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Draft national plan to fight Alzheimer's released

A framework for the plan was unveiled in January. This more fleshed-out version builds on that outline, makes treatment a top priority and focuses on the burden the disease places on families and caregivers.

24 Feb 2012

UH GCSW to host Houston, Leading America's Future round table discussion

The University of Houston (UH) Graduate College of Social Work (GCSW) will host, "Houston, Leading America's Future," a round table discussion addressing what can be done today to ensure the success of Houston's multicultural society at 4 p.m., Friday, Feb. 24 at the UH GCSW building, Room 102.

24 Feb 2012

Feds award health exchange grants to 10 states

The Department of Health and Human Services is sending $229 million in exchange establishment grants to 10 states -- half of which are receiving this funding for a second time around. However, an Associated Press analysis found that progress among states in setting up these health insurance marketplaces remains uneven.

24 Feb 2012

Castlight Health named among Fast Company's annual Most Innovative Companies

Castlight Health, developer of a personalized health care shopping portal offering unbiased information about health care cost and quality, announced that it has been named one of the world's most innovative companies in 2012 by Fast Company. Fast Company listed Castlight Health fourth on its list of the top ten most innovative companies in the health care industry.

24 Feb 2012

Scalia could be unlikely health law ally

The fate of President Barack Obama's health-care law may hinge on the administration's ability to enlist an unlikely ally: Justice Antonin Scalia, the pillar of the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative wing.

24 Feb 2012

Ipsen, Active Biotech report data from tasquinimod Phase II study on CRPC

Active Biotech's and Ipsen's castrate resistant prostate cancer project, TASQ, will be presented at the 27th Annual EAU Congress held in Paris on 24-28 February 2012.

24 Feb 2012

Va. lawmakers backdown from requiring invasive, pre-abortion ultrasound

Virginia lawmakers backed off a proposal Wednesday to require women seeking abortions get an transvaginal ultrasound after Gov. Bob McDonnell said he wouldn't support it. Virginia House lawmakers instead approved an amended bill requiring only an external ultrasound.

24 Feb 2012

Study aims to develop noninvasive method to analyze interstitial cystitis

A pilot study led by University of Kentucky researchers shows that the gene expression analysis of urine sediment could provide a noninvasive way to analyze interstitial cystitis in some patients.

24 Feb 2012

Governor of Illinois urges Medicaid cuts

Pat Quinn, the Democratic governor, underscored the need for cuts to Medicaid and the state worker pension system, but some critics said his proposals did not offer enough specifics about how to reduce the state's underfinanced liabilities.

24 Feb 2012

Kidney failure patients may benefit from frequent and longer dialysis treatments

Frequent and longer dialysis treatments may provide more benefits for patients than conventional dialysis treatments, according to several studies appearing in upcoming issues of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology.

24 Feb 2012

Health issues create political flashpoints during GOP presidential primary debate

GOP candidates sparred during last night's face-off over a range of issues including the Massachusetts health law that Mitt Romney signed while that state's governor, family planning and contraception, and abortion.

24 Feb 2012

Workshop increases pharmacy and medical students' empathy

One year ago, a landmark study led by Mohammadreza Hojat, Ph.D., research professor, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Thomas Jefferson University, quantified a relationship between physicians' empathy and their patients' positive clinical outcomes, suggesting that a physician's empathy is an important factor associated with clinical competence.

24 Feb 2012

State legislatures contemplate controlling costs, health IT, prescribing authority

The proposed premium hikes for hundreds of thousands of California consumers with individual coverage would outpace the cost of overall medical care, which has risen just 3.6 percent in the last year.

24 Feb 2012

Study strengthens statistical link between BPA and heart disease

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a controversial chemical widely used in the plastics industry. A new study followed people over a 10-year time period and shows that healthy people with higher urine concentrations of BPA were more likely to later develop heart disease.

24 Feb 2012

Ga. vasectomy bill goes viral

A Democratic lawmaker has proposed denying men vasectomies as a parody of a Republican bill that would prohibit abortions for women more than 20 weeks pregnant. Elsewhere, a Wisconsin bill would require physicians to give women a physical exam and be present when giving abortion-inducing drugs.

24 Feb 2012

Penn researchers produce first state-by-state sleep maps for the U.S.

Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have put sleeplessness on the map - literally. The research team, analyzing nationwide data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has produced the first state-by-state sleep maps for the United States, revealing that residents of Southern states suffer from the most sleep disturbances and daytime fatigue, while residents on the West Coast report the least amount of problems.

24 Feb 2012

More people than ever overweight, obese in developed countries, OECD report says

"More people in developed countries are overweight or obese than ever before, dooming them to years of ill health, pushing up health care costs and piling more pressure on health systems, a report by the OECD found on Tuesday," Reuters reports.

24 Feb 2012

PTSD more prevalent among firefighters in Israel

A new study on the prevalence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among firefighters in Israel indicates that approximately 90 percent show some form of full or partial symptoms.

24 Feb 2012

Blog examines gap between mental health disease burden, attention given to problem

This post in KPLU's "Humanosphere" blog examines the "gap between the disease burden of mental illness and the amount of funding and attention devoted to solving the problem," referencing a post published Friday in the Global Health Interest Forum's "Blog of Scientists for Global Health," written by Paul Southworth, a visiting scholar on malaria and vaccine science at the NIH.

24 Feb 2012

Cedars-Sinai pharmacy director to receive 2012 Whitney award

During her 34-year career, Rita Shane, PharmD, has earned a reputation as a tireless advocate for patient safety - one who has transformed the way pharmacists perform their jobs.

24 Feb 2012