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New research published this week lends credence to the more than 50,000 lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson that allege its talc-based baby powder caused ovarian cancer. The analysis, released Wednesday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, found that applying talc powder to the genitals was associated with ovarian cancer — and that the association was greater for people who used the powder frequently or for long periods of time. (Bendix, 5/18)

Some wellness influencers tout the sun’s natural healing powers. Others tell their followers to make homemade sunscreen or that sun protection prevents people from producing the vitamin D that they need. Consuming seed oils is what really causes sunburns, some say. (Calfas, 5/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Journalists Broach Topics From Treating Shooting Victims To Sunscreen Safety

�鶹Ů�� Health News and California Healthline staffers made the rounds on national and local media in the last couple of weeks to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances. (5/18)

Each time LaTonya looks at framed photos of herself breastfeeding her baby son for the first time, she swells with emotion. As a mother living with HIV in Colorado, it was a moment she wanted to commemorate. “That’s how important it was to me to be able to breastfeed,” LaTonya said about the photos. “So, I wanted to make sure we had that forever.” (Howard, 5/20)

HIV has long stumped immunologists looking to develop an effective vaccine. All of the most promising approaches pioneered in the past three and a half decades have ultimately failed, and only a few months ago, the last trial expected to potentially deliver a vaccine within this decade was shut down. (Merelli and Wosen, 5/17)

Removing a patient’s race from an equation used to assess lung function — a change called for by health equity advocates — would mean that the lung disease of nearly half a million Black Americans would be reclassified as being more severe, and that Black veterans could receive more than $1 billion in additional disability payments, according to a study published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine. (McFarling, 5/19)

Officers who outrank their military physicians and personnel who have been recently promoted receive better attention and care in Defense Department health facilities than lower-ranking service members, new research on military emergency room visits has found. The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, also found racial bias in treatment and care in military ERs, with white physicians "exerting less effort" on Black patients. (Kime, 5/17)