• HealthDay reported on a recent survey, which probed doctors’ likelihood to discuss issues of weight with overweight and obese patients. A twist: The survey included questions about the doctors’ own weight, so researchers could tell if a doctor’s weight issues might influence his conduct with patients. Of the 500 or so survey takers, about half were overweight or obese, two-thirds were male, 70 percent were white, and almost three-quarters were at least 40 years old. Researchers found that overweight physicians were less likely than their thinner peers to discuss weight-control measures with overweight or obese patients; only 18 percent of the overweight doctors said they do it. But the survey also revealed that shockingly few normal-weight doctors—only about a third—say they talk to patients about controlling their weight issues. Which means the other two-thirds think the topic is too embarrassing, or impolite, or … something. Come on, doc. I can understand not talking to the hostess at Friday night’s dinner party about her weight problems, but in your own exam room you’re more than allowed to bring it up. I mean, if gynecologists can ask their patients how many sex partners they’ve had—and trust me, they ask you that every. single. time.—I think you should have the stones to raise questions about your patient’s growing girth.

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• A pair of new studies from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia might have you seeking alternate forms of transportation. The first one looked at why teens who drive around with their friends in the car tend to make poorer decisions—and have more accidents—than ones who take to the streets solo. According to the findings, young drivers who tote around their peer share a unique set of characteristics: they consider themselves thrill-seekers, believe they have hands-off parents who don’t monitor their whereabouts, and have a poor understanding about the risks associated with driving. In a second related study, which looked at over 600 teens who had been in car accidents, researchers discovered that the ones with peer passengers reported being distracted right before crashing; of those, 71 percent of boys and 47 percent of girls said they were distracted by something inside the car. Male drivers, too, were more likely to perform some sort of aggressive-driving maneuver (show-offs) just before crashing.

• You know all those commercials about HPV and the vaccine? Here’s something they never tell you: that oral HPV strikes men more than women.

• This is pretty scary: the pathogens that cause childhood pneumonia and meningitis have apparently evolved such that they can now evade the very vaccines developed to stop them.