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The heartbreak of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is being turned into hope, as parents who have lost babies to the medical mystery are helping to fund a new research study to be launched by a Seattle doctor who hopes he is close to a cure. Dr. Daniel Rubens, an anesthesiologist at Seattle Children’s hospital, has partnered with The Lullaby Trust in the United Kingdom and pediatrician Dr. Peter Fleming of Bristol University to conduct the “Oto-Acoustics Signals in SIDS,’ or OASIS study. The two-year study will launch in May. (Brodeur, 4/18)

Despite its many benefits, the new vaccine for human papillomavirus — a sexually transmitted disease commonly known as HPV — is grossly underutilized, Dr. Zane Saul said Monday. Saul, chief of the infectious disease department at Bridgeport Hospital, estimates that only 30 percent of girls and 10 percent of boys get the required three doses of the vaccine, which also reduces the risk of sexually transmitted cancers. (Cuda, 4/18)

Imagine a disease that turns your muscles, tendons, and ligaments into bone, progressively crippling you and interfering with such basic functions as eating and breathing. Any attempt to surgically remove the extra bone triggers explosive new growth. (McCullough, 4/18)

Colorado kids are not smoking more pot since the drug became legal — but their older siblings and parents certainly are, according to a long-awaited report giving the most comprehensive data yet on the effects of the state's 2012 recreational marijuana law. (Gurman and Wyatt, 4/19)

The good news is that fewer kids are smoking. The bad news is that many of them are still using nicotine. According to new surveys, as many as one in three teens is starting on nicotine without lighting up. (Schlemmer, 4/19)