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Learning from India's success in eradicating polio

In a post in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, Shelley Thakral, senior communications officer for the foundation's India Country Office, interviews Orin Levine, director of vaccine delivery at the foundation, about his recent trip to India "to observe the experience of Bihar, a state in Northern India, where the polio effort is now being leveraged to strengthen routine immunization in ways that are really exciting."

13 Feb 2013

Musical training before age 7 creates stronger connections in the brain

If you started piano lessons in grade one, or played the recorder in kindergarten, thank your parents and teachers. Those lessons you dreaded - or loved - helped develop your brain. The younger you started music lessons, the stronger the connections in your brain.

13 Feb 2013

U.S. News examines growing threat of drug-resistant TB

U.S. News & World Report examines the growing epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), highlighting a "new paper published earlier this week in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal warn[ing] that the first cases of 'totally drug-resistant' tuberculosis have been found in South Africa and that the disease is 'virtually untreatable."

13 Feb 2013

Supporting innovation through public-private partnerships

"Given the increasingly aligned incentives" between the private sector and global health and development practitioners, "the time is right for more effective and consistent collaboration between these two groups," Dheeraj Batra, head of business design at IDEO Mumbai, and David Milestone, senior adviser at USAID's Center for Accelerating Innovation and Impact, write in a USAID "IMPACTblog" post originally published in the "Stanford Social Innovation Review."

13 Feb 2013

Final word on essential health benefits expected soon

CQ Healthbeat reports the Office of Management and Budget is reviewing several health law implementation rules including this one, which will determine the types of coverage available to consumers. Meanwhile, a study examines how the health law's caps on out-of-pocket costs will affect consumers next year.

13 Feb 2013

Government recovers billions in health fraud crackdown

The Obama administration announced Monday that it recovered a record $4.2 billion last year from medical providers who cheated Medicare and other government health programs.

13 Feb 2013

African-American and Caucasian women absorb, metabolize vitamin D at same rate

African-American women battling vitamin D deficiencies need the same dose as Caucasian women to treat the condition, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

13 Feb 2013

Global gender equality critical for successful development programs

"Many steps have been taken during the Obama administration to elevate the issues of global gender equality," but "perhaps the most critical thus far occurred on January 30, 2013, when President Obama signed a presidential memorandum focusing on these issues," contributor Juliana Thong writes in the "Global Washington" blog.

13 Feb 2013

Ability to tune gene activity will permit refined research for drug resistance, cancer

Scientists who built a synthetic gene circuit that allowed for the precise tuning of a gene's expression in yeast have now refined this new research tool to work in human cells, according to research published online in Nature Communications.

13 Feb 2013

VA adding mental health staff - including doctors, nurses and counselors

The Veterans Affairs Department said Monday it has added more than 1,000 mental health professionals and 200 support staff over the past eight months to meet the needs of returning veterans, but still has more to do to meet the requirements of an executive order issued by President Barack Obama.

13 Feb 2013

Scientists identify aromatic rice with very low arsenic content

Millions of people worldwide are regularly exposed to arsenic through drinking water and eating rice grown in soil and water containing high amounts of arsenic. Long-term exposure can lead to the development of different types of cancer as well as serious cardiovascular, neurological, and other health problems. Scientists have now identified aromatic rice from Bangladesh that has far lower arsenic concentrations than found in non-aromatic rice.

13 Feb 2013

Obama opposes raising Medicare's eligibility age to reduce spending

According to White House spokesman Jay Carney, the president does not believe this is the right policy to take, although he is open to discussing other entitlement program changes.

13 Feb 2013

Antibody therapeutics targeting GPCRs to be developed by alliance between MorphoSys and Heptares

MorphoSys AG (FSE: MOR; Prime Standard Segment, TecDAX) and UK-based Heptares Therapeutics, the leading GPCR drug discovery and development company, have signed an agreement to discover novel antibody therapeutics targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are membrane proteins involved in a broad range of biological processes and diseases.

13 Feb 2013

Setting the scene: Economy, sequestration at heart of Obama's address

His State Of The Union comments will likely highlight the different partisan views on how these automatic spending cuts, set to kick in March 1, could be minimized. Republicans continue to press for changes in entitlement programs, such as Medicare.

13 Feb 2013

State roundup: Ga. officials end Medicaid electronic eligibility system talks

A federal judge has overturned an Arizona law that sought to block funding through the state for Planned Parenthood's health care clinics because the group also performs abortions.

13 Feb 2013

U.N. Secretary General condemns violence against health workers in Nigeria

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday "strongly condemned the killing in north-eastern Nigeria of three doctors from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, calling the attack and other recent incidents of violence against health workers 'unacceptable,'" the U.N. News Centre reports.

13 Feb 2013

Bedside baths and bloodstream infections in children: an interview with Aaron Milstone

Bedside baths in the hospital are nothing new. They are typically done for patient comfort and to maintain basic personal hygiene.

13 Feb 2013

State Medicaid drug selection panels' conflict-of-interest policies vary widely

State policies to ensure drug selection in Medicaid programs is free from outside influence vary widely, according to a new study.

13 Feb 2013

Hospitals reluctant to provide estimates of hip replacement costs, study finds

Researchers called 20 top orthopedic hospitals and two hospitals from every state and DC. Of the orthopedic centers, nine provided an estimate of hospital costs and doctor fees. Only 10 of the other 102 hospitals offered that information.

13 Feb 2013

Scopolamine may also be possible treatment for anxiety disorders

However, scopolamine is re-emerging as an antidepressant, with recent studies showing that scopolamine can rapidly improve mood in depressed patients. In addition, in a new study published in Biological Psychiatry this month by Dr. Moriel Zelikowsky and colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, it may also be a possible treatment for anxiety disorders.

13 Feb 2013