Health Care reform has been sparking rather heated debates from both sides of the aisle and from every other possible direction, it seems.

There has been no consensus on a number of key topics; cancer screening and cell phone dangers and mandatory compliance is set to be enforced by 2014.

There is a lot of work to be done and special interests will have their hands full lobbying for their stake in the game.

Supporters of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which President Obama signed into law in 2010, claim the legislation will extend coverage to 30 million Americans. But opponents labeled it an unconstitutional intrusion of government upon personal rights, especially the “individual mandate” clause that requires Americans to purchase health insurance or face fines.

Americans are getting fatter.

At the rate we’re going 83 percent of American men will be overweight or obese by 2020 followed by women at 72 percent projected to be overweight or obese by then, as well.

The implications go far beyond tight pants and groaning sofas. Obesity is a big risk factor for cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Imagining an America of overweight, unhealthy people gives public health officials the willies. And it should be frightening to us civilians, too.

If the 26th amendment in Mississippi passes it is.

The beginning of personhood?

Because the amendment would define a fertilized egg as a person with full legal rights, it could have an impact on a woman’s ability to get the morning-after pill or birth control pills that destroy fertilized eggs, and it could make in vitro fertilization treatments more difficult because it could become illegal to dispose of unused fertilized eggs. This could lead to a nationwide debate about women’s rights and abortion while setting up a possible challenge to the landmark Roe v. Wade case, which makes abortion legal.

The vote is upcoming in Mississippi to declare a fertilized ovum; human egg, a person.

The implications are vast and the arguments many, but in a state with the highest teenage pregnancy and STD rates it looks like the amendment will pass.

Physicians, scientists, women and hospital staff will face a host challenges to deal with the care of patients if this amendment passes.

There are great arguments on both sides.

Considering all the possibilities a new branch of legal practice may be necessary.

If you think that being overweight effects only the obese then think again.

Obesity is fast replacing tobacco as the single most important preventable cause of chronic non-communicable diseases, and will add an extra 7.8 million cases of diabetes, 6.8 million cases of heart disease and stroke, and 539,000 cases of cancer in the United States by 2030.

Some 32 percent of men and 35 percent of women are now obese in the United States, according to a research team led by Claire Wang at the Mailman School of Public Health in Columbia University in New York. They published their findings in a special series of four papers on obesity in The Lancet.

Although the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend routine neonatal circumcision the debate wages on with little definitive information from either side.

Parents can feel coerced into making a quick decision with little information.

With changes in health care policy it may become a matter of cost for a medically unnecessary procedure which can cost $400; quite a lot of money for many families.

More and more parents are starting to think seriously about whether to circumcise their newborn boys. And many of them are finding that it’s a question without easy answers, not least because guidance from many leading medical organizations has been equivocal. Although rates have declined in recent years, well over half of all boys born in American hospitals undergo the procedure.