For more than a decade, Dr. Joseph Mercola cautioned parents against a potentially lifesaving shot of vitamin K for their newborn babies: “Vitamin K shots are completely unnecessary for your newborn.” But now, in a break from his past warnings, Mercola is saying he no longer believes that. ProPublica contacted Mercola recently as it was preparing an article about babies who died as a result of their parents turning down the vitamin K shot. Mercola’s new point of view is just as unequivocal as his old one: “The data is clear: vitamin K saves lives,” he wrote in an April article on his website two days after ProPublica contacted him. He added: “Based on the totality of the published...

Slow-healing lesions — common in diabetics and burn victims — can lead to lingering infections that resist antibiotic treatment. A new approach using light-activated therapies may offer a solution. For most people, a minor cut or scrape is no big deal — the body heals itself quickly, and antibiotics can deal with any infections. But some wounds, such as severe burns and diabetic ulcers, are prone to bacterial infections that can become resistant to antibiotics. “Diabetic wounds are very difficult to heal and people live with these wounds for pretty much the rest of their life,” says Vitaliy Khutoryanskiy, a materials scientist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. To address...