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Changes to flexible spending accounts; High co-pays prompt abandoned prescriptions

Minnesota Public Radio: "[T]he federal health care reform law is cutting back on what [flexible spending] accounts will cover and how much workers can put into them. … These two changes are designed to raise more tax revenue to help pay for insuring another 32 million Americans beginning in 2014.

16 Nov 2010

Regional U.N. meeting explores African development

Africa has the potential to expand development with the help of international support and stability, Asha-Rose Migiro, U.N. deputy secretary general, said on Sunday at the opening of the 11th Regional Coordination Mechanism (RCM) meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Next reports.

16 Nov 2010

Neurologic complications remain an important cause of morbidity and mortality after heart surgeries

Strokes, seizures and other neurological complications related to heart surgery account for "considerable morbidity and mortality," Loyola University Health System neurologists report in the November issue of the journal Hospital Practice.

16 Nov 2010

Optivia, UCSF receive SBIR grant to develop transporter-based assay system

Optivia Biotechnology Inc., a leading provider of in vitro transporter assay services, today announced that the company and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), have received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop an innovative system for characterizing the role transporter proteins play in the disposition of drugs by the liver.

16 Nov 2010

Nevada AG files antitrust lawsuit against health care merger

The Associated Press/KLAS-TV in Las Vegas: "The Nevada attorney general's office has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against a $3.1 billion health care merger it says would reduce competition for psychiatric care in Las Vegas. ... The lawsuit is aimed at a proposed merger between Universal Health Services Inc. and Psychiatric Solutions Inc."

16 Nov 2010

Republicans confront realities of health overhaul, position themselves in Congress

The Christian Science Monitor reports that the health overhaul is resting in the GOP's crosshairs. The ultimate defense to the repeal effort is the presidential veto pen. Even with a new majority in the House come January, Republicans concede that winning a repeal vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate is unlikely and the two-thirds needed to override a presidential veto, well out of reach.

16 Nov 2010

UCSF, Pfizer announce partnership to accelerate translation of biomedical research

UCSF and Pfizer, Inc. have formed a new partnership to accelerate the translation of biomedical research into effective new medications and therapies for patients.

16 Nov 2010

Reuters reports on PLoS medicine series on water, sanitation

Nearly 20 percent of the world's population still defecates in the open, and action to improve hygiene, sanitation and water supply could prevent more than 2 million child deaths a year, health experts said" on Monday, following the release of a series of papers on water and sanitation published in the journal PLoS Medicine, Reuters reports.

16 Nov 2010

States seek ways to balance Medicaid budget, contemplate dropping out of program

Kaiser Health News: "As budget-weary state officials contemplate dropping out of the state-federal Medicaid program, a potentially game-changing question has arisen in Washington: Would poor people who lose Medicaid be eligible for subsidies to buy private coverage in an insurance exchange beginning in 2014? Cindy Mann, director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations, last week said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was considering the question.

16 Nov 2010

Yukon receives grant under QTDP program for SmartMix delivery platform

Yukon Medical, LLC, a medical device firm located in Research Triangle Park, NC, is proud to announce it has received a grant under the 2010 Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project (QTDP) for their SmartMix delivery platform.

16 Nov 2010

Verastem closes $16 million Series A financing

Verastem, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing drugs to treat cancer by targeting cancer stem cells, today announced the closing of a $16 million Series A financing. Founding investor, Longwood Founders Fund, was joined by Bessemer Venture Partners, Cardinal Partners, and MPM Capital.

16 Nov 2010

Insuring your health: Many individual health policies do not cover pregnancy

In her latest Kaiser Health News consumer column, Michelle Andrews writes: "Individual health insurance policies generally don't cover maternity care, as a recent investigation by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce reported.

16 Nov 2010

KHN column: Health care – tell us the truth before you tell us why you are right

We need more proposals like those being made by the President's deficit reduction commission, and the Medicare reform proposal authored by Republican House members Ryan, Cantor, and McCarthy. Irrespective of whether they are the best proposals, their authors started from a place where they told the truth.

16 Nov 2010

Today's Op-Eds: Congress needs conservative leadership; reviving tort reform; can states afford to drop Medicaid?

Nothing has gone quite so awry as the massive, government-run Obama health program, and it is plain that the individual mandate, the employee mandate, the abortion funding, the tangle of outsider/insider councils like the comparative effectiveness board and the effective nationalization of healthcare under grants of authority to the Department of Health and Human Services.

16 Nov 2010

Stem cells for stroke: Clinical trial commences

Researchers have started the world’s first clinical trial of stem cells to treat stroke victims in Glasgow. The trial is undertaken by ReNeuron, a Guildford-based biotech company and started this weekend with an elderly man receiving an injection of 2 million stem cells into his brain. It received final approval to go ahead this year.

16 Nov 2010

Risk reduction of 20 ailments with regular exercise: Review

In a review article researchers have concluded that regular exercise cuts the risk of more than 20 illnesses. Some of these include colon cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and stroke said the study published in the International Journal of Clinical Practice.

16 Nov 2010

Anti-stroke blood thinner shows promise in large clinical trials

In new and extensive clinical trials an experimental blood thinner called rivaroxaban is at least as good at preventing strokes as the drug warfarin – that has been the most widely used agent for the past five decades in people with erratic heartbeats called atrial fibrillations. Researchers said this Monday that this drug also sharply reduces the risk of major bleeding that is seen with warfarin.

16 Nov 2010