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Online health records, medical devices face IT security risks

Meanwhile, iWatch News reports on how the health information sector seems especially fond of lobbying's "revolving door."

22 Aug 2011

New estimates predict trouble for social security disability payments

The trust fund that supports Social Security disability benefits will run out of money by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits unless Congress acts, according to new congressional estimates.

22 Aug 2011

Risk of Parkinson's disease increases with traumatic brain injury and exposure to pesticide paraquat

Traumatic brain injury has entered the public's consciousness as the silent, signature wound brought back by many of our military warriors from Iraq and Afghanistan. But such injuries don't only happen in warfare, they happen to civilians too. Think car crashes, a slip and fall, two football players colliding helmet to helmet.

22 Aug 2011

HHS approves new round of waivers

The Obama administration granted another 106 waivers last month from part of the health care reform law -; the first round of three-year waivers the Health and Human Services Department has approved. The new approvals bring the total number of waivers to 1,472, according to HHS. Those figures cover waivers granted through the end of July.

22 Aug 2011

Should we be screening blood for hepatisi G?

Hepatitis G virus was identified in 1995. Some little research was carried out on the virus and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared it a non-harmful virus in 1997. Researchers in Saudi Arabia, writing in the International Journal of Immunological Studies present evidence to suggest that this may have been the wrong decision.

22 Aug 2011

The politics of health policies emerge in presidential contest

The AP reports that GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry has backed an approach to health reform that could be "as controversial as Obama's remake." Meanwhile, President Barack Obama faces discontent from his base over many of his policies.

22 Aug 2011

A CRADA for prostate disease research

Genomatix Software, the Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences (USU), and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc. (HJF) have entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to extend their collaborative endeavors in prostate disease research.

22 Aug 2011

Feds challenge Ohio hospital merger

Obama administration officials have been roaming the country, talking up their vision of a future in which doctors and hospitals team up to provide better care at lower cost. But a starkly different picture is unfolding this summer in a courtroom here, where lawyers from the Federal Trade Commission have been challenging a hospital merger in Toledo, Ohio.

22 Aug 2011

Saffron promotes apoptosis and inhibits growth of cancerous cells

New research suggests that saffron provides a significant chemopreventive effect against liver cancer in animal models. When saffron was administered to rats with diethylnitrosamine (DEN)-induced liver cancer an inhibition of cell proliferation and stimulation of apoptosis was observed. Full findings appear in the September issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.

22 Aug 2011

Economic pressures trigger seniors' concerns about finances, assisted living housing

While The Wall Street Journal and Kaiser Health News report on the current dark side of aging in America, The Associated Press offers insights into how baby boomer interest in countering the effects of getting older could lead to billions of dollars in spending.

22 Aug 2011

Risk of depression in formerly depressed people

Depression is increasingly recognized as an illness that strikes repeatedly over the lifespan, creating cycles of relapse and recovery. This sobering knowledge has prompted researchers to search for markers of relapse risk in people who have recovered from depression. A new paper published in Elsevier's Biological Psychiatry suggests that when formerly depressed people experience mild states of sadness, the nature of their brains' response can predict whether or not they will become depressed again.

22 Aug 2011

Drug co. executive gives pharma a sunny forecast

Severin Schwan thinks the skeptics are wrong. Those who shun the pharmaceutical sector for its lack of prospects don't understand the potential created by a rapidly growing understanding of genetics and molecular biology, and the new drugs that will follow. ... the chief executive of Roche Holding AG, the world's seventh-largest drug firm by sales, is an informed optimist.

22 Aug 2011

No effective treatment yet for acute lung injury

Patients can essentially drown in their own fluids when trauma and infection prompt blood vessels to leak, flooding millions of air sacs in their lungs.

22 Aug 2011

Advocates worry over 'super committee's' consideration of Medicaid

Meanwhile, the health law's individual mandate could fall prey to deficit reduction efforts. And, in the background, congressional appropriators face especially unique challenges this year in trying to get their work done.

22 Aug 2011

Congress could reconsider FSA restrictions

Bills floating through Congress would lift some restrictions on flexible spending accounts and allow employees to set aside pre-tax earnings to pay for out-of-pocket health care expenses.

22 Aug 2011

Johns Hopkins establishes Center for Personalized Cancer Medicine with Commonwealth Foundation gift

A $30 million gift from the Commonwealth Foundation for Cancer Research has enabled the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center to establish a Center for Personalized Cancer Medicine. The gift from the Richmond, VA- based foundation, will be used to support research and the development of new technologies that pinpoint the novel genetic characteristics of each patient's cancer.

22 Aug 2011

First Edition: August 22, 2011

Reporting for Kaiser Health News, Harris Meyer writes: "In the fourth year of a depressed real estate market, experts say thousands of seniors remain unable to move into senior housing because they can't sell their homes quickly enough or for the price they need. The upshot: Greater pressure on families to pay for parents' and grandparents' placements, or to care for them themselves"

22 Aug 2011

Harnessing the brain’s capacity to adapt and regenerate

Understanding the brain’s capacity to adjust to physical and mental trauma and injury – and how to exploit this therapeutically to help patients – is the focus of a major international symposium at the University of New South Wales next month (8 Sept).

22 Aug 2011

Insights into how ruminations are represented in the brains of depressed persons

All of us, at times, ruminate or brood on a problem in order to make the best possible decision in a complex situation. But sometimes, rumination becomes unproductive or even detrimental to making good life choices. Such is the case in depression, where non-productive ruminations are a common and distressing symptom of the disorder.

22 Aug 2011

NIH bias against African-Americans confirmed

Black scientists are significantly less likely than white scientists to win grants from the National Institutes of Health, according to an audit released Thursday. This confirmed suspicions inside the agency about a lingering bias against African-Americans.

22 Aug 2011