The Time (11/26, Szalavitz) “Healthland” blog reports, “Critics have long feared that stimulants simply drug children” with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [AD/HD] “into submission, turning youngsters into compliant robots with no will to engage in defiant behavior.” However, UK researchers “interviewed 151 American and British children aged nine to 14 who were taking medication for AD/HD between 2008 and 2010. Their conclusion? ‘On balance, children report that stimulant drugs improve their capacity for moral agency,'” the study authors wrote, “explaining that most felt the drugs allowed them to make better choices.”

Related Links:

— “ADHD Medications Improve Decision-Making, But Are They Being Over Used?, “Maia Szalavitz, TIME, November 26, 2012.

The Washington Post (11/24, Whoriskey) reported that in a review of articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine, “60 were funded by a pharmaceutical company, 50 were co-written by drug company employees and 37 had a lead author, typically an academic, who had previously accepted outside compensation from the sponsoring drug company in the form of consultant pay, grants or speaker fees.” One reason for that is that “since about the mid-1980s, research funding by pharmaceutical firms has exceeded what the National Institutes of Health spends.” The Post noted that in 2011, spending totals were $39 billion from industry and $31 billion from the NIH, and the Post adds that “over the past decade corporate interference has repeatedly muddled the nation’s drug science, sometimes with potentially lethal consequences.” As examples, the Post cites the “controversies over blockbuster drugs…erupted amid charges that the companies had shaped their research to obscure the dangerous side effects.”

Related Links:

— “As drug industry’s influence over research grows, so does the potential for bias, ” Peter Whoriskey, The Washington Post, November 24, 2012.

USA Today (11/26, Lloyd) reports that “people who burn off the most energy have healthier, younger brains compared with adults who do less,” according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. After using magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of 876 seniors, researchers found that “those who burned the most calories had 5% more gray matter.”

Related Links:

— “Burning energy may bulk up your brain cells, “Janice Lloyd, USA TODAY, November 23, 2012.

Medwire (11/24, McDermid) reported that according to a study published online Nov. 22 in the journal The Lancet Neurology, “the true incidence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is about sixfold higher than official figures state.” For the study, researchers “used sources including hospitals, brain imaging records, family doctors, prisons, traffic accident records, coroner and autopsy records, and accident records of schools and sports centers” to find that “the incidence of any TBI was 790 per 100,000 person-years, age-standardized to 811 per 100,000 person-years. From this, the team estimates that 54-60 million people worldwide have a TBI each year, with 2.2-3.6 million people having moderate or severe injury.”

Related Links:

— “Official stats underestimate brain injury, “Eleanor McDermid, Medwire News, November 23,2012.

According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, five major US airports with designated smoking areas do not have sufficient ventilation to mitigate the risks of second-hand smoke to non-smoking passengers.

USA Today (11/20, Koch, Today) reports that the new CDC report warns that “ventilation at five major US airports with designated smoking areas does not protect passengers from the health risks of secondhand smoke.” The report finds that “pollution levels adjacent (within a meter or 39 inches) to smoking areas are five times higher than levels at airports that entirely ban smoking.” Tim McAfee, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, explains that “These are unnecessary dangers for airport employees and passengers.” The airports named in the report are: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Denver International Airport and Salt Lake City International Airport.

HealthDay (11/21) reports that “in 2011, about 15 percent of all US air travel took place at these five airports, accounting for more than 110 million passenger boardings.”

Also covering the story are Reuters (11/21, Beasley), the Salt Lake (UT) Tribune, (11/21, Davidson) the Denver Post (11/21, Raabe), and the Las Vegas Sun (11/20).

Related Links:

— “CDC: Airports that allow smoking pose health risks, “Wendy Koch, USA TODAY, November 20, 2012.