The Environmental Protection Agency will review 20 flame retardants used in common household items, in response to mounting research linking these chemicals to cancer, neurological damage and other health effects. The EPA will conduct risk assessments on four of the chemicals under the existing Toxic Substances Control Act, legislation that the agency acknowledges needs to be reformed in order to better protect Americans from toxic chemicals.

The chemicals are used to increase a material’s resistance to fire and are present in a host of items, including mattresses, furniture, electronics, clothing and food. The EPA notes that the chemicals can persist in the environment, making their way into household dust and eventually accumulating in people’s blood — in fact, researchers have found 97 percent of people in the U.S. test positive for flame retardants in their blood.

Flame retardants have been studied extensively and linked to a multitude of health effects. The flame retardant Tris, which was banned in the 1970s from children’s pajamas but is still found in a host of items, has been associated with cancer and harm to the liver, brain and kidneys. Several of the chemicals have been found to be endocrine disruptors — one flame retardant was found to cause “extreme weight gain, early onset of puberty and cardiovascular health effects” in lab animals. One study found the presence of certain flame retardants in umbilical cord blood to be associated with slowed neurological development in children. In fact, flame retardants were included among more than 800 chemicals that constitute a “global threat” in a World Health Organization report last month.

The EPA’s announcement comes amid increased pressure to address the health affects of flame retardants. Officials in California are pushing legislation that would ban the chemicals in household furniture and baby products sold in the state. Last month, 23 Democratic senators wrote a letter to the EPA, urging it to address the dangers flame retardants pose to human health. In January, Gatorade announced it would be removing the flame retardant bromated vegetable oil in its products in response to complaints and a popular change.org petition. The EPA’s announcement also comes a year after promises by the agency to investigate the chemicals in response to a Chicago Tribune series investigating the chemicals.

According to a new Consumer Reports investigative study published Thursday, there is rampant variation in the price of generic drugs as large U.S. pharmacy chains — including CVS, Rite Aid, and Target — mark up the prices of generic drug versions for common medications by as much as 18 times what wholesale chains like Costco charge. That price variance ends up costing Americans, who spend an average of $758 out-of-pocket on drugs every year, hundreds of dollars in unnecessary spending each month.

Consumer Reports compiled the data by contacting hundred of pharmacies throughout the country and asking what their drug prices were for generic versions of Lipitor, Plavix, Actos, and other common medications. The results were striking, with pharmacy representatives claiming that the higher prices were necessary for covering overhead, and considering that selling medication constitutes most of their revenue and profit margins:

Costco was the least expensive overall, and you don’t need to be a member to use its pharmacy. A few independent pharmacies came in even cheaper, though their prices varied widely, as did grocery-store pharmacies. The online retailers Healthwarehouse.com and FamilyMeds.com also had very low prices. On the other end of the spectrum, CVS, Rite Aid, and Target had the highest retail prices. [...]

A representative of CVS told us that its retail drug prices reflect other services offered by the chain, including drive-through windows, automated prescription refill systems, free outreach programs to help make sure patients are taking their prescriptions correctly, and 24-hour pharmacies. Costco pharmacies, the cheapest overall, are open only from 10 a.m. to 7 or 8:30 p.m. and are typically closed on Sundays.

“Big-box stores such as Costco and Walmart use the pharmacy as a traffic builder for their stores, whereas traditional chain stores, such as CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens, make the majority of their revenue and profits from the pharmacy,” says Stephen W. Schondelmeyer, Ph.D., Pharm.D., a professor of pharmacy economics at the University of Minnesota.

The study’s full findings are illustrated in this chart:

The use of generic drugs — rather than their brand name counterparts — actually drives down spending on medications, consequently lowering Americans’ out-of-pocket costs and government spending on public insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. But the Consumer Reports investigation suggests there are significantly more savings to be had.

This isn’t the first time generic drug makers have been in the news this week. On Monday, the Supreme Court took up Federal Trade Commission (FTC) v. Actavis — which one expert dubbed “the health care reform case of 2013″ — a case centering on the legality and antitrust implications of so-called “pay for delay” arrangements in which brand name drug makers pay off their generic drug counterparts to delay a drug’s generic version from entry into the market. If the FTC winds up winning that case, it could save Americans and the government billions of dollars on drug costs every year. But as this new report demonstrates, they could save much more if pharmacies stopped jacking up their rates to startling degrees.

A huge body of scientific evidence has already proven that the recommended vaccination schedule for U.S. kids is perfectly safe. But some pervasive myths about vaccines still persist — partially driven by dangerous right-wing fearmongering on the subject. Hoping to convince parents not to buy into the conspiracy theories, scientists continue to release new studies proving that it’s safe for them to vaccinate their kids on schedule, and reiterating that there’s no discernible link between vaccines and autism.

Some parents wonder if their kids are receiving too many vaccines too soon, and try to space out their children’s vaccinations so there’s more time in between their shots. In fact, up to 40 percent of parents take matters into their own hands and follow their own vaccination schedule rather that the one recommended by the CDC. But experts from the Institute of Medicine — a panel that advises the federal government on health policy — hope to change their minds. A new report from the Institute of Medicine confirms that the current childhood vaccination schedule is nothing to worry about, and it’s not a good idea to refrain from following it:

But delaying shots only prolongs the time that babies and children are vulnerable to “devastating diseases,” says co-author Pauline Thomas, an associate professor of preventive medicine at New Jersey Medical School.

“There is ample evidence that it’s not safe not to follow the schedule,” Thomas says. “It’s well known that in places where vaccines are delayed or missed, that’s where we are beginning to see vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks.”

Although the majority of doctors stand firmly behind vaccination, the issue is hotly debated among parents, particularly those too young to remember scourges like measles, polio and whooping cough. To address parents’ concerns, the Institute of Medicine has conducted more than 60 studies of vaccine safety since the 1970s.

Since children are required to receive the bulk of their vaccination before entering kindergarten, most of their shots are concentrated in their toddler years. Children receive up to 24 vaccines by their second birthday, and end up getting vaccinated against 14 different infectious diseases by the time they’re five. But it’s not randomly assigned. The CDC’s schedule is based on scientific testing that takes into account children’s immune systems, what they’re exposed to at different stages of their lives, and how the antibiotics interact with each other in the human body.

Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher at the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, explained to USA Today that parents’ fears are simply unfounded. “The concept that you are going to overload a child’s immune system by giving too many vaccines at once makes no sense,” Hotez said. “When you play with vaccine schedules, you are playing with fire.”

In the two centuries since vaccines were first developed, they have nearly eradicated over a dozen of what used to be the most common infectious diseases in the U.S. Some vaccines, like the flu shot, aren’t foolproof — but they can still help lower the risk. 90 percent of the U.S. children who died from the flu this past winter didn’t get vaccinated for it.