Lead, a substance known for its toxicity, is showing up in many lipstick brands in the United States in surprisingly high levels, a research group has found.

The group Campaign for Safe Cosmetics randomly bought 33 lipsticks in four U.S. cities in Boston, Hartford, San Francisco and Minneapolis in August and sent them to a lab for testing

By targeting a site in a mouse brain well connected to other areas, researchers successfully were able to deliver a beneficial gene to the entire brain. What has scientists looking to the future is that it occurred after a single injection of gene therapy. If these results in animals can be realized in people, researchers may have a new tool for gene therapy allowing health officials the ability to treat a host of rare but devastating congenital human neurological disorders.

Gene therapy is the insertion of genes into an individual's cells and tissues to treat a disease, and hereditary diseases in which a defective mutant allele is replaced with a functional one. Although the technology is still in its infancy, it has been used in the medical and scientific fields with some success and future practical applications

According to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Preventing Chronic Disease found that health disparities especially smoking levels exist among people with disabilities. Smoking prevalence among people with disabilities is nearly 50 percent higher than among people without disabilities. The ratio is 29.9 percent vs. 19.8 percent. Researchers also noted that in 2004, smoking prevalence for people with disabilities was highest in Delaware (39.4 percent) and lowest in Puerto Rico (16.5 percent).

The study found that about 70 percent of people with disabilities who smoke and had visited a doctor in the last year had been advised to quit smoking. However, more than 40 percent of those advised to quit reported not being told about the types of tobacco-cessation treatment available

bout one in four disabled are smokers, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention reported Wednesday.

In the first national study to compare smoking rates between the two groups, researchers say that smoking is more prominent in people with disabilities

In the latest wave and health crisis regarding products from China and recalled toys. Mattel announced on Wednesday that as a result of the company's ongoing investigation of its toys manufactured by vendors in China, the company has voluntarily recalled 11 toys globally, including eight pet and furniture playsets sold under the Barbie(R) brand and three Fisher-Price(R) toys, due to lead.

The toy maker did say however that no actual Barbie dolls are included within the recall. In total, there are 522,000 affected toys in the U.S., and 322,000 affected toys outside of the U.S. Mattel has completed the testing program for the majority of its toys, including all of its toys currently sourced from vendors