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Cost transparency does not influence the way physicians ordered imaging tests

In a study designed to see if doctors who are told the exact price of expensive medical tests like MRIs in advance would order fewer of them, Johns Hopkins researchers got their answer: No.

24 Jan 2013

State roundup: Legislatures tackle health budget gaps, worker pay

With the national economy picking up and the housing market improving, states are poised in 2013 to finally rebound from the recession's lingering revenue crunch. But continued budget delays in Washington may dampen that prospect.

24 Jan 2013

Clinical trial to evaluate cyclodextrin against Niemann-Pick disease type C1

A clinical trial to evaluate a drug candidate called cyclodextrin as a possible treatment for Niemann-Pick disease type C1 (NPC), a rare and fatal genetic disease, will start today, researchers announced.

24 Jan 2013

Supreme Court dashes hospitals' hopes for recovering underpayments

The court's unanimous ruling rejected the arguments advanced by 18 hospitals that sought to reopen a set of Medicare claims that were more than 25 years old.

24 Jan 2013

Hastings Center Report special report on ethical oversight of learning health care systems

The longstanding ethical framework for protecting human volunteers in medical research needs to be replaced because it is outdated and can impede efforts to improve health care quality, assert leaders in bioethics, medicine, and health policy in two companion articles in a Hastings Center Report special report, "Ethical Oversight of Learning Health Care Systems."

24 Jan 2013

Brazilian city declares health emergency due to dengue fever outbreak

"Municipal authorities in Campo Grande, the capital of the southwestern Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, on Monday declared a health emergency due to a serious outbreak of dengue fever," Fox News Latino reports.

24 Jan 2013

Bioethics leader proposes bold and controversial approach to fight obesity epidemic

Arguing that obesity "may be the most difficult and elusive public health problem the United States has ever encountered" and that anti-obesity efforts having made little discernible difference, Daniel Callahan, co-founder and President Emeritus of The Hastings Center, proposes a bold and controversial approach to fighting the epidemic.

24 Jan 2013

Obama should 'cement his legacy on global development' in second term

President Obama "has made some good headway on foreign aid in his first term, producing the government's first global development policy and an innovative new policy on disaster resilience, launching new efforts to combat global hunger, supporting reforms to the U.S. Agency for International Development and committing to greater aid transparency," Jeremy Konyndyk, director of policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps, writes in a Huffington Post opinion piece, part of "The Road Forward" series.

24 Jan 2013

Social isolation increases risk of addiction to amphetamine and alcohol

Rats that are socially isolated during a critical period of adolescence are more vulnerable to addiction to amphetamine and alcohol, found researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. Amphetamine addiction is also harder to extinguish in the socially isolated rats.

24 Jan 2013

GOP debt limit plan sets up future battle lines on entitlement spending

House Republican leaders believe their leverage in forcing budget cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other programs will be greater in the next battles.

24 Jan 2013

Research team describes how the brain controls whisker movements in mice

All parents know the infant milestones: turning over, learning to crawl, standing, and taking that first unassisted step. Achieving each accomplishment presumably requires the formation of new connections among subsets of the billions of nerve cells in the infant's brain. But how, when and where those connections form has been a mystery.

24 Jan 2013

Sen. Harkin prepares sweeping public health legislation to combat obesity

Senate HELP Committee Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin is -- for the sixth time -- introducing legislation to combat obesity in children and adults across America using a host of new programs.

24 Jan 2013

Tofacitinib improves disease activity and inhibits progression of joint damage in RA patients

A Phase 3 clinical trial demonstrates that tofacitinib improves disease activity and inhibits progression of joint damage in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients who did not respond to methotrexate (MTX).

24 Jan 2013

'Helping Babies Breathe' program may help save newborns' lives, studies show

"Training midwives and other birth attendants to help babies start breathing immediately after birth may prevent stillbirths and newborn deaths in the developing world, two new studies suggest," Reuters reports, noting, "So-called birth asphyxia -- when babies are born not breathing -- is one of the major causes of newborn death in regions with limited resources, researchers said."

24 Jan 2013

Parents not very concerned about misuse of narcotic pain medicines by children and teens

Despite data on rising rates of abuse and overdoses of narcotic pain medicines across all age groups, in a new poll from the University of Michigan, most parents said they are not very concerned about misuse of these medicines by children and teens.

24 Jan 2013

Two global campaigns launched focusing on ending hunger, reducing food waste

"A coalition of 100 U.K. development charities and faith groups will on Wednesday launch the If campaign, a major campaign to lobby David Cameron, the prime minister, to use Britain's presidency of the G8 to leverage action on ending global hunger," the Guardian reports.

24 Jan 2013

Nano tech 2013 to be held from Jan. 30 to Feb. 1 at Tokyo Big Sight

The nano tech Executive Committee is pleased to present nano tech 2013, the 12th International Nanotechnology Exhibition & Conference, from January 30 to February 1 at Tokyo Big Sight (Tokyo International Exhibition Center), East Exhibition Halls 4, 5, and 6 and Conference Tower.

24 Jan 2013

Increased resources needed to continue progress lowering child mortality rates

"The last decade has seen extraordinary progress with child mortality rates coming down significantly all over the world. Yet 6.9 million children still die each year, most from preventable causes," Raymond Chambers, founder and co-chair of Malaria No More and the U.N. secretary-general's special envoy for malaria, writes in a Forbes opinion piece, published in conjunction with the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.

24 Jan 2013

Positive results from BioInvent's BI-505 phase I study on multiple myeloma

BioInvent International announced today the first results from the BI-505 phase I study in patients with multiple myeloma.

24 Jan 2013

Obama's inaugural speech triggers reaction, analysis regarding his Medicare view

President Barack Obama's inaugural address laid out very specific choices regarding the future of Medicare and other entitlement programs. Some Republicans, such as House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., took a dim view of Obama's take on these issues.

24 Jan 2013