A Pennsylvania university is causing quite a commotion after it announced that it will offer the Plan B emergency contraceptive pill at a vending machine in its health center.

Shippensburg University will offer the pill for $25 in a machine located in a private room in the health center. The pill is only legal for those over 17-years-old, but the school determined that all of is 8,300 are over that age.

University spokesman Peter Gigliotti says that anyone can't just walk in from the street and purchase the pills:

"The machine is in a private room in our health center, and the health center is only accessible by students. In addition, no one can walk in off the street and go into the health center. Students proceed to a check-in desk located in the lobby and after checking in are granted access to the treatment area."

Since the school doesn't have any students aged 17 or younger, they're safe for now. But should any younger students enroll in the future, they may legally be required to remove the vending machines. As many other larger universities and colleges across the country do have younger students, Shippensburg's vending machine policy couldn't be perfectly duplicated everywhere.

After nearly a decade of decline, measles outbreaks in parts of Europe and Africa led to 60,000 more cases worldwide in 2010 over the previous year.

A boost in global efforts to vaccinate people against measles lead to a decline in total cases from 853,000 in 2000 to 278,000 in 2008. In 2009, the figures remained stabled. 2010, however, saw an increase to 339,845 cases of measles, due largely to outbreaks in Europe and Africa.

The biggest increase in measles cases came specifically from Malawi, which had 118,712 cases. Burkino Faso came in second with 51,118, and Iraq pulled in third with 30,328. A couple European nations also came in the top 15, with Bulgaria reporting 22,004 cases and France with 5,048. Vietnam also notably reported 9,491 cases, while the Philippines had 6,368.

The measles outbreaks were mostly linked to low vaccination coverage of the population. In some cases this was due to limited or no access to health services, while in other areas it is due to religious or philosophical objections by parents who oppose vaccinating their children.

Pfizer Inc. has issued a recall of one million packets of birth control pills because of a packaging error that could raise the risk of an accidental pregnancy by leaving women with an inadequate dose.

14 lots of Lo/Ovral-28 tablets and 14 lots of generic Norgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol tablets are affected by the problem. Both products are manufactured by Pfizer, and are marketed in the U.S. by Akrimax Rx Products.

Pfizer discovered that some of the packets had too many active tablets, while others had too few.

The risk of pregnancy depends on how many doses a patient misses in a pill cycle.

On Tuesday, the first drug to treat the root cause of cystic fibrosis, Kalydeco, won approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Kalydeco now offers a life-changing treatment for a handful of patients in the U.S. who suffer from the deadly illness, and gives home for thousands of other patients with the disease.

30,000 Americans live with cystic fibrosis, which is a disease that causes sticky mucus to build-up in he lungs and other organs, which leads to infections, digestive problems and death in young adulthood. The typical life expectancy for those with cystic fibrosis is 37 years.

The FDA approved Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s Kalydeco for patients with a rare form of the disease that affects only about 1,200 people in the U.S., or just 4 percent of all cystic fibrosis sufferers. These particular patients have a protein defect that prevents their cells from properly absorbing and excreting salt and water. Studies of Kalydeco showed that it significantly improved lung function ad reduced other symptoms of the disease.

The pill, which is taken twice a day, is amongst the first drugs designed to correct a specific genetic defect.

According to a new study, a group of compounds that are used in a variety of products, from microwave popcorn to water-resistant clothing, may actually prevent childhood vaccinations from working properly.

The study found that children who had higher concentrations of the compounds called perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) in their blood had lower immune responses to diphtheria and tetanus vaccinations. An insufficient immune response to a vaccine can mean that the child is more vulnerable to catching a disease despite the fact that they've been vaccinated against it.

In fact, the levels of antibodies in the blood of some children exposed to PFCs showed that they were no longer protected against these diseases by age 7.

Dr. Philippe Grandien of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, who led the study, said:

"When we take our kids to the doctor's office to get their shots, we expect that the vaccines are going to work. What we found was that there was an increasing risk that they didn’t work if the kids had been exposed to the PFCs."

According to doctors in India, at least a dozen people are infected with a strain of tuberculosis that is resistant to all antibiotics that are used to treat the disease.

The journal Clinical Infectious Diseases published a report in December that documented four of the cases, but this past weekend news outlets in India reported that there were at least 12 people with the lung disease.

Study co-author Zarir Udwadia of the Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre in Mumbai told New Scientist:

"It's estimated that on average, a tuberculosis patient infects 10 to 20 contacts in a year, and there's no reason to suspect that this strain is any less transmissible. Short of quarantining them in hospitals with isolation facilities till they become non-infectious – which is not practical or possible – there is nothing else one can do to prevent transmission."

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have revised recommendations for the use of the Tdap vaccine to protect against pertussis, also known as "whooping cough", in older children and adults.

Pertussis, which is easily transmitted and causes severe, uncontrollable coughing, mostly affects adolescents and adults. However, it can be a serious threat to infants that are too young to be immunized. Children two months and older do receive a similar vaccine known as DTaP, pertussis is often spread by older family members, friends and relatives who have not been vaccinated.

The new recommendations call for a single dose of Tdap to be given to all health care workers regardless of age and to all adults, including those over age 65, that have contact with infants. It is also recommended that a single dose of Tdap be given to children aged 7 to 10 who were underimmunized or who have an incomplete vaccination history.

Adolescents and pregnant women are still advised to receive vaccinations as well.

The updated recommendations also state that there is no longer a minimum interval between receiving a tetanus or diphtheria toxoid-containing vaccine and Tdap.

research shows that contraceptives like the pill can alter the way your memory works. Researchers at the University of California at Irvine found that women using hormonal contraception are better at remembering the important details about an event, while those women who don't take contraceptives are better at recalling details.

In the study, female participants were shown photographs of a mother, her son, and a car accident, along with different audio versions of the story. One week later, subjects were given a pop quiz on the story.

Researchers found that women using hormonal contraceptives for as little as one month remembered more clearly the main steps in the traumatic even. Women who did not use hormonal contraceptives remembered more details, such as a fire hydrant next to the car.

Researchers believe that the reason for the alteration of memory is that contraceptives suppress estrogen and progesterone. These hormones have been linked in past studies to "left brain" memory.

According to a new study by French researchers, people who smoke marijuana regularly are less likely to be obese than non-pot smokers.

Dr. Yann Le Strat, a French psychiatrist and co-author of a new study in the American Journal of Epidemiology, said:

"We found that cannabis users are less likely to be obese than non-users. We were so surprised, we thought we had [made] a mistake.”

Researchers found that 22 to 25 percent of participants who did not smoke pot were obese, but just 14 to 17 percent of those who admit to smoking pot at least three times a week were overweight.

Le Strat said that other factors, such as the smokers' level of physical activity or diets, could have contributed to the results but his team tried to rule out those factors.

Le Strat added:

"The take-home message is certainly not 'smoke cannabis, it will help you lose weight. The possibility that cannabis is associated with a lower risk of obesity remains an interesting hypothesis, but certainly does not counterbalance its negative effects on health and mental health."

In the first comprehensive safety review of vaccines in 17 years, the Institute of Medicine says that while vaccines can cause certain side effects, serious ones appear to be very rare, and there is no link with autism and Type 1 diabetes.

The review came at the request of the government's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which pays damages to people injured by vaccines. Federal law requires this kind of independent review as officials work on updating the side effects on the list to make sure that they agree with the latest science.

Pediatrician and bioethicist Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton of Vanderbilt University chaired the institute panel, and said:

"Vaccines are important tools in preventing serious infectious disease across the lifespan, from infancy through adulthood. All health care interventions, however, carry the possibility of risk and vaccines are no exception."

The report stresses that vaccines are generally safe, and hope that the results of the study will help doctors address worries from a small, yet vocal anti-vaccine movement. Some vaccine preventable diseases, such as measles, are currently on the rise.