Minnesota tops state health rankings for the fourth straight year, according to the annual United Health Foundation report -- which also shows Americans are 0.3 percent healthier in 2006 than they were in 2005.

The United Health Foundation survey has been around for 17 years -- and for 11 of these years, Minnesota has been at the top of the healthy list.

Rankings are based on factors such as access to health care, incidence of preventable disease, smoking rates, child poverty rates, and motor vehicle deaths. Minnesota boasts a low rate of uninsured (8.4 percent), a low rate of child poverty (10 percent), and a low infant mortality rate (5.1 deaths per 1,000 live births).

The other states in the top five are Vermont, New Hampshire, Hawaii, and Connecticut. Louisiana was rated the least-healthy state and shares this spotlight with Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas.

A few states -- New Mexico, Idaho and West Virginia -- show declines in overall health. And others -- Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Kansas -- show the most improvement.

Munchkin, a company offering infant and toddler products that excite, delight and make life easier for mothers and fathers, has launched the Project Pink campaign to support mothers in their fight against breast cancer.

"One out of every eight women faces the risk of breast cancer in her lifetime, and I know from personal experience that the disease can strike even young mothers with no family history of breast cancer, as it did my wife last year," said Doug Gillespie, Vice President of Marketing at Munchkin, Inc. "Munchkin is determined to do what we can to offer a helpful resource to the amazing moms who continue to nurture their families while they battle this disease."

On the special Project Pink area of the company website, you can read tips and stories from mothers facing breast cancer; order a limited edition pink duck; send a pink ducky eCard; enter the Project Pink sweepstakes to win a family vacation and view the celebrity decorated ducks for auction.

Beginning October 2nd, charity auction bidding begins on the fabulous pink ducks glamourously decorated by eBay President and CEO Meg Whitman, Former First Lady Barbara Bush; ABC's Dancing with the Stars Stacy Keibler; West Wing Emmy Award winner Allison Janney; Martin Sheen; Access Hollywood Nancy O'Dell; singer Patti LaBelle; actress Reese Witherspoon; Curb Your Enthusiasm Cheryl Hines and everyone's favorite actor who has gone where no man has gone before William Shatner.

Munchkin has invited women to share tips and stories to help mothers in facing the struggles of breast cancer. The advice is practical and real. A sampling of suggestions include:

• Kathy of Pittsburgh, PA advises, "Get meals brought in by anyone who offers even if you don't think they can cook!"
• Christina N. of Boston, MA advises, "Don't be afraid to have the kids see you bald or sick. You're better off talking it through than having the kids be horrified and not telling you."
• Jen G of Des Moines, IA shares, "We had a pajama party for my mother to lift her and our spirits. We even danced to the Time Warp, wore funny hats, ordered pizza, and drank wine."
  

While visiting Munchkin's Project Pink, enter to win a free family vacation to Los Angeles. No purchase necessary to enter to win.

SpeedFreaks, the country's largest motorsports radio show, has joined the America's Baby Cancer Foundation (ABCF) to raise awareness for childhood cancers. Kenny Sargent and Lugg Nuttz, hosts from the SpeedFreaks radio and television programs, have been elected to ABCF's board of directors.

The ABCF will benefit from the media exposure SpeedFreaks can provide, and according to the SpeedFreaks hosts, they have finally found a cause they feel they can "really grab a hold of and make a difference." ABCF is not new to Nuttz, who began supporting ABCF three years ago and as part of his involvement, helped establish a program at Irwindale Speedway that provides ABCF families with tickets for Saturday night races.

Backstretch Motorsports quotes Nuttz as saying, "You talk about a wake up call, baby cancer will affect over 11,000 children under the age of 15 this year. If that wasn't enough, childhood cancer rates are increasing at a rate of approximately 1 percent each year."

In 2000, the ABCF was founded as Sebastian's Baby Cancer Foundation. Started by Bernard and Antonia Hicks, following the loss of their child, Sebastian Hicks, at the age of nineteen months to cancer -- they provide a resource library, information and help for other parents with infants and children diagnosed with cancer. SpeedFreaks, with Kenny Sargent, Lugg Nuttz, Statt Mann Caruthers and Crash Gladys, began in 2000, as a result of Sargent's frustration with motorsports coverage. SpeedFreaks bills itself as a lethal combination of motorsports commentary and entertainment.

Hope is the thing
with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without
the words -
And never stops at all. -- Emily Dickinson

In the summer 2005, when Daisy was only seven-weeks-old, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Her mother Emma blogs the beginning of the story on the night when Daisy was having trouble breathing and they took her to the hospital's emergency room.

Emma and Patrick thought Daisy might be suffering from a cold or asthma. Once at the hospital, they were told something much worse. Their little baby girl was suffering from anemia and her spleen and liver were enlarged due to a large number leukemia cells. Daisy had biphenotypic leukemia.

Daisy would need chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. Her mother blogs A Journal of Daisy Gail's battle with Biphenotypic Leukemia to keep all the people who love Daisy updated on her life and progress. It is a poignant, inspiring and beautifully written blog.

On May 20th of this year, Daisy celebrated her first birthday. The birthday party was held for the friends and family who emailed through the months with encouragement, strangers who emailed and said, "You don't know me but...", for everyone who made a Daisy bracelet, bought a Daisy bracelet, who raised money for Daisy, who gave money for Daisy, who looked after Daisy, who donated blood or signed on with Bone Marrow Donor Registry. Gifts for Daisy were graciously declined as Daisy's family wanted to celebrate those who helped Daisy reach her first birthday.

Daisy is a blog about Daisy, and Emma, and Patrick and Molly -- and the power of love and hope -- and for the gratitude of family and friends and people who came to read the blog about a wee little girl's courageous struggle against cancer -- and life ahead for Daisy.

Preggers n' Proud, a hip sexy fashion company started by a mommy-to-be who wanted to celebrate her pregnant belly with trendy maternity slogan tees, has designed the Loving My Buddha Belly pink tank top to benefit the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast cancer research. Part of the profits from the sale of each tee will go to the foundation.

According to the company, the Loving My Buddha Belly soft pink tank top reminds pregnant women to embrace their blossoming belly, and will stand as a reminder going forward to empower each other to have regular mammograms, as well as perform self exams.

A socially conscious company, Preggers n' Proud takes advantage of the celebrity gift giving of merchandise to garner a type of advertising most companies could not afford to pay in dollars -- but for every celebrity that receives one of their tees, they donate five to a pregnancy care facility located in Santa Barbara, California area called Life Network. Very cool.

I look at it this way. You are going to spend your money somewhere, why not do it with a company that gives back. Preggers n' Proud tees have appeared on VH1's Hot Mama show, The Today Show and TLC's Baby Story. Check them out, it's for a good cause.

When Denise Ashford was 14 weeks pregnant, a fetal ultrasound scan revealed signs of a tumor in her unborn child. Her child had cancer. The young mother, only 19 years old at the time, was counseled on having an abortion. The cancer her baby had was neuroblastoma, a cancer that forms in nerve tissue of the adrenal gland, neck, chest, or spinal cord. Ashford, and the father Peter Thomas, refused to consider aborting the baby -- they said they would hang on for a miracle.

Each week, tests were done to watch how the unborn baby's tumor was growing. Within weeks, the tumor had begun to shrink.

"The doctors told us that sometimes in very small children this type of tumor can shrink over time. But then over the next four weeks, we were given some even more unbelievable news -- the tumor had disappeared altogether," stated Ashford.

Kiah Thomas came into this world at 6 pounds 1 ounce, and celebrates her fifth birthday as a happy healthy child. At the time of her birth, doctors said it was very rare for cancer to be detected in a baby before birth and then for it to disappear. But it happens. Called spontaneous remission, regression or miracles, stories of cancer patients defying the greatest of odds or having cancer suddenly disappear have always been told, as anecdotal evidence of mysteries we do not fully understand or have yet to seriously study.

For more information about spontaneous remission, the Institute of Noetic Sciences has compiled the largest database of medically reported cases of spontaneous remission in the world by reviewing over 3,500 references, from more than 800 journals in 20 languages, as a step towards expanding our knowledge and understanding of a real phenomenon that occurs, and yet, no one can explain.

It is a well-known research-based fact that women who breastfeed have a decreased risk for developing breast and ovarian cancer. Which makes the story of Victoria's Secret nebulous breastfeeding policy and the unfortunate experience of a breastfeeding mother from Wisconsin relevant.

Rebecca Cook was shopping with a friend at a Victoria's Secret store last week when she asked if she could use a dressing room to breastfeed her baby. The store clerk told her no and led Cook and her infant to an employee restroom. Cook says when the clerk opened the bathroom door, the inside of the bathroom was disgusting. At that, Cook told the clerk "No, I don't eat in the bathroom and my daughter doesn't eat in the bathroom."  According to Cook, the stork clerk told her that using the dressing rooms for the purpose of breastfeeding would be unsanitary because people change in them.

Cook, with other nursing mothers, staged a breastfeeding sit-in protest outside the Victoria's Secret store. They believe that a company that has made their fortune from breasts is discriminating against nursing mothers. In addition to the protest in Wisconsin, similar protests were held in front of Victoria's Secret stores in several states by nursing mothers who have been denied the right to breastfeed in a public place.

Breastfeeding being unsanitary is absurd and I have to question the attitude and motive of the sales clerk who handled Cook's request for a dressing room, or even just a place to sit in the back of the dressing room hallway, by leading her to an unclean employee restroom as the only place to breastfeed her infant. Victoria's Secret needs to make it abundantly clear they support nursing mothers who shop in their stores. If breastfeeding is a health benefit for the mother in cancer prevention, and she chooses to breastfeed her baby for the many benefits to her baby's health and her own, is she supposed to stay home for a solid year or more until she is done breastfeeding? What do you think?   

Multiple pregnancies for women who carry the inherited mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes appears to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer, according to researchers from the German Cancer Research Center. The International BRCA1/2 Carrier Cohort Study set out to examine if the same breast cancer protective factors of multiple births and breastfeeding provided to women without the genetic mutations extended to women with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. 

According to the study, women with one child have the same breast cancer risk as childless women. The risk of developing breast cancer after age 40 was lowered by 14 percent with every child. Interestingly, women with a BRCA2 mutation had twice the cancer risk if they had given birth to their first child after age 20 compared to those who had become mothers before age 20. For carriers of BRCA1 mutations, it was the exact opposite. The risk of getting breast cancer was lower in women who had given birth to their first child after age 30. The only thing about research -- it is only correct until the next research study. I only say this because I hear over and over from women who are surprised by a breast cancer diagnosis when they did not have any of the risk factors or they fit the profile of a woman with reduced risk. If you have the inherited BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, the study results are a generalization, and your individual situation might differ. I would not sit here and read into this study that you are going to get breast cancer because you only gave birth to one child -- or that you didn't have children at the optimum age.

During the late 1950s, Thalidomide was prescribed to pregnant women in many countries around the globe as an antiemetic to combat morning sickness. As it turns out, the drug, which had passed safety tests necessary to gain approval, was a nightmare of unimaginable proportion when it was discovered that babies born to mothers who took the drug suffered extreme birth deformities and missing limbs. Many of the babies did not survive the first year of life. If it were not for Frances Oldham Kelsey, a reviewer for the Food and Drug Administration, who refused to grant approval for a drug she knew was not safe, many babies in the United States would have suffered the same tragic fate. Thalidomide was pulled from the market when it became clear what was causing a sudden epidemic in birth deformities. The drug was later introduced in the treatment for leprosy.

Drug makers have found a new use for thalidomide, being marketed as Thalomid, in the approval for treatment of multiple myeloma -- a blood cancer. It sounds like everyone is being very cautious about this drug, and with good reason, given its history. According to reports, it will be strictly controlled to prevent pregnant women from access to the drug. Thalomid also will carry a black box warning about an increased risk of blood clots for multiple myeloma patients.

The results of an Environmental Working Group Body Burden testing program has revealed that mothers and daughters share a common body burden of at least 35 environmental cancer-causing chemicals including phthalate plasticizers, lead, methyl mercury, brominated flame retardants, and Teflon and Scotchgard perfluorochemicals PFOA and PFOS. These pollutants appear to be passed from a mother's placenta or breast milk into her daughter's body. Some of the key findings in this testing program found:

• Daughters tested had more chemicals in common with their mothers than with a group of 16 other women who were tested. This underscores the long-lasting influence of the pollution passed from mother to daughter, and their shared exposures as the child grows up. 
• The chemical burden inherited by daughters at birth will last for decades, some for a lifetime -- and the daughters will pass this same chemical burden on to their children.
• Chemicals that persist in the body were found at higher levels in mothers than daughters, showing how chemicals can build up in the body over a lifetime.
  

According to EWG, the six biomonitoring programs -- conducted between 2000 and 2006 -- revealed a total of 455 different pollutants, pesticides, and industrial chemicals in the bodies or cord blood of 72 different people -- including ten newborn babies with an average of 200 chemicals in each child.

"EPA studies show that children from birth to age two are ten times more sensitive to cancer-causing chemicals than adults," said Jane Houlihan, EWG's vice president for research. "Scientists have found that chemicals toxic effects can be passed down for four generations, by causing permanent genetic changes that can be inherited. A stew of toxic chemicals is not the legacy mothers want to hand down to their children." To read an overview of all results from EWG's Body Burden testing program, go here.

In a newspaper feature, Cathy Zimmerman begins by asking, milk -- could it be possible that it does a body bad? As part of a session of classes on foods that fight cancer at Wild Oats in Portland, Oregon, she quotes Dr. Amy Lanou, a nutrition scientist and professor of health and wellness at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and board member of the Cancer Project -- a nonprofit group of physicians, naturopaths and educators -- as saying, "There is a large body of evidence that dairy products do more harm than good. Whole milk, full of lactose sugar and unsaturated fats, is the number-one source of fat in children's diets." Concerned adults are attempting to stop the growing problem of obesity for children by reducing less-nutritious or fat-laden foods that lead to weight gain. Obesity can lead to a number of diseases later in life -- including cancers.

According to The Cancer Project, other mammals quit drinking milk after infancy, but not humans, who started drinking cow's milk in northern Europe about 1,000 years ago. The proteins, fat and sugar in milk promote fast growth, as well as dozens of hormones that nourish infant development. But that's mother's milk. And babies drinking it. Dairy milk is too rich for an adult body. Previous research on dairy has shown that it can increase the risks for some cancers. What about calcium? Contrary to popular belief, dairy is not the best bet for getting the calcium we need to maintain good health. Calcium can be obtained from a diet of green leafy vegetables, beans, peas and legumes. Fortified juices are another source of calcium. Does milk do a body bad? You decide.

Several days ago, the American Society of Clinical Oncology issued new guidelines concerning the preservation of fertility during cancer treatments. Many treatments for cancer will lead to infertility if precautionary measures are not taken before treatment begins. The two methods of fertility preservation with the highest likelihood of success for cancer patients are embryo cryopreservation for women and sperm cryopreservation for men. Today, I came across a news story describing another option called ovarian transposition. In the article about dreams surviving cancer, surgeons made tiny incisions in Carrie Lintner's abdomen and gently pulled her ovaries behind her uterus, where they were held in place with a few stitches. The uterus shielded her ovaries from the damaging radiation beams from the treatment she received for her recurrent Hodgkin's lymphoma. The ovarian transposition procedure took 30 minutes and saved her ability to give birth. Ms. Lintner, who is now cancer-free, is the mother of a baby girl, Maia.

St. Jude doctors were able to transfuse a father's natural immune system killer cells to save the life of his 3-month-old infant daughter who was struggling to survive acute lymphoblastic leukemia. According to St. Jude researchers, this procedure has been successful in older children, but not so much for infants. The St. Jude researchers reported that, after 16 months, the young girl is still in remission.

“This is in marked contrast to the invariably fatal outcome we see in infants with ALL who receive a hematopoietic cell transplant after they relapse following an initial treatment,” states Wing Leung, MD, PhD, Hematology-Oncology.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital pediatric treatment and research facility has a worldwide reputation of being able to treat the most challenging cancer cases. All pediatric patients accepted are treated without regard to the family's ability to pay.

Dr. Sandra Steingraber, cancer survivor, ecologist and author, will present Contaminated without Consent: How Chemical Pollutants in Air, Food, and Water Violate Human Rights at the University of Illinois at Springfield on Wednesday, April 19, in observance of Earth Day. Earth Day, in its 38th year, is recognized on April 22 as a day to raise awareness for environmental issues affecting our health and the health of our planet, and as a way for people to celebrate the planet and encourage responsibility for it.

Dr. Steingraber is an internationally recognized author of the book Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment focused on environmental links to cancer and reproductive health. According to background information about her book, it was the first work to bring data on toxic release together with data from U.S. cancer registries. She has a new book called Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood. In addition, Dr. Steingraber was named Ms. Magazine's Woman of the Year in 1997. In 1998 she received the Jennifer Altman Foundation's first annual Altman Award for inspiring and poetic use of science to elucidate the causes of cancer as well as the Will Solimene Award from the American Medical Writers Association for excellence in medical communication. The Sierra Club calls her the Rachel Carson for our times.

This presentation is free and open to the public. You can also see a live webcast of the presentation at LIVE WEBCASTS FROM UIS, on April 19, 2006 at 7:30 p.m. 

The Tooth Fairy Project is part of the Radiation and Public Health Project, RPHP, study into the relationship between low-level nuclear radiation and worldwide increases in cancer. Concerning America's cancer epidemic, RPHP has analyzed official National Cancer Institute, age-adjusted, breast and prostate cancer mortality rates, available since 1950 for every county in the United States, and demonstrated highly significant correlations between high cancer death rates and proximity to nuclear reactors.

RPHP research shows that of the over 3,000 counties in the United States, women living in about 1,300 nuclear counties, within 100 miles of a reactor, are at the greatest risk of dying of breast cancer.

The RPHP Tooth Fairy Project examines the levels of Radioactive Strontium-90, Sr-90, in teeth donated to the project. The chemical structure of Sr-90 is so similar to that of calcium that the body gets fooled and deposits Sr-90 in the bones and teeth where it remains, continually emitting cancer-causing radiation. According to the research, "Most of the strontium in baby teeth is transferred to the fetus by the mother during pregnancy. Because we know when and where the baby was born, and where the mother lived while carrying, we can accurately determine when and where radioactivity was absorbed from the environment."

RPHP has the support of scientists, physicians and citizens directly affected by proximity to nuclear power plants. In an endorsement for RPHP's work, Dr. Patch Adams writes, "As a scientist and physician for 35 years, I am well aware of the research in low-level radiation. We clearly have political leaders indifferent to and ignorant of the consequences. For twenty years I've gone yearly to the hospitals of Russia and have seen first hand the horrors of Chernobyl." RPHP offers a wealth of information and resources regarding low-level, nuclear radiation to cancer.