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A new study reveals that strains of tuberculosis that evade most of the drugs typically used to treat the bacterial infection have been spreading in South Africa, which already has a high rate of tuberculosis infection. Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis — known by the short form XDR TB — is highly concerning to health authorities because of the way tuberculosis spreads. Infected people expel bacteria from their lungs when they cough, sneeze, even speak. The bacteria can float for hours under the right conditions, infecting people who breathe them in. (Branswell, 1/18)

Most people who are infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis catch it from an ill person who transmits the deadly bacteria by coughing or some other form of airborne transmission, rather than developing it from poor drug treatment, a new study suggests. (McKay, 1/18)

Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general picked by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, immediately drew blowback during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday for saying that he “hasn’t looked into the scientific research” on precisely how much lead exposure is unsafe for children. Critics slammed Pruitt’s response as an uninformed and dangerously naive perspective on a critical environmental health issue. But, in fact, Pruitt’s not alone in his uncertainty on this question. There’s an ongoing debate among scientists and regulators about how much lead is too much for kids to have in their bodies. (Robbins, 1/18)

The first results from a major project to measure the reliability of cancer research have highlighted a big problem: Labs trying to repeat published experiments often can't. That's not to say that the original studies are wrong. But the results of a review published Thursday, in the open-access journal eLife, are a sobering reminder that science often fails at one of its most basic requirements — an experiment in one lab ought to be reproducible in another one. (Harris, 1/18)

As policymakers and health officials sound the alarm on the nation’s obesity epidemic, a team of researchers want to improve health outcomes among the most vulnerable Americans by overhauling the federal food assistance program. (Heredia Rodriguez, 1/19)