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Glenn Greenwald reports:

It says the government will "identify potential targets of national importance where OCEO can offer a favorable balance of effectiveness and risk as compared with other instruments of national power".

The full directive, which , is addressed to much of the president's security council and cabinet and is predicated on "the United States' inherent right of self-defense." It reads, in part:

It later continues:

This suggests that any domestic cyberattack might face additional limitations. As The Guardian notes, the document indicates that the President must issue direct approval before any such action — as with any action deemed to have "significant consequences."

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Several categories of planning are outlined. For example, agencies are directed to develop plans for "Responses to Persistent Malicious Cyber Activity," and for "Emergency Cyber Actions," in the event that it becomes "necessary to mitigate an imminent threat." Among the considerations in developing plans are "impact," "risks," geography and identity," "transparency," and "authorities and civil liberties."

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The timing of The Guardian's story is particularly bad for the administration. The president and Chinese premier Xi Jinping are meeting at 5 p.m. Eastern to begin a two-day summit that includes cybersecurity as a topic. :

China denies any role in state-sponsored hacking - earlier this week its internet chief said China had "mountains of data" pointing to US-based cyber attacks.

The president's response to that just got much more complex.

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The existence of the directive itself was not secret, as Greenwald notes. In January, the administration released , which indicated that "it establishes principles and processes for the use of cyber operations so that cyber tools are integrated with the full array of national security tools we have at our disposal." What wasn't mentioned was this component, listed in the full document under "Policy Reviews and Preparation."

The United States continues to maintain a secret list of possible targets for retaliatory or preemptive nuclear strike, dating back to the Cold War.

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Presidential Policy Directive 20 includes one additional note aimed at keeping its details secret. "The government's public posture on related matters," it reads, "shall be: 'All United States Government activities in cyberspace are consistent with the principles stated in the May 2011 International Strategy for Cyberspace.'" That obfuscation is now somewhat unnecessary.

(Photo: President Obama and then-Vice President Xi at the White House in February 2012. Friday's meeting will be there first since Xi became president in March of this year.)

A majority on a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted Thursday to modify or remove measures that currently limit patient access to GlaxoSmithKline's Avandia. Among those requirements, patients must sign a waiver before getting a prescription that they understand the drug's risks.

Of the panel's 26 experts, 13 voted to modify safety restrictions on Avandia while seven voted to remove them entirely. Five panelists voted to keep the measures in place without any changes, while one panelist voted to withdraw Avandia completely.

The vote is a recommendation to the FDA and is not binding.

The panel ruling is a small victory for British drugmaker Glaxo after more than a half-decade defending the safety of Avandia, which was once the best-selling diabetes drug in the world. Sales began plummeting in 2007 after researchers first raised questions about possible links to heart attacks. After three years of debate, the FDA limited access to the drug in 2010 and European regulators banned the pill altogether.

The FDA convened this week's two-day meeting to consider a new analysis of Avandia's cardiovascular safety performed by Duke University's Clinical Research Institute.

Researchers there reexamined the lone GlaxoSmithKline PLC study specifically designed to measure Avandia's heart risks. Known as RECORD, the study's results have been called into question since they were first released in 2009, due to design flaws and inconsistent reporting of heart attacks. Panelists said the reanalysis bolstered their confidence that Avandia does not increase the risk of heart attack more than older diabetes medicines.

"I'm considerably reassured, in light of the reanalysis, that the magnitude of risk we're talking about here is not very great," said Dr. Dale Hammerschmidt of the University of Minnesota, who voted to modify the safety limits.

Most panelists said some precautions are still warranted, such as patient brochures discussing the drug's risks. They also favored registering patients so that their health can be tracked over time.

"While the RECORD trial helped reassure me in some respects, it also introduced some new questions in my mind I have some lingering concerns about toxicity," said Mark Woods, clinical coordinator at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City. He also voted to modify the restrictions.

Under the FDA's current risk-evaluation management strategy, or REMS, Avandia can only be dispensed by specially licensed pharmacies. Physicians must sign a waiver stating that they understand the drug's risks and that their patients have not responded to any other diabetes medications. Those requirements have essentially cratered prescriptions for the drug. Just 3,000 people in the U.S. are currently taking Avandia, down from 250,000 in 2010. Several panelists said they now believe the restrictions are too severe.

"I believe relaxing the REMS would put this on a more even playing field with other drugs with similar risks," said Dr. Elaine Morrato, of the University of Colorado.

Dr. James Shannon, Glaxo's chief medical officer, said in a statement: "We continue to believe that Avandia is a safe and effective treatment option for type 2 diabetes."

But even if regulators relax limits on Avandia, it's highly unlikely the drug will regain its blockbuster status.

"It's very difficult to rehabilitate a drug, any drug, after it's been through a process like this," said Rebecca Killion, the panel's patient representative.

This week's meeting marked the third time that the FDA has assembled its experts to answer a seemingly basic question: Does Avandia increase the risk of heart attacks? A firm answer has proved elusive, in part because patients with diabetes are already predisposed to heart problems. That makes it extremely difficult to tell which heart attacks are drug-related and which are simply a result of the underlying disease.

The initial concerns about Avandia came from outside researchers who pooled thousands of reports of heart attack and stroke from dozens of unrelated studies. One of these so-called meta-analyses combined 42 studies and appeared to show a higher risk of heart attack among patients taking Avandia compared to other diabetes drugs.

The FDA added a boxed warning about heart attack risks to Avandia in 2007, while noting the shortcomings of the analysis that produced the concern. FDA leadership generally argues that mixing data from multiple studies can lead to misleading trends and conclusions. The agency tries to base its decisions on head-to-head controlled clinical trials, which most medical experts consider the gold standard of research.

That has focused the agency's attention on the RECORD trial, a six-year study of 4,400 patients that compared heart attack rates in patients taking Avandia versus metformin and sulphonylurea, a standard drug combination for diabetics. The initial results reported by Glaxo in 2009 showed no signal for heart attacks, but those findings have been questioned because of missing data and other issues.

Under instructions from the FDA, Glaxo hired Duke University to reanalyze the RECORD study, reviewing each report of heart attack or stroke at a patient-by-patient level. Duke's findings matched Glaxo's initial conclusion: Avandia did not appear to increase the risk of heart attack.

At least one FDA reviewer said this week that Duke's review was not truly independent, since the university was paid $3 million by Glaxo and relied on records provided by the drugmaker.

But FDA leadership said there was no evidence of "systematic or intentional manipulation" of the RECORD reevaluation. The agency's panelists almost unanimously backed that conclusion.

While there are well over a dozen diabetes medications on the market, only Actos from Japan-based Takeda Pharmaceuticals works the same way as Avandia. Both drugs increase patients' sensitivity to insulin, a key protein needed to break down carbohydrates.

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada has charged two of the world's biggest candy makers, Nestle SA and Mars Inc, with colluding to fix the price of chocolate, the Canadian competition watchdog said on Thursday.

Canada's Competition Bureau recommended lenient treatment for the Canadian arm of Hershey Co, which cooperated with the investigation. Hershey said it had reached a deal with the bureau, and would plead guilty to a single count of price fixing.

Both Mars and Nestle said they intend to "vigorously defend" themselves against the allegations.

In its statement Hershey expressed regret for its actions and blamed workers who had already left the company.

"The current Hershey Canada senior management team as well as The Hershey Company and its management had no involvement in this conduct," the statement said.

The Competition Bureau has been probing the allegations of price fixing for five years in a scandal that has already resulted in a major class-action suit. Hershey, Mars and Nestle all agreed to settlements as part of that suit.

A similar class-action suit in the United States is still making its way through a Pennsylvania court.

The Canadian Competition Bureau has also charged ITWAL Limited, a national network of independent wholesale distributors, as well as three individuals: Robert Leonidas, the former chief executive of Nestle Canada; Sandra Martinez, former Nestle Canada president and David Glenn Stevens, president and chief executive ITWAL Limited.

The three executives face up to five years in prison if convicted, while the companies and the executives could each be fined up to $10 million.

(Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson, Bob Burgdorfer and Janet Guttsman; Editing by David Gregorio)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - There are a lot more than a million seconds until NBC launches its groundbreaking new game show "The Million Second Quiz," but at least we have a premiere date now.

The new series, which pits contestants against each other in trivia bouts for 12 days, will premiere Monday, September 9 at 8 pm., continuing through September 14. It will then resume on September 16 and air nightly at 8 p.m. until the September 19 finale.

While the primetime edition of "The Million Second Quiz" will run in hour-long installments (with the exception of the two-hour finale), the game is an all-day, all-night affair. The series will air live from an hourglass structure in Manhattan, which will serve as the living quarters for the four players who have remained in the game the longest.

Those four players - dubbed the "reigning champions" - must play continuously 24 hours a day to avoid being unseated in the primetime show.

Throughout the nonstop play, viewers will be able to play along in real time, while NBC affiliates will be able to interact live both throughout the day and during the primetime show, joining in the action and showcasing local contestants in their area.

The series, which is being billed as "the first fully convergent television experience," is being produced by All3 Media America, Studio Lambert and Universal Television, with Stephen Lambert, Eli Holzman and David Hurwitz executive producing.

MIAMI (Reuters) - When LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined the Miami Heat in 2010, teaming up with Dwyane Wade to form the 'Big Three', James famously promised "not one, not two, not three" NBA championships.

It was a boast that was mocked and criticised in equal measure as traditionalists winced at the sight of the two free agents celebrating their own arrivals in a pop concert style rally.

James continued that promise, at the glitzy event, even getting as far as "not seven" as he emphasized the need for multiple titles.

So far the Heat, in the James era, are at one.

The first year with the star trio ended in defeat to the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 Finals but they recovered to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder last year.

This year they brought the normally routine regular season to life with a remarkable 27 game winning streak - the second longest in NBA history.

Now, after seeing off the Milwaukee Bucks (4-0), the Chicago Bulls (4-1) and the Indiana Pacers (4-3), the Heat are up against the hugely experienced San Antonio Spurs.

If the series end in defeat for Miami, the questions about the effectiveness of Heat president Pat Riley packing the roster with experienced but ageing talent will surely return.

Victory though and the pundits will turn their thoughts to whether the Heat are on their way to becoming one of the league's real dynasties - albeit one which will need some rejuvenating.

The supporting cast in this current Heat team has a short shelf-life - Ray Allen, Shane Battier, Udonis Haslem, and Mike Miller are all in the twilight of their careers.

While the current team is so closely identified with James, the four-times league Most Valuable Player, it is Wade and Udonis Haslem, who have been at the heart of the Heat for the past decade.

Haslem, Miami born and a product of the University of Florida, went undrafted in 2002 and after playing in France, the Heat took a chance on him in 2003.

The same year, Miami drafted Chicago native Wade from Marquette and they were quickly rewarded with play-off runs in 2004 and 2005 and then the franchise's first NBA championship in 2006.

That Heat team, coached by Riley, beat Dallas in the finals, featured the giant presence of Shaquille O'Neal and the inspirational Alonzo Mourning, who still remains a part of the Heat organization

The Heat, which had entered the league as an expansion franchise in 1988, had finally entered the elite of the NBA but they found it tough to stay there.

Despite Wade's talent, they failed to make it past the first round of the playoffs in the next four seasons, prompting Riley, now in command as president with his protg Erik Spoelstra as coach, to make his audacious move in free agency.

The arrival of James and Bosh instantly transformed the Heat, establishing them as the number one sports franchise in Florida and making them the team everyone else in the NBA wanted to beat.

As they have proven this season though, the chants of 'Beat the Heat' now have less to do with the jealousy at Riley's skill in the free agency market and much more to do with the simple fact that in the NBA Miami are the team you have to beat if you want a title.

(Editing by Julian Linden)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Close to two-thirds of women favor making contraceptive pills available over the counter, according to a new nationally-representative survey.

In addition, about 30 percent of women using either no birth control or a less effective method - such as condoms - said they would likely take the Pill if it was sold without a prescription, researchers found.

"Of course it's a hypothetical question, and it remains to be seen how this would play out in reality," said Dr. Daniel Grossman, from the University of California, San Francisco and the nonprofit Ibis Reproductive Health, who led the new study.

But the finding "gives us some indication that making the Pill over the counter could help improve use of more effective contraception and help women use the method they'd like to use," Grossman told Reuters Health.

It could also potentially reduce unplanned pregnancies, he noted.

"There's mounting evidence that this is safe, this is effective and women really want it."

The results come amid news on Wednesday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is appealing a court order directing the agency to make the "morning after" emergency contraceptive Plan B available over the counter to women of any age.

Late last year, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists published a statement recommending that birth control pills be available over the counter (see Reuters Health story of November 20, 2012 here: http://reut.rs/UH0Zz9).

For the new study, researchers surveyed just over 2,000 women aged 18 to 44 about their attitudes toward over-the-counter access to the Pill. None of those women was pregnant or trying to become pregnant, and all had been sexually active with men in the past year.

About 31 percent of participants each said they were "strongly" or "somewhat" in favor of women being able to buy birth control pills without a prescription, according to findings published in the journal Contraception.

"It shows that, just as I think physicians' attitudes seem to be changing over time, women's attitudes are also changing over time," said Dr. Kavita Nanda, a contraception and family planning researcher at FHI 360 in Durham, North Carolina.

Women in the study said over-the-counter access would make getting the Pill more convenient, save time and money and prevent unintended pregnancies. However, they also noted some downsides, such as women possibly choosing a pill that's wrong for them.

Nanda, who wasn't involved in the new research, said resistance to making birth control pills more accessible has stemmed from concerns that women need a doctor to determine whether the drugs are safe given their particular situation, and that the women won't go to regular check-ups if they can get pills without a doctor's help.

But those theories haven't played out in other studies, she told Reuters Health.

Research suggests, for example, that women are able to look at a checklist of contraindications and determine if the Pill is safe for them, she said. Having uncontrolled high blood pressure or a history of breast cancer or blood clots may all make birth control pills less safe, she noted.

Grossman agreed with Nanda that any safety issues have largely been addressed.

"There was one piece that was missing from the research that had been done to date, and that was really documenting the demand for this among women," he said. "Women really are interested in this."

Close to half of pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I see this issue, of moving the regular birth control pill over the counter, as the next big advance in improving access to effective contraception," Grossman said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/YejQYh Contraception, online April 23, 2013.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Angela Merkel has dismissed claims in a new book that she was more actively committed to East Germany's communist regime than she has acknowledged, saying she has never kept anything secret about her past.

The book, "The first life of Angela M.", says that Merkel, who will seek a third term as chancellor in a federal election in September, was responsible for Marxist-Leninist education in a unit of the state's youth wing, in a role that went beyond the cultural duties she has previously spoken of.

Asked about the claims late on Sunday after a screening of her favorite film, a 1973 East German love story, Merkel said she had always spoken openly and to the best of her memory.

"I can only fall back on my memories. You just have to accept this... if something else turns up, then I can live with it," said the 58-year-old chancellor. "What is important to me is that I never kept anything secret."

The book's claims are unlikely to affect Merkel's chances of re-election but they highlight how enigmatic she remains for many Germans after nearly eight years in power.

German media have had a field day printing pictures of Merkel, who is extremely protective of her private sphere, as a willowy 20-something on Baltic beach holidays, tending a camp fire or drinking with student friends, as commentators try to fathom her early political persuasions.

Merkel joked there may be other aspects of her earlier life to be unearthed: "It is always the case that when something emerges, which of course from the perspective of the former West Germany looks very different, then people say 'she hasn't told us this yet' and 'she hasn't told us that yet'."

"I don't know - maybe there are other things I didn't talk about because no one ever asked me."

Merkel was 35 when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and was working as a scientist at an academic institute. She has described her early life as non-political, in contrast to German President Joachim Gauck, a former East German pastor who vigorously opposed the regime.

While at the science research institute Merkel said she was a cultural official for the Free German Youth (FDJ), the movement nearly all East German youngsters joined as teenagers.

Commenting on her role in a 2004 book, Merkel said she took it to get out more often, particularly as her then husband mostly wanted to stay at home. It entailed organizing outings, readings by young Soviet writers and getting theatre tickets.

The new book repeats previous claims that the role was as an "Agitation and Propaganda (agitprop) functionary" and was at a higher hierarchical level than Merkel had previously stated.

Asked in 2004 about an "agitprop" role, Merkel said: "I cannot remember agitating in any way whatsoever. I was responsible for culture."

In its heyday, the FDJ, whose members wore blue shirts and pledged to be "ready for peace and socialism", had more than 2 million members. East Germany's long-time leader Erich Honecker was a former leader of the FDJ, as was his successor Egon Krenz.

(Additional reporting by Andreas Rinke and Reuters television, editing by Gareth Jones and Alistair Lyon)

The initial public offering (IPO) is expected to take place later this year and could value the state-owned business at 2-3 billion pounds ($3-4.5 billion), making it Britain's biggest privatisation for 20 years.

Goldman and UBS will act as joint global co-ordinators and joint bookrunners, Business Minister Michael Fallon said in a statement on Wednesday, while Barclays and Bank of America Merrill Lynch will also be joint bookrunners.

Fallon, who previously said several overseas buyers had expressed "significant interest" in buying the 497-year-old postal service, reiterated that while a stock market listing was the preferred route, all sale options remained open.

"It is important that we are in a position to move ahead swiftly with our chosen route once we take the final decision," he said.

"Given the lead time and preparatory work involved in readying an IPO, the appointed banking syndicate will work to make sure we are ready to proceed when the time comes."

Momentum behind privatisation began gathering pace last year after the European Commission cleared the government to take on Royal Mail's hefty pension liabilities and regulators gave the green light for the business to increase prices.

Despite fierce union opposition, Britain is pushing ahead with plans to privatise the company this financial year to give it access to external capital for future investment.

All four banks had already been advising either the company or the government on options for a planned sale.

The government said the appointment of banks to more junior syndicate positions would be announced in the coming months.

Last week Royal Mail Chief Executive Moya Greene, reporting the company had more than doubled annual profit on the back of an online shopping boom, said she had been meeting potential investors in Britain, the United States and Canada.

Banks have also been asked to gauge appetite for a 1.5 billion pound syndicated loan to back the planned privatisation, sources said last week.

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan and Neil Maidment; Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)

In a first-of-a-kind study, Canadian researchers tested children born to obese women, plus their brothers and sisters who were conceived after the mother had obesity surgery. Youngsters born after mom lost lots of weight were slimmer than their siblings. They also had fewer risk factors for diabetes or heart disease later in life.

More intriguing, the researchers discovered that numerous genes linked to obesity-related health problems worked differently in the younger siblings than in their older brothers and sisters.

Clearly diet and exercise play a huge role in how fit the younger siblings will continue to be, and it's a small study. But the findings suggest the children born after mom's surgery might have an advantage.

"The impact on the genes, you will see the impact for the rest of your life," predicted Dr. Marie-Claude Vohl of Laval University in Quebec City. She helped lead the work reported Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Why would there be a difference? It's not that mom passed on different genes, but how those genes operate in her child's body. The idea: Factors inside the womb seem to affect the dimmer switches that develop on a fetus' genes chemical changes that make genes speed up or slow down or switch on and off. That in turn can greatly influence health.

The sibling study is "a very clever way of looking at this," said Dr. Susan Murphy of Duke University. She wasn't involved in the Canadian research but studies uterine effects on later health. She says it makes biological sense that the earliest nutritional environment could affect a developing metabolism, although she cautions that healthier family habits after mom's surgery may play a role, too.

It's the latest evidence that the environment in this case the womb can alter how our genes work.

And the research has implications far beyond the relatively few women who take the drastic step of gastric bypass surgery before having a baby. Increasingly, scientists are hunting other ways to tackle obesity before or during pregnancy in hopes of a lasting benefit for both mother and baby.

What's clear is that obesity is "not just impacting your life, it's impacting your child," Duke's Murphy said.

More than half of pregnant women are overweight or obese, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. But it's not just a matter of how much moms weigh when they conceive doctors also are trying to stamp out the idea of eating for two. Gaining too much weight during pregnancy increases the child's risk of eventually developing obesity and diabetes, too.

What's too much? Women who are normal weight at the start of pregnancy are supposed to gain 25 to 35 pounds. Those who already are obese should gain no more than 11 to 20 pounds. Overweight mothers-to-be fall in the middle.

Sticking to those guidelines can be tough. The National Institutes of Health just began a five-year, $30 million project to help overweight or obese pregnant women do so, and track how their babies fare in the first year of life.

Called the LIFE-Moms Consortium, researchers are recruiting about 2,000 expectant mothers for seven studies around the country that are testing different approaches to a healthy weight gain and better nutritional quality. They range from putting pregnant women on meal plans and exercise programs, to weekly monitoring, to peer pressure from fellow parents trained to bring nutrition advice into the homes of low-income mothers-to-be.

It's best to get to a healthy weight before conceiving, noted Dr. Mary Evans of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, who oversees the project.

Just how much mom has to lose for a healthier baby is "obviously a research gap," she said.

Monday's research findings from Canada may shed some new light. Consider: Overweight mothers have higher levels of sugar and fat in the bloodstream, which in turn makes it to the womb.

Fetuses are "marinated, and they're differently marinated" depending on mom's weight and health, said Dr. John Kral of New York's SUNY Downstate Medical Center, who co-authored the Canadian study.

That may do more than overstimulate fetal growth. Scientists know that certain molecules regulate gene activity, attaching like chemical tags. That's what Laval University lead researcher Dr. Frederic Guenard was looking for in blood tests. He took samples from children born to 20 women before and after complex surgery that shrank their stomachs and rerouted digestion so they absorb less fat and calories. On average, they lost about 100 pounds.

Guenard compared differences in those chemical tags in more than 5,600 genes between the younger and older siblings. He found significant differences in the activity of certain genes clustered in pathways known to affect blood sugar metabolism and heart disease risk.

Only time will tell if these youngsters born after mom's surgery really get lasting benefits, whatever the reason. Meanwhile, specialists urge women planning a pregnancy to talk with their doctors about their weight ahead of time. Besides having potential long-term consequences, extra pounds can lead to a variety of immediate complications such as an increased risk of premature birth and cesarean sections.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Kids and teens who are born abroad and immigrate to the United States are about half as likely to have asthma and allergies as those who are born in the U.S., according to a new study.

Researchers surveyed the parents of 80,000 children in one of six languages and found that association held even after they took into account where families lived and how often they moved, as well as their race and income.

"This is definitely something we see clinically and we're trying to better understand, what is it in our environment that's increasing the risk of allergic disease?" said Dr. Ruchi Gupta, who studies allergies at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago but wasn't involved in the new research.

"Food allergies have increased tremendously," she told Reuters Health. "We do see people who come from other countries don't tend to have it, but immigrants who are maybe second generation, they're identical (to U.S.-born people)."

It's not obvious what explains that pattern, researchers said.

According to Gupta, two possible culprits are the so-called hygiene hypothesis - which suggests kids in the U.S. are too clean, and their immune systems never get exposed to common allergens - or the poor quality of American diets.

Lead researcher Dr. Jonathan Silverberg from Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York said climate, obesity and various infections might also be playing a role.

"The results of the study suggest that there are environmental factors in the U.S. that trigger allergic disease," he told Reuters Health in an email.

"Children born outside the U.S. are likely not exposed to these factors early in life and are therefore less likely to develop allergic diseases."

Surveys were completed by parents of kids and teens in 2007 and 2008. Just over 20 percent of children born outside the U.S. had any type of allergic disease - including asthma, eczema, hay fever or food allergies - compared to between 34 and 35 percent of those born in the U.S.

What's more, the risk of allergies increased with the more time foreign-born children spent in the U.S., Silverberg and his colleagues wrote in JAMA Pediatrics.

For example, 27 percent of foreign-born kids who had immigrated more than a decade earlier had any type of allergy, according to their parents' reports, versus 17 to 18 percent of those who had moved to the U.S. within the past two years.

"You acclimate to wherever you are and you pick up whatever is going on there," Gupta explained. "The findings here are very interesting - and not surprising."

Silverberg said he hoped the results would lead to further discoveries of what puts U.S. kids at risk for allergies and how to prevent them.

For now, Gupta recommended parents make sure their children eat a diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables. And allowing them to play in the mud a little bit probably wouldn't hurt, she said - with proper hand-washing afterward, of course.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/KEGTVv JAMA Pediatrics, online April 29, 2013.