if restoring testosterone will help prevent osteoporosis.

Mice engineered to lack a gene involved in iron metabolism may provide important clues for deciphering the nature of a group of brain disorders-similar to Parkinson's Disease-affecting movement, according to a study by researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

The National Reading Panel (NRP) today announced the launch of its redesigned Web site at http:// www.nationalreadingpanel.org .

Researchers funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health have completed the first successful effort to introduce a new gene into the unfertilized eggs of rhesus monkeys, a member of the family of mammals that includes human beings.

A treatment commonly prescribed to reduce the risk of chronic lung disease in extremely premature infants does not reduce the risk of death or chronic lung disease in these infants and may increase the risk for perforation of the intestines, according to a study by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Neonatal Research Network.

Teens who pledged to remain a virgin until marriage began sexual activity much later than their peers who did not take such a pledge, according to an analysis of data from a study funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and several other Federal agencies.

The largest, most comprehensive study of its kind to date has found that women who have undergone tubal sterilization are at no greater risk for menstrual abnormalities than are women who have not had the procedure, settling a debate within the medical community.

Researchers will convene at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to discuss how to make the best uses of a new technology that allows researchers and physicians to make detailed, three-dimensional maps of the nerve pathways through which various parts of the brain communicate.

A 7-year-old patient with autism was found to have a chromosome with deleted segments of DNA.

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have identified a gene that may predispose people to developing autism.

People with 21-hydroxylase deficiency-a common yet little known disorder causing early puberty and masculinizing features in both males and females-also lack sufficient quantities of the stress hormone adrenaline, according to a study by researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Fertility researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have found that a gene in female mice is essential for their egg cells to later develop beyond the two-cell stage after fertilization.

People with the rare metabolic disorder phenylketonuria need to adhere to the special diet central to their treatment, concluded a Consensus Panel convened by the National Institutes of Health.

Commemorating SIDS Awareness Month, HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala and U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher today unveiled a resource kit for reducing the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in African American communities.

Two long-time National Institutes of Health grantees -- Dr. James J. Heckman, of the University of Chicago, and Dr. Daniel L. McFadden, of the University of California at Berkeley were awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, 2000.

A shorter course of AZT therapy than currently prescribed for HIV-infected pregnant women may allow women in developing countries to afford the treatment that can reduce their babies' chances of contracting AIDS, but at a much lower cost, according to a study in the October 5 New England Journal of Medicine.

NIH researchers have found pore-like holes in the membranes of red blood cells infected by the deadliest form of the malaria parasite.