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Journalists discuss challenges of reporting on global health issues

The Global Post's "Global Pulse" blog reports on a GlobalPost and Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard seminar that took place in December, at which "journalists discussed the challenges in telling compelling global health stories in the digital age."

13 Jan 2012

CVS agrees to pay $5M to settle Medicare drug false advertising claims

After more than two years of investigation, CVS Caremark agreed on Thursday to pay $5 million to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission that the company had misrepresented the price of certain prescription drugs in one of its Medicare drug plans, causing many older consumers to pay significantly higher prices than advertised.

13 Jan 2012

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

IBM's non-contact, microfluidic, silicon probe minimizes patient discomfort

IBM scientists have developed a flexible, non-contact microfluidic probe made from silicon that can aid researchers and pathologists to investigate critical tissue samples accurately for drug discovery and disease diagnostics.

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

Medicine may not be a remedy for heartburn

ABC News on December 27th, 2011 with Diane Sawyer featured "Reports of Acid Reflux Symptoms Double" and the epidemic in heartburn issues amongst the United States population, attributing the eating habits of the Baby Boomer generation as the primary cause.

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

ViroPharma's NDS for Cinryze receives Health Canada's Priority Review status

ViroPharma Incorporated today announced that Health Canada has granted the company Priority Review status for its New Drug Submission (NDS) for Cinryze (C1 inhibitor [human]).

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

Many seniors with kidney disease are good candidates for transplants

Thousands more American senior citizens with kidney disease are good candidates for transplants and could get them if physicians would get past outdated medical biases and put them on transplant waiting lists, according to a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers.

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

Rainbow Coral joins forces with BioHouston

Rainbow Coral Corp. positioned itself at the cutting edge of biotechnology innovation today by joining forces with BioHouston, Inc., one of the nation's preeminent drivers of life sciences research and commercialization.

13 Jan 2012