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House subcommittee approves GOP-backed measure to repeal CLASS Act

Members of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee on Tuesday voted to approve legislation that would repeal the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act included in the healthcare reform law. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act tasked HHS with developing a benefit plan for CLASS, a voluntary long-term-care insurance program, that was financially sustainable and also met the legal requirements of the statute.

17 Nov 2011

Research into role of insulin in obesity-related cancers

Niyati Parekh, an assistant professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, has received a $720,000 Research Scholar Grant from the American Cancer Society to study the role of insulin in obesity-related cancers.

17 Nov 2011

CNN profiles Global Soap Project's work in sanitation

As part of its "CNN Heroes" series, CNN examines the Global Soap Project, started by Derreck Kayongo, a Ugandan war refugee and one of the Top 10 CNN Heroes of 2011. The organization works with more than 300 hotels in the U.S. to collect used bars of soap, clean them and reprocess them to be distributed in countries such as Haiti, Kenya, Swaziland and Uganda, CNN reports.

17 Nov 2011

Discovery of what triggers smoking could make interventions more effective

Discovering when and why students smoke might lead to the development of better intervention methods, according to researchers at the University of Missouri. In an article published in the journal Substance Use & Misuse, the researchers showed that partying, drinking and work prompted college students to recall their smoking experience, and that smoking occurred most often at the start of the semester and on weekends.

17 Nov 2011

Oregon Insurance Commissioner tapped to advise HHS on health exchanges

Oregon's top insurance regulator is joining the Health and Human Services Department to help implement insurance exchanges. Oregon Insurance Administrator Teresa Miller will start at HHS next month, according to a department email. She'll be a senior adviser on exchanges, working with state governments to get the new insurance marketplaces off the ground.

17 Nov 2011

New blood spot analysis method can diagnose range of clinical conditions

Scientists have developed a rapid method that can be used to simultaneously screen patients for a range of genetic and acquired clinical conditions from a single dried blood spot.

17 Nov 2011

Group launches effort to improve dental health

A group of advocacy organizations Tuesday launched the Campaign for Dental Health, an effort designed to promote oral health and to urge states and local governments to help prevent dental problems by investing in such prevention strategies as water fluoridation. Voices for America's Children, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Pew Children's Dental Campaign are spearheading this effort.

17 Nov 2011

Aurora kinase inhibitor may treat neuroendocrine prostate cancer

An international team of researchers led by clinicians at Weill Cornell Medical College have discovered a genetic Achilles' heel in an aggressive type of prostate cancer -- a vulnerability they say can be attacked by a targeted drug that is already in clinical trials to treat other types of cancers.

17 Nov 2011

Regardless of outcome, high court health law decision will be landmark ruling

As Barack Obama battled Hillary Rodham Clinton over health care during the Democratic presidential primaries of 2008, he was adamant about one thing: Americans, he insisted, should not be required to buy health insurance. … Now President Obama may wish he had stuck to those words. On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to take up a constitutional challenge to his landmark health care bill, and a decision could come in the midst of Mr. Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.

17 Nov 2011

Autism Speaks receives $100,000 Royal Arch Masons RARA grant

The General Chapter of Royal Arch Masons International presented Autism Speaks, the world's largest autism research and advocacy organization, with a $100,000 Royal Arch Research Assistance (RARA) grant in support of the Autism Speaks early diagnosis and early intervention initiative to investigate auditory processing disorders in children with autism.

17 Nov 2011

New treatment may be on the horizon for neuroendocrine prostate cancers

A recent report in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, suggests that a new treatment may be on the horizon for neuroendocrine prostate cancers, the most lethal subtype of this disease.

17 Nov 2011

Health officials report more than 200 cases of typhoid in Zimbabwe's capital

"Health authorities say 207 cases of typhoid are being treated in Zimbabwe's capital after a prolonged spell of unusually hot weather amid acute water shortages," the Associated Press/Seattle Times reports. Prosper Chonzi, Harare city council health director, "said Tuesday the disease will be difficult to contain in impoverished townships relying on water from shallow, makeshift wells and marshlands," and that "humanitarian agencies have been asked to help provide clean water," the news service writes.

17 Nov 2011

MDxHealth total revenues decrease 7% for third quarter 2011

MDxHealth SA, a leading molecular diagnostics company in the field of personalized medicine, today issued its business update for the third quarter and for the nine months ended September 30, 2011.

17 Nov 2011

NYU Langone recognized as leading cardiovascular hospital in the U.S.

NYU Langone Medical Center has been recognized as a leading cardiovascular hospital in the United States. The medical center received the Thomson Reuters Top 50 Cardiovascular Hospitals 2012 Award for its high-quality cardiovascular care and excellent performance in key clinical measures. The medical center is the only hospital in New York State to be honored with this year's award.

17 Nov 2011

Physicians want more palliative care despite barriers

A new poll shows that doctors believe that quality of life for dying patients is more important than working to extend that patient's life for as long as possible.

17 Nov 2011

Probiotic before radiation therapy can protect intestine from damage

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that taking a probiotic before radiation therapy can protect the intestine from damage — at least in mice.

17 Nov 2011

IAC executive director wins ECBT Immunization Leadership Award

The Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) is proud to announce that its executive director, Deborah Wexler, MD, has been selected as the honoree of the Every Child By Two Immunization Leadership Award. Every Child By Two (ECBT), founded by former First Lady Rosalynn Carter and former First Lady of Arkansas Betty Bumpers, is dedicated to protecting all children from vaccine-preventable diseases.

17 Nov 2011

IPS interviews head of Cuban research team working to develop dengue vaccine

Inter Press Service interviews Maria Guadalupe Guzman, head of the Pedro Kouri Institute (IPK) Department of Virology and director of the PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre for the Study of Dengue and its Vector, who is leading of a team of Cuban researchers working to develop a vaccine against dengue.

17 Nov 2011

Male breast cancer patients report tamoxifen side effects

About half of male breast cancer patients who take the drug tamoxifen to prevent their disease from returning report side effects such as weight gain and sexual dysfunction, which prompts more than 20 percent of them to discontinue treatment, according to researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

17 Nov 2011

TNF inhibitors may minimally increase risk of serious infections

Biologic drugs have revolutionized treatment of autoimmune diseases during the past decade despite belief there is an increased risk for serious infections from using them. But new research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics reveals that a class of biologics called tumor necrosis factor antagonists, or TNF inhibitors, may only minimally increase risk compared to more traditional therapies.

17 Nov 2011