"'Don't worry, this is completely safe,' he says as his chin and mouth glow red beneath the device's rim. 'There's virtually no sensation at all.'" So says the proprietor of Natural Image, "a nonsurgical hair restoration salon" that will apply lasers to your head as you sit under a large metallic hat.

The FDA is covering up information about the suicide of Traci Johnson, a healthy volunteer who committed suicide in a study of Cymbalta, El Lilly's new antidepressant, says an article in The Independent. What's more, they are legally bound to do so, says the FDA, because the suicide is a trade secret.

In Minneapolis, Kimberly Witczak is in federal court challenging Pfizer, which she says did not sufficiently warn doctors and patients about the drug's potential to cause suicidal tendencies. Her husband committed suicide while taking Zoloft two years ago.

“Holding a cigarette is like having a walking stick in your hand, giving you support," says a 37 yearold woman in China, whose state-owned tobacco monopoly insists that smoking is good for you. 90% of Chinese people believe that smoking is good for them, and 60% of male Chinese doctors are smokers themselves, according to The Toronto Globe and Mail.

Galaxy, a market research company in Australia, is promoting hormone replacement therapy with "video news releases" -- PR designed to look like news. The Australian Broadcasting Copmany is reporting the story.

Does getting fat make you get old? "Obesity accelerates the ageing process even more than smoking, according to the largest ever study of the “chromosomal clock” in human cells," writes Rowan Hooper in New Scientist.

It's not blatant scientific fraud that we need to worry about, say Minnesota researchers in a new study in Nature. It's the mundane manipulation of scientific studies that are far more common, and more dangerous.

"By the middle of this century, we may be as blasé about genetically engineered humans as we are today about pierced ears," writes Joshua Foer in his review of Joel Garreau's new book, Radical Evolution. Why? Because of what Garreau calls the Curve -- the "untamable force of exponential growth that propels technological progress."

A new study suggests that over half of the American population will suffer from a mental illness at some point in their lives. What does this mean? "Is it an indictment of modern life or a sign of greater willingness to deal openly with a once-taboo subject?" asks Benedict Carey in The New York Times. " Or is it another example of the American mania to give every problem a name, a set of symptoms and a treatment - a trend, medical historians say, accentuated by drug marketing to doctors and patients?"

Has a brain spa opened in your neighborhood yet? If not, it may be coming soon.

Some television celebrities are heading to the plastic surgeon's office to cope with the arrival of high-definition TV, which can magnify every pockmark and pimple. But others are staying away, worried that high-definition television will also magnify even the tiniest surgical scars. See "Not Ready for their Close-Up" by Clive Thompson.

"Ironically, drug safety in the U.S. is worse off today than it was in November," says FDA whistleblower David Graham in The Washington Post. Meanwhile, Pfizer's in-house whistleblower, Peter Rost, finds his email blocked and his phone disconnected, according to an article in the New York Times. His superiors no longer return his calls.

"Depressives have Prozac, worrywarts have Valium, gym rats have steroids, and overachievers have Adderall," writes Joshua Foer in Slate. Foer explains what it is like to write articles, play Ping Pong and read Stephen Jay Gould on stimulants.

How do drug companies know whether their marketing pitches are actually working? By way of a tool called "prescriber reports." "Prescriber reports," write Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer in Slate, are "weekly lists of every prescription written by each of the 600,000 doctors in the United States." They are compiled from information supplied by pharmacies and the AMA, and then sold to drug companies. "Prescriber reports play a key role in helping reps boost sales—they're like weekly focus groups that help reps shape their pitches to individual doctors. If Doctor A increased her prescriptions after being treated to a facial and full-body massage, more expense-paid spa excursions are in order for her. If Doctor B didn't respond to a courtesy five-course meal, then maybe it's time to try football tickets, or up the free drug samples, or plug clinical research that touts the proffered drug's benefits."