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Ensysce announces latest data on delivery platform for therapeutic siRNA

Ensysce Biosciences Inc. announced today the publication of their latest data on their delivery platform for short interfering RNA (siRNA) for therapeutic purposes in the journal Materials.

14 Feb 2012

Stress protein effectively activates replication of HBV in liver cells

People who have received a donor organ need lifelong immunosuppressant drugs to keep their immune system from attacking the foreign tissue. However, with a suppressed immune system, many infectious agents turn into a threat. Infections such as with human cytomegalovirus and a certain type of human polyomavirus frequently cause complications in transplant recipients.

14 Feb 2012

Administration brief defends Medicaid expansion

Administration attorneys defended on Friday the part of President Barack Obama's healthcare law that expands the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled and said Congress has the power to set the terms under which it will disburse funds to the states.

14 Feb 2012

GAO finds big disparities in prices of some medical devices

News outlets examine a variety of health workplace issues, including a GAO report on medical device prices and efforts to get health workers vaccinated for the flu.

14 Feb 2012

Tax increases, Medicare cuts expected in Obama budget

President Obama will release his budget plan Monday, which is already getting its share of Republican detractors. In it, Obama will propose tax increases on the wealthy and $360 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, mostly in the form of payment cuts to providers and drug companies.

14 Feb 2012

Promising compound may counteract HIV's ability to hijack CD59 protein

One of the frustrations for scientists working on HIV/AIDS treatments has been the human immunodeficiency virus' ability to evade the body's immune system. Now an Indiana University researcher has discovered a compound that could help put the immune system back in the hunt.

14 Feb 2012

Viewpoints: Rationing health care, Jindal and hospitals, Romney vs. past

It is time to begin open discussions about how to deal with expensive, minimally effective, medical care with patients, families, professionals and ethicists and not the medical industrialists who gain from prolonging life at every expense.

14 Feb 2012

Shortage of primary care doctors raises concerns

As the administration moves toward implementation of the health law, officials are seeking to bolster the number of primary care doctors. Also, hospitals are concerned about a possible measurement that would grade their efforts on patient safety.

14 Feb 2012

Two research studies receive HSR Impact Award from AcademyHealth

Research studies that helped shine a light on the impact of health reform in Massachusetts and industry influence on health care, respectively, were jointly awarded the AcademyHealth HSR (Health Services Research) Impact Award at the 2012 National Health Policy Conference in Washington, D.C.

14 Feb 2012

Knee replacements double in 10 years, study says

More than 4 million Americans over 50 have artificial knees, according to a new study. ... "These data are sobering because we didn't know what an army of people we've created over the last decade," said study author Elena Losina, co-director of the Orthopedics and Arthritis Center for Outcomes Research at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital. ... Artificial knees also wear out after a period of time, so as the operations are increasingly done on younger Americans, many will live long enough to almost certainly need a second or even third knee replacement.

14 Feb 2012

U of A professor receives $542,000 from NSERC for drinking water research

Water is something people can't live without, that's why it's important that Xing Fang Li finds out what is in our tap water that may pose a disease risk. The researcher from the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta just received $542,000 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for drinking water research.

14 Feb 2012

Large NTD public-private partnership has greater potential than smaller efforts

The announcement at the end of January of the largest coordinated effort to fight neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) provides "more reason to hope that we may soon see a future free of these diseases," Adetokunbo Lucas, former director of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, writes in a Daily Monitor opinion piece.

14 Feb 2012

IBD may disrupt school functioning in children

Children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) may have difficulty functioning in school, particularly because their tendency to internalize problems can impact attendance.

14 Feb 2012

N.Y. Times poll finds majority of Americans say taxes will exceed benefits

A majority of Americans say they expect to pay more in federal taxes over their lifetime than they will ever receive in benefits from the government, according to a recent New York Times poll. At the same time, the taxes Americans pay today are not keeping pace with the growing costs of government. Medicare is the program projected to add the most to federal spending over the next decade, likely increasing the government's annual budget deficits. But only one in five Americans surveyed named Medicare as the fastest-growing benefits program.

14 Feb 2012

Supply of childhood leukemia drug nearly exhausted

A medicine to treat children's leukemia is in such short supply that hospitals may run out within weeks; meanwhile, families of people with Alzheimer's disease are clamoring to use a skin-cancer drug after a promising study in mice.

14 Feb 2012

Hospitals: N.Y. Times finds aggressive debt collection despite charity care rules

New York's charity care system, partly financed by an 8.95 percent surcharge on hospital bills, is one of the most complicated in the nation, but many states have wrestled with aggressive debt collection by hospitals in recent years. Like New York, several passed laws curbing hospitals' pursuit of unpaid bills, including Illinois, California and Minnesota.

14 Feb 2012