It probably goes without saying that I've never taken birth control pills. But I've dated women who have, and they often talked about their potential side effects and the dangers of staying on them for too long. Their OB/GYNs recommended that they take periodic breaks from the pill to avoid causing irreparable damage to their reproductive systems, and to allow their bodies to regain some natural balance.

But is that wisdom outdated? Some sources suggest that breaks from birth control pills are unnecessary, and according to a 40-year-long study in England, women who take the pill are less likely to die from any cause, including heart disease and cancer.

The study began in 1968, when the pills being prescribed to subjects were different than those used today, giving the results a margin of error worth noting. The scientists behind the study say that older women who took the pill during the 70s and 80s can take comfort in the findings, while the effects of newer forms are difficult to gauge.

This may also be one of those misleading studies that fails to acknowledge that women who take the pill may, on average, be more health conscious in general, and therefore more likely to take care of themselves overall, reducing their chances of developing illness.

As with most medical studies, this one is bound to be challenged by other doctors and some women who take the pill. And regardless of whether they take the pill or not, women should educate themselves about their reproductive cycles. But it does give us something to think about.

[Image: Ceridwen from Wikimedia Commons]

If you saw The Cove, which won this year's Academy Award for best documentary, you're probably glad you're not at student at a Japanese grammar school. In certain parts of that country, dolphin meat is served to children, falsely identified as whale meat. Adults, too, are often served dolphin when they order whale, a staple especially in fishing communities in Coastal Japan.

Now, the filmmakers have set their sights on sushi restaurants in the U.S., namely one in California that was rumored to be serving whale meat, which is illegal here. With stiff fines up to $20,000 and as much as one year in prison, most Japanese restaurants stick with the standards: California rolls, spicy tuna, eel, etc.

But at The Hump in Los Angeles, patrons who ordered "omakase" -- or "chef's choice" -- were being served a helping of whale along with their sashimi, edamame, and fish roe.

The sting operation actually began last October, but took time to execute. The State of California has promised swift action, but has not disclosed exactly what the punishment will be. "This isn't just about saving the whales," says the film's director, Louie Psihoyos. "It's about saving the planet."

[Image: NYTimes.com]

Radio shock jock Howard Stern once again put his foot in it this week. Full disclosure: I have been a fan of the locker room conversational tone of the show and its often brutal honesty for over 20 years. (Though it is not inconceivable that my enduring loyalty of the show has more to do with the fact that I got into the habit of listening daily as a hormonal teenager.) This recent frisson is yet another instance where Howard Stern and I don't agree on an issue. The morning after Academy Award nominee Gabourey Sidibe lost her bid for Best Actress, the Stern show laid it on savagely. From CNN:

During Howard Stern's Sirius satellite show on Monday morning, co-host Robin Quivers commented that Sidibe should have looked around at the Oscars and noticed that none of the other working actresses looked like her.

"What movie could she play in?" Stern questioned on his live broadcast. "You feel bad because everyone pretends that she's part of show business, and she's never going to be in another movie."

Worse, in a beyond-the-pale provocative manner, Stern called the Oscar nominated actress a "fat black chick." Disgusting. Unpardonable, even. And misinformed, since Sidibe has two movie roles and a television role in the works. Still, the question arises: Can talent outweigh size in Hollywood? Could someone as talented and pure of heart but unconventionally attractive as Sibide is build a career in a town so comically shallow?

The effects of Howard Stern's comments have, you can imagine, alighted the blogosphere something ferocious. Hollywood-Elsewhere, for example, calls the comments "needlessly cruel" (they were), adding, "Stern isn't wrong in saying that her prospects are limited." The question as to whether or not an actress of Gabourey Sidibe's size could find work in Hollywood briefly came up when Vanity Fair very publicly -- and controversially -- passed her over for their cover of "Young Hollywood." Stern, for his part, has sort of backtracked -- saying that he made those comments out of concern for Sidibe's weight. What do you think?

Despite the fact that The Lancet, that most respectable of medical journals, recently retracted Andrew Wakefield's 1998 study that first linked the MMR vaccine to autism, high-profile celebrities and a growing movement of parents have taken to the media to argue that there is a causal link. Jenny McCarthy talked to The Huffington Post, saying, in part:

With so many kids with autism, the environment has to be to blame, and vaccines are an obvious culprit. Almost all kids get vaccines -- injected toxins -- very early in life, and our own government clearly acknowledges vaccines cause brain damage in certain vulnerable kids.

Take those simple facts, along with tens of thousands of parental reports of regression after vaccination, not to mention a growing list of court cases where our government paid claims to children with autism acknowledging vaccines as the trigger, and the case we Moms are making makes sense.

McCarthy is not alone. Doug Flutie and Toni Braxton agree. Curiously, according to Arthur Allen, the author of "Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver,'' urbane locales that you wouldn't expect like Berkeley, California and Boulder, Colorado have the country's lowest vaccination rates. "It's sort of where the intellectual hippies meet the black helicopter crowd,'' said Allen. So the fears of vaccination go deeper than a lack of trust in science.

A startling 25% of parents think -- despite medical evidence to the contrary -- that some vaccines cause autism in healthy children. Celebrities may not have medical training but they are highly visible and media-savvy. If a quarter of parents believe this, it might be time to find some common ground between the parents -- who are naturally highly anxious about their newborns -- and the science, which, quite frankly, just did a flip-flop.

The CARDIA study released on Monday suggests that "policies aimed at altering the price of soda or away-from-home pizza may be effective mechanisms to steer US adults toward a more healthful diet and help reduce long-term weight gain or insulin levels over time." And in this moment of exigency where state budgets are billions of dollars in shortfall, why not consider taxing soda to promote wellness?

The advocacy of former President Bill Clinton -- who has wrestled with his relationship with food all his life -- and a growing movement to tax sugary drinks is resulting in ground gained in the battle to reduce childhood obesity. "I have to admit I'm stunned by the results," Bill Clinton said. "There has been an 88 percent reduction in the total beveraged calories shipped to schools." This, after the Clinton Initiative is half way into its ten-year plan to get beverage companies to reduce the sugar in the drinks they serve in school cafeterias.

Sugary drink taxes are probably now an idea whose time has come. Colorado and Illinois are already taxing the drinks. My colleague David Alm recently wrote about Governor David Patterson's attempt to impose a penny per ounce tax on sweetened beverages passed through the New York state legislature. Three quarters of New Yorkers recently polled are for such a tax. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has been at the forefront of such a plan, has estimated that such a tax could potentially raise a billion dollars.

The First Lady has also gotten in on the action. Aside from her important work with military families, Michelle Obama -- she of the White House victory garden and the magnificently toned arms -- recently took to the Huckabee Show on Fox to speak on the prevention of childhood obesity. Former Governor Huckabee, though on the other side of the political spectrum from the Obamas, suffers from type-II diabetes and, like fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton, has wrestled with his weight all his life. Promoting healthy habits for our kids (and ourselves) is an issue we can all agree upon, even in these hyper-partisan times.