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Viewpoints: Advice for the super committee and pundits; Calif. health insurance regulation; NEJM on episodic payment

As a member of the Bipartisan Policy Center's Debt Reduction Task Force, I supported gradually raising the Medicare eligibility age. I think it's a good idea now even though it wouldn't have been a couple of years ago. The bottom line is that raising the Medicare retirement age primarily affects higher income older people, who are more likely to be able to keep working and can afford the premiums even if they don't.

26 Aug 2011

Essilor introduces first high performance anti-fogging lenses

Essilor today announced the launch of Optifog, the first high-performance anti-fogging lenses, in response to high consumer demand. This new category of lenses represents a major technological breakthrough in keeping with the long tradition of innovation at Essilor.

26 Aug 2011

DaTscan allows doctors to differentiate Parkinson's from other movement disorders

Thanks to a new diagnostic imaging technique, physicians now have an objective test to evaluate patients for parkinsonian syndromes, such as Parkinson's disease. Northwestern Memorial Hospital is among the first institutions in the country to offer DaTscan-, the only FDA-approved imaging agent for assessment of movement disorders.

26 Aug 2011

Southampton scientists to develop new single molecule DNA sequencing method

A new method of single molecule DNA sequencing is being developed by scientists at the University of Southampton with funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's Strategic Tools and Resources Development Fund.

26 Aug 2011

Roundup: Federal appeals court says Ariz. Medicaid co-pays violate law; Mich. court rules against medicinal marijuana policies

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that mandatory copayments charged to Arizona's poorest residents violate federal law. The three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said federal health officials failed to show how the copays, imposed in November after a seven-year court battle, served any purpose besides cutting the state's Medicaid budget.

26 Aug 2011

Countdown begins for GP11 – The Conference for General Practice

With only six weeks to go until the Royal Australian College of General Practitioner’s (RACGP) annual conference - GP11, final preparations are well underway for what will be an outstanding program of presentations, workshops and social networking opportunities for GPs and allied healthcare professionals.

25 Aug 2011

Temporary ER staff poses increased safety risk to patients

Temporary staff members working in a hospital’s fast-paced emergency department are twice as likely as permanent employees to be involved in medication errors that harm patients, new Johns Hopkins research suggests.

25 Aug 2011

Antidepressant alert – Citalopram associated to heart rhythm disturbances

Antidepressant citalopram (Celexa, Forest Laboratories) should not be used in doses higher than 40 mg per day because of concerns that it can cause potentially fatal changes in heart rhythm, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns.

25 Aug 2011

Allergan gets FDA nod for use of Botox in urinary incontinence

Allergan Inc. has received United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to market the wrinkle smoother Botox as a treatment for urinary incontinence. The FDA approved the drug for people with overactive bladders who have neurologic conditions such as multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries, the agency said today in a statement. The medicine is injected into the bladder to increase its capacity by relaxing muscles.

25 Aug 2011

New guidance for blood pressure monitoring

Blood pressure has been measured and recorded in the same way for nearly a century. This is set to change. Researchers believe that the earlier way has led to the misdiagnosis of many. This could be due to a phenomenon called “white coat hypertension” or rise in the blood pressure due to nervousness on meeting the medical staff. It is seen that at least 25% of the population suffers from white coat hypertension.

25 Aug 2011

MDxHealth first half 2011 commercial revenues increase 19%

MDxHealth SA, a leading molecular diagnostics company in the field of personalized medicine, announced today its 2011 half-year results.

25 Aug 2011

CVRx introduces CE Mark approved Barostim neo for treatment of uncontrolled hypertension

CVRx, Inc., a private medical device company, introduced today its second-generation implantable device, the Barostim neo, for the treatment of uncontrolled hypertension. The Barostim neo features a new unilateral, 1mm electrode and a new smaller, more advanced stimulator to allow for more focused and efficient delivery of therapy. These improvements have led to shorter procedure times and extended longevity.

25 Aug 2011

Vanderbilt awarded $4.85 million grant for new research network on law and neuroscience

Vanderbilt University has been awarded a $4.85 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to manage the newly established MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience.

25 Aug 2011

Removal of OTC drugs for toddlers from the market reduces therapeutic errors

A new study by researchers at the University of Maryland has revealed a 46 percent drop in reported errors after drugmakers in October 2007 removed from the market a number of over-the-counter cough and cold medications labeled for children under the age of 2.

25 Aug 2011

Researchers pave the way for functional analysis of non-protein-coding genes

When investigating cancer cells, researchers discovered numerous peculiarities: Particular RNA molecules are present in large numbers, particular genes are overactive. Do these characteristics have a relation to cancer? Do they promote cell growth? Do they inactivate growth brakes or are they just a whim of nature?

25 Aug 2011

AHF shares The Lancet's concerns over use of Gilead's Truvada as HIV prevention pill

Today AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) commented on an editorial published in the September 2011 issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases that raises concerns about the use of the HIV treatment drug Truvada, manufactured by Gilead Sciences Inc., as an HIV prevention pill or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), agreeing with the publication's public health concerns.

25 Aug 2011

Insight into how bacterial toxins cause human diseases may help improve treatment

A better understanding of how bacterial toxins cause common human diseases may lead to their improved treatment and prevention according to a paper just published by Irish and US scientists in Nature Reviews Microbiology.

25 Aug 2011

Study reveals striking brain similarities in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia

Researchers from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and Beaumont Hospital have conducted a study which has found striking brain similarities in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The research has also pinpointed for the first time that a process which controls how information is transmitted from neuron to neuron in the brain is altered in both conditions and may potentially contribute to the developments of improved treatments in the future.

25 Aug 2011

First Edition: August 25, 2011

In today's headlines, reports about a new Congressional Budget Office report and the usually unlikely assumptions it makes -- including the end of Medicare physician payment fixes.

25 Aug 2011

Hippocampus neurons encode every sequential moment in series of events

The hippocampus is a brain structure that plays a major role in the process of memory formation. It is not entirely clear how the hippocampus manages to string together events that are part of the same experience but are separated by "empty" periods of time. Now, new research published by Cell Press in the August 25 issue of the journal Neuron finds that there are neurons in the hippocampus that encode every sequential moment in a series of events that compose a discrete experience.

25 Aug 2011