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ABA honors Acorda Therapeutics president with 2011 Stevie Award

Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. announced that Ron Cohen, M.D., President and CEO of Acorda Therapeutics, was awarded the 2011 Stevie Award for Executive of the Year in the Health Products & Services category at the 9th Annual American Business Awards (ABA) ceremony held on June 20, 2011.

24 Jun 2011

Mass. Attorney General says plan to curb health costs not working

Early results show that putting doctors and hospitals on a budget — a payment method promoted as a way to curb health costs — has not saved money in Massachusetts, Attorney General Martha Coakley concluded in a report released yesterday.

24 Jun 2011

Automated screening system helps identify cases of unexpected drug diversions

Electronic data from automated drug dispensing carts can help to identify drug diversion by anesthesia care providers, according to a report in the July issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society.

24 Jun 2011

Find a better way to incorporate evidence into health policy

"Research evidence has undoubtedly been crucial in formulating countless global health policies which have saved many millions of lives," but "at the same time, we believe there are several common fallacies about its 'real world' application," Gavin Yamey and Richard Feachem of the Evidence to Policy initiative write in an Evidence-Based Medicine perspective.

24 Jun 2011

Ashoka and Boehringer Ingelheim initiative to promote health

The social entrepreneurial organization Ashoka and pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim on Tuesday announced they are launching a three-year global initiative aimed at "promoting healthy individuals, families and communities by identifying and supporting the most promising solutions to challenging health problems," according to an Ashoka press release.

24 Jun 2011

Hedging tool for farmers needs safeguards

Writing in the Center for Global Development's "Views From The Center" blog about the creation of a hedging tool by the World Bank and J.P. Morgan to help protect farmers from volatile food prices in developing countries, CGD Vice President for Corporate Affairs Todd Moss says that having safeguards in place to "prevent speculation or abuse" and "credible private sector partners will be essential" to the program's success.

24 Jun 2011

Congo's cholera outbreak spreads to crowded capital city

Three cases of cholera have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital of Kinshasa, "home to at least 9 million people, many of whom live in cramped, unsanitary conditions," Reuters reports.

24 Jun 2011

Groups join forces to research new diarrheal therapies

The Center for World Health and Medicine, the University of Missouri-St. Louis Medicinal Chemistry Group, and the Institute for One World Health have joined forces "to develop safe and effective anti-diarrhea drugs …

24 Jun 2011

CHW interventions linked to increased rates of mammography screening

Education, referrals, support and other interventions by community health workers improve rates of screening mammography in the United States - especially in medical and urban settings and among women whose race and ethnicity is similar to that of the community health workers serving them.

24 Jun 2011

Tensions rise in bipartisan debt-ceiling negotiations

Both Democrats and Republicans appear to be increasingly entrenched on key issues, including changes to entitlement programs like Medicare. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office issued a daunting report, warning that the national debt will exceed the size of the national economy by 2021.

24 Jun 2011

Governments should consider social impacts of austerity measures, U.N. report says

In the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis, many country's governments could be undermining economic recovery by implementing austerity measures such as cuts in spending on health, education and other social programs, which "threaten to turn back decades of social progress, block new job creation and derail efforts to eradicate poverty" in both developed and developing nations, according to a United Nations report published Wednesday, Reuters reports.

24 Jun 2011

NSBRI expands use of ultrasound during spaceflights and on Earth

The remoteness and resource limitations of spaceflight pose a serious challenge to astronaut health care. One solution is ultrasound.

24 Jun 2011

New York Times examines very rare E. coli strain responsible for German outbreak

The New York Times examines the E. coli strain responsible for the recent outbreak in Germany, saying the bacteria "have a highly unusual combination of two traits and that may be what made the outbreak among the deadliest in recent history, scientists there are reporting."

24 Jun 2011

Research offers avenue for creating Alzheimer's and HIV therapeutics

A new advance by UCLA biochemists has brought scientists one step closer to developing treatments that could delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease and prevent the sexual transmission of HIV.

24 Jun 2011

HHS scales back rules for patient health care appeals

The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it was scaling back its earlier-released rules regarding consumers' right to appeal health plan care denials.

24 Jun 2011

Researchers develop inexpensive saliva test for dengue

An inexpensive, non-invasive cheek swab saliva test for dengue has been developed by researchers in Singapore and is undergoing multi-center evaluation, SciDev.Net reports.

24 Jun 2011

Nature News examines controversy surrounding Indian HPV vaccine trial

After four teenage girls involved in a clinical trial in India testing vaccines for human papillomavirus (HPV) died last year, the study "threatens to have a dual legacy: inflaming unfounded fears about a lifesaving vaccine and raising new questions about the management of medical research in the country," Nature News reports.

24 Jun 2011

Health law politics cause sparks to fly among GOP presidential hopefuls

In the background, Republicans on Capitol Hill are renewing their criticisms of the health law's Independent Payment Advisory Board as a "rationing" panel. Also reverberating — how candidates are handling the GOP anti-abortion pledge, and findings from a new poll suggest Americans are leery of the Medicare plan advanced by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

24 Jun 2011

Global Fund signs onto International Aid Transparency Initiative

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced Thursday that "it has become a signatory of the International Aid Transparency Initiative, which "means that grant information currently on the Global Fund website will be aligned to an internationally agreed set of standards" and "financial and grant activity data and documentation will be accessible to a broader audience and will be comparable to information provided by other donors," according to a Global Fund press release.

24 Jun 2011

Furthering progress on childhood vaccines

In a Huffington Post opinion piece, Gro Brundtland, a member of the U.N. Foundation board of directors, former WHO director general and former prime minister of Norway, discusses global progress on childhood vaccines. Brundtland discusses the upcoming launch of the U.N. Foundation's global vaccines campaign aimed at inspiring Americans "to provide children in the developing world with immunizations against deadly diseases."

24 Jun 2011