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In aftermath of Dem's upset special election, will budget balancers now set sights on Medicaid?

Not that there was much doubt left, but Tuesday's uphill victory by Democrat Kathy Hochul in a special election in a New York congressional district long dominated by the GOP has made it pretty clear that the budget blueprint approved by House Republicans last month, which would effectively privatize Medicare, isn't so popular with lots of actual voters.

27 May 2011

OPINION: U.S. must do more on global food security

"Washington cannot allow food insecurity to exacerbate instability in already volatile regions. We are not doing all that must be done," Catherine Bertini, a former executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, and Dan Glickman, a former agriculture secretary, write in Politico.

27 May 2011

AP examines debate over India's poverty line

The Associated Press examines the debate over the poverty line in India, noting that a commission that helps set the country's economic policy told the Supreme Court earlier this month that the poverty line in cities was 578 rupees ($12.75) per person per month, and about 450 rupees ($9.93) per person per month for rural areas.

27 May 2011

Stem cell pluripotency depends on E-cadherin molecule

Researchers of the Max Delbr-ck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch have discovered what enables embryonic stem cells to differentiate into diverse cell types and thus to be pluripotent. This pluripotency depends on a specific molecule - E-cadherin - hitherto primarily known for its role in mediating cell-cell adhesion as a kind of "intracellular glue".

27 May 2011

Recent releases in Global Health

As the G8 summit began in Deauville, France, on Thursday, David Olson, the council's director of policy communications, wrote on the Global Health Council's "Blog 4 Global Health" that "global health is nowhere visible on the agenda," which "is in striking contrast to the final communique of the G8 Muskoka, which devoted a significant amount of space to health" (5/26).

27 May 2011

Appointment of drug company to GAVI board draws criticism from NGOs

The appointment of Dutch pharmaceutical company Crucell, recently acquired by Johnson & Johnson, to the board of the GAVI Alliance is "sparking concerns over conflicts of interest and demands for tougher competition to reduce prices," the Financial Times reports.

27 May 2011

NIH awards $2.4 million, five-year grant for research on dementia and delirium

Adults with dementia and delirium may soon have a way to combat their delirium, thanks to a $2.4 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health.

27 May 2011

Obama, Medvedev reaffirm efforts to eradicate polio ahead of G8 summit

President Barack Obama met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Deauville, France, ahead of the G8 summit, ABC News' "Political Punch" blog reports. "The two issued a number of joint statements and agreements on counterterrorism, civil aviation security, visa issues, the Bering Strait region, a joint report assessing 21st Century Missile Challenges, innovation, the rule of law, smart grid partnership, eradicating polio, and medical research," according to the blog.

27 May 2011

OPINION: Aid for women farmers is a worthy investment

In a piece on The Hill's "Congress Blog," Eva Clayton, a former Democratic member of Congress from North Carolina and assistant director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization between 2003 and 2006, calls on the World Bank to invest more in women farmers in the developing world, after the agency "largely ignored the role women and small entrepreneurs can play in the developing world to improve food security" at an April 2011 meeting.

27 May 2011

Gov. Shumlin signs law putting Vermont on path to single-payer system

Gov. Peter Shumlin signed a bill on Thursday that sets Vermont on a path to creating the nation's first publicly financed health care. The law calls for something close to a single-payer system, with doctors and hospitals billing one entity, the state government, for their services.

27 May 2011

Dynamics in the health care system trigger ACO concerns

The traditional wariness that exists between doctors and hospitals, as well as worries related to anti-trust issues, raise questions about which players have the advantage as the specifics regarding accountable care organizations take shape. Meanwhile, ACOs finally have an advocate.

27 May 2011

New ways to replicate what happens to stents tucked inside blood vessels

If by chance you should have a stent inserted in a clogged coronary artery, you can probably count on it staying around for a very long time. So it's important to know what will happen to it.

27 May 2011

Proposed rule for health law's CLASS Act expected in October

Federal officials plan to issue a proposed rule in October that will make major changes to the controversial Community Living Assistance Services and Support (CLASS) program, Assistant Secretary for Aging Kathy Greenlee said Thursday.

27 May 2011

AHRQ: 39,000 school-age children treated for sports-related concussions at emergency departments

About 39,000 school-age children were treated for sports-related concussions at hospital emergency departments in 2008 - approximately 90 percent of all emergency visits for that condition, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

27 May 2011

Senate Democrats pressure states to maintain funding for Planned Parenthood

Some Democratic senators are asking a top government health official to warn states that if they try to exclude family planning clinics like Planned Parenthood from Medicaid and Title X funding, they'll face penalties from the federal government (5/27).

27 May 2011

Despite Senate vote on House-passed budget, Ryan presses forward on debt reduction

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan was unbowed Thursday after the expected, but nonetheless stinging, rejection of his budget and Medicare proposal by the Senate. Ryan told NPR reporters he would do it all over again.

27 May 2011

Molecular mechanism of selected autophagy elucidated

Salmonella is widely prevalent in the animal kingdom. The reason we do not suffer from severe intestinal infections very often is due to our body's defence system, which manages to digest invading bacteria. This is why, generally speaking, a healthy human being will only fall ill if he consumes more than 100.000 salmonella bacteria via a contaminated food source, such as eggs or meat.

27 May 2011

CMS announces dollars doled out to encourage docs, hospitals to adopt electronic health records

The Boston Globe reports on Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which is one of the facilities that received one of these grants.

27 May 2011

Karolinska researchers study four siblings affected by early-onset Alzheimer's disease

Four siblings in a family affected by early-onset Alzheimer's have been studied by a group of researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. This has been a unique opportunity to make comparative studies and to monitor the development of the disease over a prolonged period of time.

27 May 2011

Candidate Pawlenty says he would sign Ryan budget plan

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, now a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, praised the courage and leadership displayed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., with his budget plan.

27 May 2011