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Allowing greater access to drug safety data would enable researchers to better evaluate risks

For years, pharmaceutical companies have sought to restrict public access to drug safety data collected in clinical trials on the basis that it is proprietary information, arguing that competitors could use that information in the development of their own products.

8 Mar 2007

PAHO, Canada sign agreement to advance health programs

The Pan American Health Organization and the Government of Canada today signed a four-year agreement to support international health work in the Americas.

8 Mar 2007

Why children love their security blankets

Every parent of a young child knows how emotionally attached children can become to a soft toy or blanket that they sleep with every night.

8 Mar 2007

Drug delivery system that consists of nanocrystals of a hydrophobic drug

The problem of efficiently delivering drugs, especially those that are hydrophobic or water-repellant, to tumors or other disease sites has long challenged scientists to develop innovative delivery systems that keep these drugs intact until reaching their targets.

8 Mar 2007

Sunny days pose risk of 'flicker illness' for a few airlifted patients

"This shouldn't preclude transporting a patient from point A to point B in an aircraft, but this concern does need to register as a legitimate risk for a small number of patients. Personnel ought to know how to guard against it."

8 Mar 2007

House panel requests marketing documents from pharmaceutical companies regarding off-label drug promotion

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has asked two stent manufacturers and three drug manufacturers to provide documents regarding the marketing of their products as part of the committee's investigation into the off-label use of drug-coated stents and prescription drugs, the Wall Street Journal reports.

8 Mar 2007

High-deductible health plans could lead to less preventive care

High-deductible health plans could lead people -- especially children in low-income families -- to forgo or delay health care, according to a policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics published on Monday in Pediatrics, Reuters reports.

8 Mar 2007

Congressional hearings begin for Walter Reed Army Medical Center

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs on Monday held a hearing to address concerns about quality of care and living conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, during which Army officials "acknowledg[ed] ... that they have failed in the care of wounded veterans," the Los Angeles Times reports.

8 Mar 2007

HCA posts cost of services for uninsured online

Tennessee-based hospital chain HCA on Friday began posting the prices of services for the uninsured at its hospitals in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, according to spokesperson Ed Fishbough, the Tennessean reports.

8 Mar 2007

Prescription drug prices for U.S. residents ages 50 and older increased at about twice inflation rate

Manufacturers' prices for the 193 prescription drugs most commonly used by U.S. residents ages 50 and older increased at about twice the rate of inflation in 2006, according to an annual report released on Tuesday by AARP, Cox/Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

8 Mar 2007

Baucus to draft new legislation that would allow small business health insurance pools

Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is working on new legislation that would permit small businesses to jointly negotiate health plan rates and also give them tax incentives for offering employees coverage, according to a Democratic aide to the committee, CongressDaily reports.

8 Mar 2007

Spitzer says $575 million budget surplus might go toward health care, reserves

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) during a news conference on Monday said that some of the additional $575 million in state revenue expected next year likely will be spent on health care and placed in reserves, the Albany Times-Union reports.

8 Mar 2007

Blagojevich proposes health coverage expansion

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) on Sunday unveiled a plan to expand access to health insurance to the 1.4 million uninsured state residents at an estimated cost of $2.1 billion per year, the Chicago Tribune reports.

8 Mar 2007

President Bush appoints Dole, Shalala to lead panel examining veterans' care

President Bush during a speech before the American Legion on Tuesday named former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and former HHS Secretary Donna Shalala as co-chairs of a commission that will examine the care that wounded veterans receive after they return from war, both at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and at other military hospitals across the nation, the Washington Post reports

8 Mar 2007

Researchers discover a new mechanism that regulates stem cell division

Errors in stem cell division can give rise to tumours. By studying stem cells in the fruit fly, scientists at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) have identified one of the mechanisms that govern how these cells divide.

7 Mar 2007

Healthy health advice online

When searching for health advice online, consumers often reject websites with high quality medical information in favour of those with a human touch, according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

7 Mar 2007

Hormone kisspeptin stimulates release of the sex hormones which control periods

This finding suggests that kisspeptin could be a potential new treatment for fertility.

7 Mar 2007

Pregnant women should supplement vitamin D

Pregnant women should take steps to ensure they have adequate vitamin D in their diet, or they and especially their unborn children may run the risk of developing autoimmune diseases such as diabetes and thyroid diseases.

7 Mar 2007

Women from poor backgrounds fare worse with breast cancer

Women from more deprived backgrounds have worse treatment and a lower breast cancer survival rate than their more affluent counterparts - according to a new study published by Cancer Research UK in the British Journal of Cancer.

7 Mar 2007

Discovery about fatty tissue that burns fat

In an article now being published in the leading American journal PNAS, a research team led by Barbara Cannon and Jan Nedergaard at the Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University in Sweden, together with British and American scientists, have managed to show for the first time that the cells that become the so-called brown or white fat tissue already know from the very beginning what sort of fat tissue they will be.

7 Mar 2007