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dr. jon lapook tells us why you could pay thousands more than another patient for the same procedure. and thinking inside the ring. mark phillips introduces us to the most unlikely sport we've ever seen. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening. rising gas prices are like a gun aimed at the heart of the economic recovery. you've been paying more and, at this time of year, you'd expect prices to rise even further. but all of a sudden the pressure on the trigger of that gun is easing. the average price nationally tonight is $3.86 a gallon. that's down a nickel in just the past week. and look at this: a year ago today we were paying that same $3.86. this is the first time that prices haven't risen year to year in two and a half years. will prices keep dropping? is the danger over for the economy? we asked anthony mason to find out. >> reporter: the price of crude has been slipping in the trading pits. oil fell again today as tensions with iran have eased. some of the speculators who helped push up the price have been driven awa

dr. jon lapook on a surprising new study about children and diabetes. and after serving years for crimes they didn't commit mark strassmann finds men helping others just like themselves. >> sometimes when i get up i still pinch myself to see if it's true or not. : captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening. just when the obama administration was expecting progress in relations with china there's a new crisis. one of china's leading human rights dissidents escaped from house arrest and is believed to be with american diplomats in beijing. the timing is incredible. tonight the secretary of state and treasury secretary are leading a delegation of 200 americans on a long-planned trip to china to iron out foreign policy and economic issues. china is our second largest trading partner behind canada. now the separation is facing a dilemma: stand up for human rights or make progress on other issues that affect millions. we have reports from both capitals tonight, first, celia hatton in beijing. >> no on

dr. jon lapook to tell us more. >> reporter: the 45 common tests, procedures, and treatments were considered often unnecessary. they include routine electrocardiogram during a physical. m.r.i.s for back pain. cat scans to find out the cause of painting. and certain imaging testing for patients with early-stage breast and prostate cancer. goal is to decrease the overuse and misuse of health care. government studies have found that 30% of the $2.5 trillion annual health care tab is not needed. dr. michael barry is an internist and president of the foundation that tries to improve outcomes in health care. >> i think both physicians and patients sometimes get into the mindset of thinking more is always better, and-- but it's really important to think through each thing we do, not only from the perspective of cost but from the perspective of making sure we're not doing harm to patients. >> reporter: sometimes the tests produce false positives, abnormal results that turn out to be harmless, but they lead to more tests and procedures that could have sid side effects. previous efforts to limit test

dr. jon lapook to tell us more about this. >> reporter: according to the c.d.c., the overall risk of a child developing autism is 1-88. today's study suggests the risk for children of obese women is 1-53. neurologist dr. solomon moshe says a mother's weight could be a warning sign. >> if the child is born to an obese parent they may need to be paid special attention and receive proper diagnosis early on because the earliest you intervene the better outcome. >> reporter: the study did not investigate how a mother's weight might contribute to autism but doctors theorize that high blood sugar and other effects of obesity may harm the developing brain of a fetus. >> anything that can alter brain development can produce learning disabilities and difficulty in communication. >> reporter: this study shows only a link and doesn't prove that obesity causes autism but it's an intriguing clue to a disorder whose cause remains unknown. >> pelley: jon, thank you very much. another winner has come forward in the megamillions lottery drawing. we'll have the details when we come back. that make kids happy.

dr. jon lapook tells us why. >> reporter: jamie birdwell was still in college when she was rushed to theal with appendicitis. >> we had really good insurance and i thought everything would be pretty much covered. >> reporter: but it wasn't. the hospital charged $13,000 for the one-day stay. her insurance picked upmost of the charges, but two two years later she's still paying off $1,100 of that bill. >> there are three different payments we had to keep track of. it's confusing. >> reporter: turns out birdwell's bill was on the low side. today's study looked at over 19,000 patients hospitalized in california for appendicitis without complications. there was a wide variation in cost, from $1,500 to nearly $183,000. the median, or middle ground, was about $33,000. the lead author of the study, dr. renee hsia, says it adds up to complete confusion for the patients. >> hospitals can charge whatever they want because there's no guideline or reference pricing with how hospitals come up with what a charge is. >> reporter: that's because hospitals create long, itemized bills for each service prov

dr. jon lapook. >> reporter: 21-year-old sara chernov checks her blood sugar everyday. one of many changes in her life since being diagnosed with type two diabetes at age 16. >> it's definitely troubling for anybody who's dealing with such a chronic disease to keep yourself on track, especially when you go through the phases of denial and understanding that this is a chronic disease. >> reporter: since 1980, obesity in children has almost tripled to more than 12 million and that says dr. robin golan, who helped run the study, has fueled a rise in type two diabetes in young people. >> historically childhood diabetes has not been type two diabetes so very little is known as the right way to both prevent it and to treat it. >> reporter: medications that control blood sugar lower the risk of patients developing complications such as poor circulation, blindness, and kidney disease. but the most commonly prescribed drug in adults, metformin, failed more than half the time in the young patients in the study. >> we could prevent them from getting diabetes that would be far pref

dr. jon lapook is here today with the results of a major new study and, jon, it focused on twins. >> reporter that's right, scott. identical twins are born with virtually the exact same genes and the same inherited risk for disease but more than 90% of the time when one twin develops cancer the other does not. these researchers looked at 24 different diseases including cancer and calculated the youthfulness of genetic testing. each person has over 20,000 genes with millions of variations. all cancers like this lung tumor are caused by genetic defect bus only a tiny fraction of those defects are inherited. the rest develop when d.n.a. is damaged by life-style choices like smoking, the environment, or random factors. scientists found that genetic testing has only limited usefulness for most people. for example, ovarian cancer will strike 2.2 million women in this country. researchers calculated that testing every woman in america would only identify at most 20% leaving at least 1.7 million women with a negative result and possibly a false sense of security. this isn't just true for cancer. rese

dr. jon lapook tells us why you could pay thousands more than another patient for the same procedure.e the ring. mark phillips introduces us to the most unlikely sport we've ever seen. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening. rising gas prices are like a gun aimed at the heart of the economic recovery. you've been paying more and, at this time of year, you'd expect prices to rise even further. but all of a sudden the pressure on the trigger of that gun is easing. the average price nationally tonight is

dr. jon lapook on a surprising new study about children and diabetes. didn't commit mark strassmann finds men helping others just like themselves. >> sometimes when i get up i still pinch myself to see if it's true or not. : captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening. just when the obama administration was expecting progress in relations with china there's a new crisis. one of china's leading human rights dissidents escaped from house arrest and isbe