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BMA ballot results on industrial action to be published next week

The BMA’s ballot of doctors on industrial action on major changes to the NHS pension scheme closes at 5pm on Tuesday 29 May 2012.

25 May 2012

No contract renewal for CEO tied to billing collection controversy

Fairview Health Services of Minnesota opted not to renew the contract of CEO Mark Eustis after investigations into the role of bill collection company Accretive Health at the hospital.

25 May 2012

FDA reauthorization bill sails through Senate

Showing unusual bipartisan spirit, the Senate passed a massive FDA user-fee reauthorization bill Thursday designed to prevent drug shortages and speed federal approval of medicines, including lower-cost generic versions.

25 May 2012

While GOP pledges austerity, Democrats rebuff efforts to restructure Medicare, Medicaid

Health care continues to play a major role this political season. News outlets look at the parties' differences on spending, Sen. Baucus' early reelection calculations and a protest against Rep. Steve King.

25 May 2012

School districts, hospitals cut nurses

Nurses, long a presence in many schools and the backbone of hospital care, are being cut back or stretched thin, according to several news organizations; Meanwhile, NPR reports on a poll that found three out of five patients feel their doctors rush through exams.

25 May 2012

Dueling student loan bills stall in Senate

Neither measure reached the 60-vote threshold needed to delay an interest rate increase for 7.4 million students with college loans. Republicans want to pay for it by abolishing a preventive health program in the health care law; Democrats proposed raising Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes on high-income owners of some privately held companies.

25 May 2012

$CDC report finds states spend only a fraction of tobacco funds to fight smoking$

CDC report finds states spend only a fraction of tobacco funds to fight smoking

The study says states collected $244 billion from tobacco settlement payments between 1998 and 2010, and used about $8 billion of that for anti-smoking campaigns.

25 May 2012

Auditors find Medicare lax in collecting overpayments; New members named to Medpac

Federal auditors say Medicare failed to collect about 80 percent of the more than $400 million that were identified as overpayments, Modern Healthcare reports.

25 May 2012

Merck welcomes launch of ROTATEQ in Rwanda of Africa’s rotavirus vaccination program

Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, welcomes today's launch in Rwanda of Africa's first national rotavirus vaccination program with ROTATEQ (rotavirus vaccine, live, oral, pentavalent), Merck's vaccine for the prevention of rotavirus disease.

25 May 2012

Measuring bone age should be part of routine care for pediatric patients with Crohn's disease

Measuring bone age should be a standard practice of care for pediatric patients with Crohn's disease, in order to properly interpret growth status and improve treatment, according to a new study from the UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital.

25 May 2012

WHO can survive with reform, flexibility

"As the nations of the world attend the World Health Assembly in Geneva this week, the World Health Organization is in a budget crisis and continuing to struggle for relevancy among better-funded, more agile philanthropic foundations and disease-specific initiatives," Thomas Bollyky, senior fellow for global health, economics, and development at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), writes in this CFR expert brief.

25 May 2012

New ad touts Obama's commitment to Medicare

President Barack Obama's campaign rolled out ads pitched to seniors and veterans Wednesday. Meanwhile, Politico analyzes Mitt Romney's decision to emphasize his record as a businessman rather than as Massachusetts governor when he helped pass that state's health reform law.

25 May 2012

GSU aims to improve reading for children with DHH

Researchers at Georgia State University's College of Education have been awarded a significant $10 million grant to create the first national research center aimed at dramatically improving reading for children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH).

25 May 2012

Union reaches contract agreement with Minn. hospitals

Union workers have overwhelmingly ratified a new three-year contract that averted a strike at eight Twin Cities hospitals. The union represents 3,500 nursing assistants, technicians and support staff. The agreement was reached last week after union members voted to authorize a 2- to 5-day strike. The union says the new contract holds back on increases in health benefit premiums, retains overtime benefits and includes small wage increases.

25 May 2012

Revive rights-based focus on women's health

"We need to revive the rights-based agenda and realign research priorities for women's health," journalist Priya Shetty writes in this SciDev.Net opinion piece. "The activists who fought to put human rights at the center of women's sexual and reproductive health, at the landmark International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994, may have won the battle -- but they are still fighting the war," she continues and outlines the "radical set of resolutions" produced by the conference.

25 May 2012

Senate inches closer to passage of FDA reauthorization bill

The Senate struck a deal to vote Thursday afternoon on 17 amendments before moving onto final passage of the bill to reauthorize the Food and Drug Administration's user fee programs.

25 May 2012

Aetna's IOE Transplant Network to add UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside Hospital

Aetna announced today that UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside Hospital has been designated as a participating facility in Aetna's Institutes of Excellence Transplant Network.

25 May 2012

Doctors disagree on new prostate cancer screening guidelines

One doctor suggests the problem is the rush to treatment, not the screening; another suggests that a failure to screen men could be more costly in the long run.

25 May 2012

Global Polio Eradication initiative launches 'emergency action plan'

"A global initiative to rid the world of polio launched an emergency action plan on Thursday because gaps in funding and vaccination coverage threaten to derail a final push towards stamping out the paralyzing disease," AlertNet reports.

25 May 2012

5 questions about the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition

In this article on the Feed the Future initiative's webpage, Tjada McKenna, deputy coordinator for development for Feed the Future, and Jonathan Shrier, acting special representative for global food security and deputy coordinator for diplomacy for Feed the Future, ask and answer five questions about the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, launched last week by the Obama Administration.

25 May 2012