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Tricky issues surround Supreme Court's health law review

Should the arguments heard by the high court regarding the health law be televised on C-SPAN? And should certain justices step away from the case? These are among the key questions that continue to buzz around the health law's day in court.

30 Nov 2011

MSF addresses Cameroon cholera epidemic

This post on Medecins Sans Frontiere's (MSF) website describes the humanitarian organization's activities in Cameroon to address a 14-month-long cholera epidemic.

30 Nov 2011

Texas pharmacists assail Medicaid cuts; Ariz. could restore kids' coverage

Texas pharmacists say a plan to have health maintenance organizations manage the drug needs of Medicaid enrollees will drive them out of business. Meanwhile, Arizona officials announce a plan that will leverage federal Medicaid funds and allow them to restore insurance to some children who lost it in recent budget cuts.

30 Nov 2011

Mayo Clinic becomes FUS Foundation's new Research Award recipient

The Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation has announced that its Research Awards Program is funding a Mayo Clinic study that will be the first to use U.S. commercial database information to compare the costs of three minimally-invasive treatments for symptomatic uterine fibroids, a benign and often debilitating condition that affects more than one in four American women.

30 Nov 2011

State roundup: No Mass. insurance mandate referendum

If you chafe against the Massachusetts requirement that you have health insurance, sorry but you won't have a chance to vote against it - not in the next election, anyway. Backers of a ballot measure to repeal the state's insurance mandate sent out an email last week saying they had failed to gather the needed signatures.

30 Nov 2011

Mandatory cuts: Winners and losers in the post-super committee landscape

Many domestic programs will feel pain, but Medicaid appears to be part of the "protected" class. Meanwhile, news outlets continue to report on the pending Medicare physician pay cut and how fixing this scheduled reduction could trigger cuts in other parts of the health care sector.

30 Nov 2011

AMGA to launch Phase II of Accountable Care Collaborative

The American Medical Group Association (AMGA) announced today that it will launch the next phase of its Accountable Care Collaborative: Transforming to a Value-Based System of Care.

30 Nov 2011

RSNA technology can control patient's access to medical images and reports

Patients at three major medical institutions can control the sharing of their medical images and reports with their doctors and medical providers. The RSNA Image Share network was demonstrated today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

30 Nov 2011

Women over 40 would benefit from annual screening mammography

Women in their 40s with no family history of breast cancer are just as likely to develop invasive breast cancer as are women with a family history of the disease, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

30 Nov 2011

Groups push for legislation to encourage Medicaid programs to use generic drugs

A group of pharmacists, generic drug makers and consumer interest organizations are trying to build support for a bill that offers states financial incentives to use generic drugs under Medicaid instead of brand-name drugs, which supporters say will save both states and the federal government money.

30 Nov 2011

AIDS 2012 conference to be held in Washington

Registration, abstract and programme activity submissions for the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012), to be held from 22 to 27 July 2012 in Washington, D.C., open December 1 online at www.aids2012.org.

30 Nov 2011

Overview of epidemiological situation with regard to MRSA in Germany

In German hospitals, each year 132 000 patients contract infection with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). For more than a decade, different countries have reported an increasing incidence of MRSA infections in the general population.

30 Nov 2011

Legalization of medical marijuana reduces traffic fatalities, alcohol consumption

A groundbreaking new study shows that laws legalizing medical marijuana have resulted in a nearly nine percent drop in traffic deaths and a five percent reduction in beer sales.

30 Nov 2011

Study examines alternative immunization schedule occurrence rates in Washington State

Seventy-seven percent of Washington state pediatricians report that they are sometimes or frequently asked to provide alternative childhood vaccine schedules for their patients, according to a new study from Seattle Children's Research Institute. Researchers also found that 61 percent of Washington state pediatricians are comfortable using an alternative schedule when asked by a parent.

30 Nov 2011

Collegium Ramazzini honors UC Riverside toxicologist with fellowship

Toxicologist David Eastmond at the University of California, Riverside has been elected a fellow of the Collegium Ramazzini, an organization of international scholars who work towards solutions of occupational and environmental health problems around the world.

30 Nov 2011

Academic institutions in Sweden among the quickest to adopt JoVE

Academic institutions in Sweden are among the quickest to adopt a novel biomedical science publication, the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE), with over 35 percent of institutions subscribing and contributing content to the journal. One explanation for this phenomenon is that Swedes are among the fastest people in the world to embrace new technologies.

30 Nov 2011

Global Fund postpones Round 11 grants, approves new strategy and organization plan

The Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria decided to postpone Round 11 grant approval during a two-day meeting in Accra, Ghana, that concluded on November 22. According to a press release from the Global Fund, the decision to postpone Round 11 was due to "a revised resource forecast presented to the Board which showed that substantial budget challenges in some donor countries, compounded by low interest rates, have significantly affected the resources available for new grant funding."

30 Nov 2011

Viewpoints: GOP leaders, Obama share link to mandate; expensive benefits for seniors

I don't want to focus on the differences between Romney and Gingrich. I want to focus on the commonalities. Because these two men have a lot in common with not only each other but also with President Obama. Both Gingrich and Romney, for instance, supported a universal health care plan backed by an individual mandate requiring all Americans of means to purchase health-care insurance - just as Obama does.

30 Nov 2011

Self-referred medical imaging contributes to medical cost escalation

Physicians who have a financial interest in imaging equipment are more likely to refer their patients for potentially unnecessary imaging exams, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

30 Nov 2011

Al-Shabab bans U.N., other aid agencies from working in Somalia; U.N. SG condemns actions

"Al-Shabab rebels banned some U.N. and international aid agencies from working in Somalia on Monday and began seizing and looting some of their offices in southern and central areas of the country, the Islamist group and aid sources said," Reuters reports.

30 Nov 2011