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Toyota builds employee health clinic in new factory to reduce health care costs

In an effort to contain health care spending, Toyota Motor will construct a $9 million medical clinic for employees and their families at its new San Antonio truck factory, the Detroit News reports.

8 Nov 2006

Problems with billing for Medicare prescription drug benefit premiums persist

About 50,000 of the 4.7 million Medicare beneficiaries who opted to have their Medicare prescription drug benefit premiums automatically withdrawn from their Social Security checks still are having incorrect amounts deducted, CMS officials said, USA Today reports.

8 Nov 2006

Many employers promote high-deductible health plans during open enrollment period

The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday examined how "employers are trying to get workers to confront ever-rising" out-of-pocket heath care costs as the open enrollment period for health plans "goes into high gear at many companies."

8 Nov 2006

Reimbursement reductions could force Nevada physicians out of state

Reductions in insurance companies' physician reimbursement rates could lead many Nevada physicians to leave the state amid a physician shortage, according to Bill Pierce, president of the Nevada Association of Family Physicians, the AP/Las Vegas Sun reports.

8 Nov 2006

External-beam radiation therapy safe for breast cancer

External-beam radiation therapy for early-stage breast cancer can be delivered safely and in a shorter course that eliminates as much as two weeks from conventional treatment.

8 Nov 2006

Research sheds light on episodic memory

Memories of events comprise many components--including sights, sounds, smells, and tastes. Somehow the many features of an episodic memory are woven together into a coherent whole, and researchers have had little understanding of how this binding takes place as the memories are processed by the brain's memory center, the hippocampus.

8 Nov 2006

Massage may help tots sleep better

New research by a team at the University of Warwick says that massage may help infants aged under six months sleep better, cry less and be less stressed.

8 Nov 2006

Lots of sweet food and drink increases risk of pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer is a very serious form of cancer that is possibly caused when the pancreas produces heightened levels of insulin as a consequence of upset glucose metabolism. A well-known way of increasing insulin production is to eat a lot of sugar.

8 Nov 2006

Shaped-beam radiosurgery treats tiniest lung tumors

Patients with metastatic cancer tumors in their lungs are much more likely to live disease-free if they have an experimental treatment involving shaped-beam radiosurgery rather that conventional treatment, according to a University of Rochester Medical Center study.

8 Nov 2006

Scientists discover how androgen plays a role in the development of prostate cancer

Scientists have discovered for the first time a specific biochemical pathway by which the sex hormone, androgen, increases levels of harmful chemicals called reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the prostate gland that play a role in the development of prostate cancer.

8 Nov 2006