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FDA under scrutiny for appointment of 3 scientists with ties to industry

Fiscal Times looks at concerns about conflicts of interest on FDA advisory committees. Also, ProPublica examines a bill that would make results from NIH-financed studies harder to get.

13 Jan 2012

Political cartooon: 'A Healthy Bottom Line'

Kaiser Health News provides a fresh take on health policy developments with "A Healthy Bottom Line" by Matt Wuerker.

13 Jan 2012

Chamber president calls for entitlement reform

Tom Donohue, the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, says Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security costs must be tamed.

13 Jan 2012

5 percent of Americans account for half of nation's health care spending

A new report from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has found that five percent of Americans are responsible for half the nation's health care spending. In the meantime, half the population spends practically nothing on health care in a year.

13 Jan 2012

USAID's Shah discusses progress in post-earthquake Haiti on NPR's Talk of the Nation

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah on Thursday appeared on NPR's Talk of the Nation to discuss rebuilding efforts in Haiti two years after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake destroyed much of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

13 Jan 2012

Despite one year without polio cases, threat of disease still looms in India

T. Jacob John, a former professor of clinical virology an the Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, who has served on several Global and National Committees on Immunization and Polio Eradication, writes in this opinion piece in India's Hindu, "While one year has passed without polio caused by natural poliovirus, we can claim complete eradication only after we ensure the absence of wild and vaccine polioviruses in the population."

13 Jan 2012

Al Jazeera examines candidate malaria vaccine, other ongoing efforts to thwart the disease

Al Jazeera reports on the candidate malaria vaccine known as RTS,S, which "has been heralded as one of the Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2011 by Time and Science magazines, Doctors Without Borders and the Lancet."

13 Jan 2012

Walgreen-Express Scripts spat leads millions of consumers to new pharmacies

A Walgreen official maintained a defense of the split even as rival drug stores have ramped up their marketing efforts to attract Express Scripts customers.

13 Jan 2012

Patient advocates seek more time to weigh in on essential benefit rules

A group of 75 patient organizations has asked the Department of Health and Human Services to extend the comment period, which now has a Jan. 31 deadline, until March 15. They note that the design of "essential benefits" will impact the entire health system and an estimated 70 million patients.

13 Jan 2012

Nutrient Rich Foods approach to eating promotes healthful shopping, eating patterns

With the obesity epidemic impacting American health care, a new study led by Karen Glanz, Ph.D., M.P.H., at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and the School of Nursing, researchers at RTI International, and the Nutrient Rich Foods Coalition found that educating consumers to use the Nutrient Rich Foods approach to eating is an effective means of promoting healthful shopping and eating patterns, and improving diet quality.

13 Jan 2012

Suing others for spread of disease ignores dynamics of infectious disease

In this post in the Center for Global Development's (CGD) "Global Health Policy" blog, Victoria Fan, a research fellow at the CGD, and Richard Cash, senior lecturer on global health at the Harvard School of Public Health's Department of Global Health and Population, report on a lawsuit brought forth against the U.N. on behalf of some of Haiti's 15,000 cholera victims.

13 Jan 2012

First Edition: January 13, 2012

"The much celebrated, and much maligned, public option may have died in Congress, but it's alive and well in California. Unique in the nation for having public health insurance plans that are run by counties, California has plans that stretch from San Francisco to the Mexican border and cover 2.5 million residents"

13 Jan 2012

Ghana likely to meet MDGs, development economist Jeffrey Sachs says

After visiting Ghana on a recent tour to examine poverty reduction strategies and progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and "one of the world's most prominent development economists, says Ghana is proving to be one of the strongest performers on the [MDGs] in Africa and unlike some of its African counterparts is likely to fulfill them by the 2015 deadline," the Christian Science Monitor reports.

13 Jan 2012

White House staff changes will tighten circle of health policy insiders

With President Barack Obama's reshuffling of White House personnel this week, the already small circle of administration officials driving the health policy has gotten even smaller and closer to the president - and to each other. That means most of the important health care policy decisions will continue to be primarily driven by two people: Nancy-Ann DeParle, deputy White House chief of staff, and Jeanne Lambrew, deputy assistant to the president for health policy.

13 Jan 2012

CHUMS project to measure outcomes of NHS care in children with neurodisabilites

An exciting new study that will help put children with neurodisabilites at the centre of evaluating their own care has received almost a quarter of a million pounds (£250,00) in funding. The CHildren's oUtcome Measurement Study (CHUMS) will assess how to capture the views and experiences of children with neurodisability and their families in order to measure the outcomes of the NHS care they receive.

13 Jan 2012

Gingrich, Romney abortion ads question conservative credentials

GOP presidential contenders Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are trading blows on abortion with a series of ads that question each candidate's conservative credentials on the issue. In the meantime, Kaiser Health News looks at the differences among the GOP candidates in how they would reform Medicare.

13 Jan 2012

Four Loyola anesthesiologists have written chapters for Manual of Clinical Anesthesiology

Four Loyola anesthesiologists have written chapters for the Manual of Clinical Anesthesiology, a popular reference and teaching tool used in hospitals across the nation.

13 Jan 2012

Wildlife products smuggled into U.S. pose potential human health risk, study suggests

"In a new study published on Tuesday in the journal PLoS One, scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the EcoHealth Alliance, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other institutions reported on the first effort to identify new viruses in wildlife products that had been smuggled illegally into the U.S.," TIME's "Ecocentric" blog reports.

13 Jan 2012

Breaking down the issues related to outpatient medical errors

The attention paid over the past decade to reducing medical errors in the hospital setting has reduced deaths, infections and injuries caused by other surgical and hospital errors - and now there's a call for similar attention on outpatient procedures.

13 Jan 2012

Federal judge halts Calif. plan to cut Medicaid payments for medical transportation

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday to halt a 10% Medi-Cal provider reimbursement cut to medical transportation services. It was the third time the state has lost in court on this issue. State officials said the state will appeal.

13 Jan 2012