A recent Pew Research Center survey finds that 35 percent of U.S. adults have used the internet to diagnose a medical problem either for themselves or an acquaintance.

Eighty two percent of Americans consulted search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo for diagnostic information while an additional 13 percent used medical sites such as WebMD. But while internet self-diagnoses are a reality and convenience of the 21st century, researchers warned that they are still not an acceptable replacement for doctor visits — especially since their study shows that few self-diagnoses are confirmed by medical professionals:

Out of the people who said they went online to help find out what they or someone else was suffering from, 46 percent said what they found online led them to believe they needed help from a medical professional. Another 38 percent said they thought they could treat it at home, and 11 percent say it was in between.

However, less than half — 41 percent — said that a doctor confirmed the diagnosis they made from online research. Thirty-five percent said they did not seek a professional opinion, and 18 percent said the medical professional or clinician did not agree with what they thought or had a different opinion about their condition. [...]

“It is important to note what these findings mean — and what they don’t mean,” the authors noted. “Historically, people have always tried to answer their health questions at home and made personal choices about whether and when to consult a clinician. Many have now added the internet to their personal health toolbox, helping themselves and their loved ones better understand what might be ailing them. This study was not designed to determine whether the internet has had a good or bad influence on health care. It measures the scope, but not the outcome, of this activity.”

As with most things in the digital age, medical information that can be easily researched online can serve as an effective primary tool for Americans. But as the saying goes, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and consumers who rely solely on internet-aided self-diagnoses — either due to rising health care costs or simple convenience — do so at the risk of their own health.

ThinkProgress has previously reported on Americans’ increasing use of online “crowd funding” and internet coupon services such as Groupon for cheaper health care services in the face of skyrocketing costs and premiums.

In public health efforts to encourage Americans to quit smoking, graphic anti-smoking visuals could be more effective than written warnings about tobacco, particularly in reaching diverse groups of smokers. A new study suggests that FDA-approved images depicting the consequences of smoking — such as blackened lungs, cancers, and even death — had a more powerful impact on adult smokers than simply receiving written warnings cautioning against the habit.

Researchers from the Legacy Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health delivered anti-smoking materials to over 3,000 adult smokers, and the participants who received graphic images reported feeling more “upset, scared and motivated to quit” than those who received anti-tobacco material only in writing. Those results remained constant across racial and socioeconomic groups — a significant finding, researchers said, since low-income and non-white Americans tend to be much more likely to smoke than the general population.

“Interventions that have a positive impact on reducing smoking among the general population have often proven ineffective in reaching disadvantaged groups, worsening tobacco-related health disparities,” Jennifer Cantrell, the Assistant Director for Research and Evaluation at the Legacy Foundation, said in a statement. “It’s critical to examine the impact of tobacco policies such as warning labels across demographic groups.”

Cantrell pointed out that the graphical labels seemed to be “one of the few tobacco control policies that have the potential to reduce communication inequalities across groups.”

Although teen smoking rates dropped to record lows at the end of last year, about 20 percent of the general U.S. population still smokes. But those rates rise significantly for low-income Americans, people of color, and the LGBT community.

Tobacco-related diseases remain the leading cause of death in the United States, claiming more than 400,000 lives each year. Nonetheless, austerity policies have led states to slash funding for their effective anti-smoking programs over the past decade.

On the heels of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s (R) announcement on Monday that she will expand Medicaid under Obamacare, North Dakota’s governor represents fourth Republican leader to support the optional expansion of the program. The Huffington Post reports that Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R) has submitted a bill to his state legislature asking to broaden the state’s eligibility level to allow additional low-income people to qualify for Medicaid coverage.

Dalrymple told reporters that he supports this provision of the health reform law because the federal government will cover the full cost of state’s Medicaid expansion for the first several years. “In the end, it comes down to are you going to allow your people to have additional Medicaid money that comes at no cost to us, or aren’t you?” he said. “We’re thinking, yes, we should.”

Despite the financial benefits for states that choose to expand Medicaid, Dalrymple’s fellow GOP governors haven’t been so eager to cooperate with Obamacare — even at the expense of their states’ low-income residents. Aside from Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada, no other Republican-controlled states have moved toward Medicaid expansion.

Oklahoma State Rep. Mike Reynolds (R) has already unsuccessfully attempted to pass a far-right “personhood” bill to endow embryos with “all the rights, privileges and immunities” of other U.S. citizens. That bill failed without coming up for a vote in April, but Reynolds is ready to try again in the new legislative session.

According to the Tulsa World, the state lawmaker has authored a new bill that is “virtually identical” to last year’s failed personhood measure, which women’s health advocates warned could actually result in outlawing some forms of contraception and invitro fertilization:

The bill states that life begins at conception — which is already part of state law — and that “unborn children have protectable interests in life, health, and well-being,” and that Oklahoma law “shall be interpreted and construed to acknowledge on behalf of the unborn child at every stage of development all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this state.”

Pregnant women are exempt from prosecution for “indirectly harming her unborn child” and miscarriages.

Personhood measures are so extreme that they don’t even have the full support of the anti-choice community. A similar proposal in Virginia faced strong opposition from Republicans during the last session, and personhood initiatives across the country have failed to gain traction over the past year.

In addition to the failure of Reynold’s first anti-abortion bill, Oklahoma’s personhood movement was dealt another blow last year when the Supreme Court confirmed that defining an embryo as a citizen is “clearly unconstitutional.”

Nonetheless, far-right lawmakers like Reynolds are pressing on in their quest to redefine personhood to include zygotes. And the radical anti-choice agenda is looking for inroads on a national level, too — Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is among the Congressmembers supporting a fetal personhood bill this year.

Earlier this month, Tea Party darling Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) admitted that his plan to introduce yet another Obamacare repeal bill would be unlikely to pass in the wake of President Obama’s decisive re-election. As it turns out, that was an understatement.

In a sign that the GOP’s anti-Obamacare fervor may finally be giving way to political reality, Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) latest Obamacare repeal bill doesn’t have a single co-sponsor in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Bachmann made introducing the repeal bill her first order of business for the 113th Congress, even as millions of Americans waited for House Republicans to act on a disaster relief package in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

And two other anti-Obamacare bills — one to repeal the law’s individual insurance mandate and another introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to repeal the whole law — also do not have any co-sponsors. By contrast, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) so-called “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act” had a total of 182 cosponsors by the fourth day of the 112th Congress, and House Republicans successfully voted to repeal Obamacare a staggering 33 times during the last session — costing taxpayers an approximate $50 million. Public support for repealing the reform law has plunged to an all-time low as Americans begin experiencing its positive effects.

But the latest repeal efforts’ lack of co-sponsors should by no means be taken as a sign that Republicans will embrace health reform altogether. House Republicans can still try to obstruct Obamacare’s implementation by putting the law’s funding mechanisms on the chopping block and attempting to repeal measures such as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). In fact, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) recently advocated for doing exactly that in an editorial for his hometown paper, and former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) went as far as to suggest “civil disobedience” and breaking the law in order to stymie Obamacare.

Still, the full Obamacare repeal effort’s newfound loneliness in the House is a powerful demonstration of the difference an election can make.

Girl Scouts USA is introducing a new cookie to join its ubiquitous collection of Samoas and Tagalongs — but the “Mango Creme” is being marketed a bit differently than the rest of the products under the Girl Scouts brand, touted as a “nutritious” option because of an additive that claims to provide “major vitamins.”

Thanks to an additive called NutriFusion, the new cookie boasts of “mango-flavored creme filling with all the nutrient benefits of eating cranberries, pomegranates, oranges, grapes, and strawberries.”

The cookie does provide 15 percent of the recommended daily intake (RDI) of Vitamin B1 per serving, as well as 5 percent RDI of Vitamins A, C, D, E, and B6. But those are small values compared to the vitamins available in natural foods. You can get a full serving of Vitamin C from drinking an eight ounce glass of orange juice, three times the daily serving of Vitamin E in one cup of sunflower seeds, 41 percent of your recommended Vitamin A from eating just one baby carrot, and more than a quarter of the recommended Vitamin B1 in one serving of tuna fish.

And a serving of Mango Creme cookies also include 20 percent of the recommended daily saturated fat intake. That makes three Mango Cremes roughly equivalent to the saturated fat in four Thin Mints, two Samoas, and two Tagalongs. Rather than representing an especially nutritious choice, the Mango Creme is really just another cookie.

Nonetheless, some of the country’s biggest food companies employ misleading marketing tactics to make their products appear healthier, and the Girl Scouts aren’t the first to oversell the amount of fruit in their food. Cereal companies also often use packaging that suggests their products contain real fruit — when in reality, that “fruit” is actually nothing more than soybean oil and dried fruit pieces.

Companies can get away with this practice as long as they print accurate ingredients on the label, which the FDA oversees. Some consumer advocates point out that may not be the best method of disclosure, since Americans often rely on packaging rather than the fine print on the back of the box. The FDA is currently considering whether it should update its standards for energy drink manufacturers, amid concerns that the popular drinks often don’t disclose how much caffeine they actually contain, but tighter regulations may be a long time coming for the rest of the food industry.

In an effort to curb the growing epidemic of Americans abusing prescription drugs, the NYPD will begin asking pharmacies in the city to mix in so-called “bait bottles” containing GPS locator chips into their stocks of prescription drug medications, CBS News reports.

According to NYC Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, prescription drug abuse has become an unsustainable public health problem for the city. Police hope that putting locator chips in some medication bottles will allow them to effectively track stolen bottles and uncover large-scale prescription drug stash houses:

In prepared remarks provided in advance of his appearance [at a conference on health issues hosted by Bill Clinton], Kelly says the initiative was prompted by a spate of high-profile crimes associated with the thriving black market for prescription drugs, including the slaying of four people on Long Island during a pharmacy holdup in 2011. He also cites the case of a retired NYPD officer who, after retiring with an injury and getting hooked on painkillers, began robbing drug stores at gunpoint.

Prescription drug abuse “can serve as a gateway to criminal activities, especially among young people,” the commissioner says. “When pills become too expensive, addicts are known to resort to cheaper drugs such as heroin and cocaine. They turn to crime to support their habit.”

The NYPD has begun creating a database of the roughly 6,000 pharmacies in the New York City area with plans to have officers visit them and recommend security measures like better alarm systems and lighting of storage areas. Kelly says it also will ask them to stock the GPS bottles containing fake oxycodone.

NYPD’s medication-tracking initiative comes on the heels of earlier measures to track the distribution and sale of prescription drugs. Last summer, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) signed an expansive drug abuse prevention bill requiring, among other provisions, centralized electronic monitoring of prescription drugs and safe disposal programs for unused medications.

According to national surveys, prescription drug abuse is America’s fastest growing drug problem, and over a third of American youth over the age of 12 who abused drugs for the first time used non-prescribed medications. While 35 states have active Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs), New York is the first to propose a sting operation of its kind in conjunction with pharmacies.

Over 700 veterans may have been exposed to the HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C viruses after a medical oversight allowed insulin pens to be shared between multiple patients at a Buffalo, NY hospital. According to hospital officials, the insulin pens — which are each supposed to be designated for a single patient, to help prevent the spread of diseases — were used incorrectly over a two-year period.

In November, pharmacy inspection rounds revealed that the hospital was storing insulin pens in supply drawers without any patient labels on them — despite the fact that the federal government has been warning against the practice of sharing insulin needles for years. In 2009, after a similar incident at a Texas hospital put more than 2,000 patients at risk, the Food and Drug Administration issued an alert about the issue.

“What has happened can only be described as the grossest of irresponsible and dangerous behavior,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said of the incident. And representatives from the Buffalo area, including Rep. Brian Higgins (D) and Rep. Chris Collins (R), are now seeking an investigation into the hospital’s practices:

“Beyond the fact that the error occurred at all, most concerning was the length of time it took the Buffalo VA to catch the error — over two years, as well as the three-month delay in informing patients who may have been exposed,” Higgins, whose district includes the city of Buffalo, wrote in a letter to the VA on Monday. “Also detail why affected patients weren’t notified immediately.” [...]

“Unfortunately, since the day that new technology was introduced at the VA, they did not have a protocol in place that let the nurses know they were not supposed to use the cartridge on more than one patient,” Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Collins told CNN affiliate WGRZ. Collins also called the situation in Buffalo “unacceptable.” [...]

Higgins has also requested a detailed response outlining what steps will be taken to prevent any similar issues in the future.

An official from the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Melissa Schaefer, told the Associated Press the CDC believes these incidents still go underreported despite previous warnings from federal public health officials. Part of the problem may be that some medical professionals, like the staff at the Buffalo-area hospital, may believe it’s safe to reuse insulin pens if they simply change the needle within the pen.

But Scaefer explained that’s not the case. “Reuse of insulin pens for more than one patient essentially is akin to syringe reuse,” she said. “You can get back flow of blood into that syringe or cartridge that contains the insulin and then you potentially expose others patients. And changing the needle wouldn’t make it safe for multi-patient use.”