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UCSD Division of Trauma, Surgical Critical Care & Burns offers holiday safety tips

The UC San Diego Division of Trauma, Surgical Critical Care & Burns offers these holiday safety tips to insure an enjoyable time for everyone.

22 Dec 2011

First Edition: December 22, 2011

Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including articles on the Capitol Hill stalemate that threatens to cut Medicare payments to doctors and government efforts to keep details of a research experiment on bird flu secret.

22 Dec 2011

Report provides expanded review of six new EPA air quality regulations

A report by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health provides an expanded review of six new air quality regulations proposed or recently adopted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's.

22 Dec 2011

Azithromycin shows promise against trachoma-related blindness

A UCSF study shows a popular treatment for a potentially blinding eye infection is just as effective if given every six months versus annually. This randomized study on trachoma, the leading cause of infection-caused blindness in the world, could potentially treat twice the number of patients using the same amount of medication.

22 Dec 2011

New way to awaken paternal Ube3a allele linked with Angelman syndrome

Results of a new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill may help pave the way to a treatment for a neurogenetic disorder often misdiagnosed as cerebral palsy or autism.

22 Dec 2011

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center joins The Robertson Foundation

As an enduring tribute to a valued Board member and woman of incomparable grace, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has joined with The Robertson Foundation to undertake two high-profile initiatives in honor of Josephine "Josie" Robertson: the Josie Robertson Surgery Center and the Josie Robertson Investigators Program.

22 Dec 2011

Loyola's MNSON DNP program receives CCNE accreditation

The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program at Loyola University Chicago Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing (MNSON) has been granted accreditation for a five-year term, the maximum number of years possible, by the Commission of Collegiate Nursing Education.

22 Dec 2011

Lean beef can contribute to heart-healthy diet

Lean beef can contribute to a heart-healthy diet in the same way lean white meats can, according to nutritional scientists.

22 Dec 2011

Large-intestine bacteria may help prevent obesity

Bacteria living in people's large intestine may slow down the activity of the "good" kind of fat tissue, a special fat that quickly burns calories and may help prevent obesity, scientists are reporting in a new study.

22 Dec 2011

AVEO initiates enrollment in tivozanib and mFOLFOX6 Phase 2 combination trial for CRC

AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced the initiation of patient enrollment in an open-label, multicenter, randomized Phase 2 clinical trial, called BATON-CRC, evaluating tivozanib in combination with modified FOLFOX6 (mFOLFOX6) compared to bevacizumab in combination with mFOLFOX6 as first-line therapy in patients with advanced metastatic colorectal cancer.

22 Dec 2011

Low-gluten beers can cause symptoms in patients with celiac disease

Beer tested in a new study, including some brands labeled "low-gluten," contains levels of hordein, the form of gluten present in barley, that could cause symptoms in patients with celiac disease (CD), the autoimmune condition treated with a life-long gluten-free diet, scientists are reporting.

22 Dec 2011

U.S. Science Advisory Board asks Science, Nature to omit data from bird flu studies amid security concerns

The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity on "Tuesday asked two scientific journals to leave out data from research studies on a lab-made version of bird flu that could spread more easily to humans, fearing it could be used as a potential weapon," Reuters reports.

22 Dec 2011

SAMMI can monitor foreign bodies in foodstuffs

Has the packet been properly filled? Are there impurities in the chocolate? Have the plastic seams been welded correctly? Is there a knife hidden in the parcel? Answers to all these questions are provided by SAMMI, short for Stand Alone MilliMeter wave Imager.

22 Dec 2011

U.N. 'must face up' to Haiti cholera outbreak

In this Guardian opinion piece, Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., writes that the U.N. "must face up" to a cholera outbreak allegedly brought to Haiti by peacekeeping troops in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake. "More than 500,000 have been infected, and the disease -- which Haiti has not had in more than a century -- is now endemic to the country and will be killing people there for many years to come," he writes.

22 Dec 2011

Younger patients achieve better results and higher satisfaction after facelift surgery

Younger patients with "early or minimal signs of facial aging" achieve better results and higher satisfaction rates at least a decade after facelift surgery, according to a study in the January issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

22 Dec 2011

A gradual approach? The health law in the states

The Obama administration's surprise announcement Friday that it planned to give states broad leeway to pick the benefits offered under the federal health care law offers yet another example of a gradualist approach to carrying out its signal domestic policy achievement.

22 Dec 2011

Effects of allopregnanolone in women with severe pre-menstrual syndrome

Sensitivity to allopregnanolone, a hormone that occurs naturally in the body after ovulation and during pregnancy, changes during the course of the menstrual cycle and is different in women with severe pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS) compared with women without PMS complaints. This has been shown by Erika Timby in her doctoral dissertation recently defended at Umeå University, Sweden.

22 Dec 2011

Federal officials extend Medicaid waiver for Mass.

The federal government on Tuesday extended a Medicaid waiver in Massachusetts, which was first implemented as part of then-Gov. Mitt Romney's healthcare overhaul. The waiver will now run through 2014. It is focused primarily on efforts to improve the cost and quality of the Medicaid program and better coordinate care. The waiver provides incentives for hospitals to improve their efforts to integrate their services.

22 Dec 2011

Cedars-Sinai's Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute earns CoC accreditation

The Commission on Cancer, a national consortium of organizations dedicated to improving survival rates and quality of life for cancer patients, has recognized Cedars-Sinai's Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute as one of nation's foremost cancer programs.

22 Dec 2011

Drugmaker Merck to pay $24M to settle Medicaid case

Drugmaker Merck & Co. will pay Massachusetts $24 million to settle a civil lawsuit accusing a former subsidiary of causing the state to overpay pharmacists for a widely used asthma medication. Attorney General Martha Coakley said Tuesday that the deal with Merck and 12 other drugmakers who settled previously enables the state to recover more than $47 million for its Medicaid program.

22 Dec 2011