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Report looks at autoworker health care for spending variation clues

A new report looks at autoworker health care claims to find clues as to why spending varies by region and finds that hospital price variation made up one-third of the difference.

16 Feb 2012

Children still exposed to same level of ads for junk foods

Despite new regulations restricting UK TV advertisements for food, children are still exposed to the same level of advertising for junk foods which are high in fat, salt and sugar, researchers have found.

16 Feb 2012

Conservatives' mixed message on health care mandate

The New York Times explores the history of the individual mandate. In other health law articles, a Gallup poll finds small business owners worried about the costs they will incur and some doctors in favor of a single payer health system file a brief with the Supreme Court opposing the federal law.

16 Feb 2012

Foreign-born scientists to receive Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science

The Vilcek Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of its annual Vilcek Prizes in Biomedical Science, honoring the contributions of foreign-born scientists.

16 Feb 2012

Hospitals would have to voluntarily return overpayments under new proposal

Even as officials announced record recoveries of fraudulent Medicare claims, they proposed new rules to force providers to voluntarily return overpayments within 60 days of discovering them. The proposal is intended to cut down on the need for criminal or civil investigations.

16 Feb 2012

Traumatic brain injury linked to PTSD: UCLA study

UCLA life scientists and their colleagues have provided the first evidence of a causal link between traumatic brain injury and an increased susceptibility to post-traumatic stress disorder.

16 Feb 2012

Reid will allow repeal vote on contraception mandate

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will allow a vote on a Republican amendment to allow employers to opt out of health coverage mandates - including one requiring free coverage of birth control for women - that they find immoral.

16 Feb 2012

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announces recipients of 2012 Sloan Research Fellowships

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is pleased to announce the selection of 126 outstanding U.S. and Canadian researchers as recipients of Sloan Research Fellowships for 2012. Awarded annually since 1955, the fellowships are given to early-career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as rising stars, the next generation of scientific leaders.

16 Feb 2012

Tentative deal reached to prevent physician pay cuts, preserve payroll tax cut

One day after House Republican leaders made a major concession on the payroll tax cut, congressional negotiators struck a tentative deal that also would extend long-term unemployment benefits and prevent drastic reductions in doctors' Medicare payments.

16 Feb 2012

Children may consume more titanium dioxide than adults

Children may be receiving the highest exposure to nanoparticles of titanium dioxide in candy, which they eat in amounts much larger than adults, according to a new study. Published in ACS' journal, Environmental Science & Technology, it provides the first broadly based information on amounts of the nanomaterial - a source of concern with regard to its potential health and environmental effects - in a wide range of consumer goods.

16 Feb 2012

CMS signals it may delay deadline on new codes to be used by doctors, hospitals

Acting Director Marilyn Tavenner says the agency will re-examine the October 2013 deadline for the coding system, known as ICD-10. It expands the number of codes used for billing medical services.

16 Feb 2012

MV-GFP extends survival of animals with medulloblastoma

A strain of measles virus engineered to kill cancer cells prolongs survival in a model of medulloblastoma that is disseminated in the fluid around the brain, according to a new study by researchers at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute and the Mayo Clinic.

16 Feb 2012

Drilling down into Obama's budget

The Wall Street Journal reports the plan would scale back money for public health and prevention programs; The Associated Press covers the debate about the proposed defense budget, which would scale back retirees' health coverage.

16 Feb 2012

Combination of photodynamic therapy and software can treat internal tumours

Laser light in combination with certain drugs - known as photodynamic therapy - can destroy cancer tumours, but is today used mostly to cure skin cancer. The reason that internal tumours are not treated with the method is that the technology does not exist to check that the precise amount of light is administered. However, software developed by researchers in atomic physics at Lund University in Sweden looks like being able to solve the problem.

16 Feb 2012

Reuters examines upcoming WHO meeting to discuss debate over bird flu research

Bird flu experts are scheduled to begin a two-day meeting at the WHO in Geneva on Thursday "to try to settle an unprecedented row over a call to censor publication of two scientific studies which detail how to mutate H5N1 bird flu viruses into a form that could cause a deadly human pandemic," Reuters reports in an article describing the debate in detail.

16 Feb 2012

Small cash transfers to young women may help them avoid HIV infection, study suggests

Cash transfer programs involving small amounts of money paid to schoolgirls and their families who live in low-income settings can help the young women "resist the attentions of older men and avoid HIV infection, according to a new study" published online Wednesday in the Lancet, the Guardian reports.

16 Feb 2012

China's SFDA approves Affymetrix GeneChip System 3000Dx v.2

Affymetrix, Inc. today announced that its GeneChip System 3000Dx v.2 (GCS 3000Dx v.2) has been approved by China's State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) for in vitro diagnostic use.

16 Feb 2012

UCI's Health Education Center to expand DUI awareness program

California reported the largest decline in drunk-driving deaths of any state in the nation in 2010, according to recent statistics, and a $232,000 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety - through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration - to UC Irvine's Health Education Center is helping to keep the trend on track.

16 Feb 2012

Researchers share libraries of chemical compounds to spur development of drug candidates

Nature reports how "in the hunt for drugs that target diseases in the developing world, ... pharmaceutical companies are making entire libraries of chemical compounds publicly available, allowing researchers to rifle through them for promising drug candidates."

16 Feb 2012

Thrombocytosis linked to severity of ovarian cancer

Highly elevated platelet levels fuel tumor growth and reduce the survival of ovarian cancer patients, an international team of researchers led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer center reports in the New England Journal of Medicine.

16 Feb 2012