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Patheon fourth quarter revenues increase to $181.6 million

Patheon Inc., a leading provider of contract development and manufacturing services to the global pharmaceutical industry, announced today full year and fourth quarter results.

19 Dec 2011

Obama administration proposes labor rules for home care aides

President Obama circumvented Congress and moved Thursday to require that home-care aides be paid minimum wage and overtime, giving the fast-growing workforce long-sought assistance. Home-care workers, who now number close to 2 million people, have been exempted from federal labor law since 1974.

17 Dec 2011

F. nucleatum alters endothelial integrity and allows other bacteria to invade human body

A common oral bacteria, Fusobacterium nucleatum, acts like a key to open a door in human blood vessels and leads the way for it and other bacteria like Escherichia coli to invade the body through the blood and make people sick, according to dental researchers at Case Western Reserve University.

16 Dec 2011

As shutdown looms, differences persist on payroll tax cut, spending bills

Among the items held up in the end-of-year negotiations is the Medicare physician reimbursement fix, which would prevent a 27 percent cut in doctors' payments from taking effect. A House Republican plan to pay for the "doc fix" with dollars from the health law's prevention fund is opposed by some Democratic senators.

16 Dec 2011

Evidence-based interventions to reduce newborn and maternal mortality

Some 56 evidence-based interventions will sharply reduce the 358,000 women who still die each year during pregnancy and childbirth and the 7.6 million children who die before the age of 5, according to a massive three-year global study.

16 Dec 2011

Vaginal progesterone safe and effective in preventing preterm birth

Women with a short cervix should be treated with vaginal progesterone to prevent preterm birth, according to a landmark study by leading obstetricians around the world. Vaginal progesterone decreased the rate of preterm birth by 42%, and significantly reduced the rate of respiratory distress syndrome and the need for mechanical ventilation, as well as a composite of several complications of premature newborns.

15 Dec 2011

Half of all stillbirths result from pregnancy disorders, placental conditions

Half of all stillbirths result from pregnancy disorders and conditions affecting the placenta, according to results reported by a National Institutes of Health research network established to find the causes of stillbirth as well as ways to prevent or reduce its occurrence.

15 Dec 2011

Roundup: Nonprofits get big money in disabled payments; Calif. budget problems bring additional Medicaid cutbacks

Spending on this little-known home care program, called Community Habilitation, has soared in recent years, creating multimillion-dollar surpluses at some nonprofit agencies and eye-popping salaries and benefits for those who run them. And it helps explain how New York's costs of caring for developmentally disabled people have ballooned in recent years, creating the nation's most generous system of Medicaid-financed programs, with little scrutiny of its efficiency or result.

15 Dec 2011

Lobbying reports highlight focus on health care rules, calorie-count laws

The world's biggest burger chain lobbied Congress, the White House, the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services on the sweeping health care changes that were signed into law in March 2010. In general the new health care rules will require more companies to offer health care insurance to employees. McDonald's also homed in on a part in the law that would require more restaurants to add calorie information to their menus.

14 Dec 2011

Technique expands scarce resources used for cord blood transplant procedure

A new method to boost the number of immune cells in umbilical cord blood prior to cord blood transplants for cancer patients appears to lead to a quicker rebuilding of a new immune system in the patient's body than with a conventional cord blood transplant procedure, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania that will be presented today at the 53rd American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting.

12 Dec 2011

Magellan launches Community Impact Report

Magellan Health Services released today its Community Impact Report, detailing the company's efforts to leverage its specialty health expertise in support of local communities and organizations across the country.

12 Dec 2011

Nighttime-lights imagery can pinpoint disease hotspots

Normally used to spot where people live, satellite images of nighttime lights can help keep tabs on the diseases festering among them, too, according to new research.

9 Dec 2011

Consumer advocates, other watchdog groups urge congress to leave broker regs alone

The organizations want Congress to maintain the medical loss ratio rule's current classification of broker fees as administrative expenses. Also in the news, during a Tuesday hearing, House Republicans attacked the work of an economist Democrats have quoted in an argument related to the health law's tax credits.

8 Dec 2011

Collaboration of public and private health partners is essential for health improvement

Improving health is too multifaceted to be left solely in the hands of those working in the health sector alone, according to the latest Healthy People 2020 Objectives for the Nation. A recent shift in national health priorities has led Healthy People, a program that sets the national agenda for health promotion and disease prevention, to add 'social determinants' into its 2020 goals.

8 Dec 2011

Researchers sequence entire transcriptome of mouse neural retina

The population of Eric Morrow's seminar "Neurogenetics and Disease" comprises mainly undergraduates who were skipping down the halls of their elementary schools when the first drafts of human genome sequences were published. When Morrow, assistant professor of biology, recently asked the class how to find the mutation behind a disease, a hand shot up in the back of the class to signal the answer: "Sequence the patient's genome."

8 Dec 2011

Antenatal corticosteroids reduce risk of death in extremely preterm infants

With chubby cheeks and weighing in at a healthy 10 pounds, the imminently huggable Lexi Morrison is far removed from the 1-pound, 9 -ounce preemie she was in June when she was born premature at 24 weeks.

7 Dec 2011

Multiple-employer health plans will be subject to quick enforcement procedures

Under a proposed rule stemming from the health law, the secretary of labor will have enforcement tools designed to protect employers, providers and workers from mismanaged or fraudulent multiple-employer welfare arrangements.

7 Dec 2011

Scientists identify a pattern that predicts which pregnant women likely to have complications

Poor mental health before pregnancy predicts which pregnant women are most likely to have a pregnancy complication and give birth to a low birth-weight baby, a new nationwide survey reveals.

6 Dec 2011

Viewpoints: Premium support disadvantages; GOP candidates & the individual mandate; Stop fight over high court recusals?

Republican politicians are touting the virtues of market competition and calling for a "premium support" plan that would give beneficiaries a set amount of money to shop among private plans for their own insurance. What they do not say is that private plans have long been more costly than traditional Medicare and have shown far less ability to slow spending.

5 Dec 2011

Assembly Bill 5502-B would raise cost of many prescriptions in NY by 10%

Assembly Bill 5502-B—transmitted to Governor Andrew Cuomo yesterday—would needlessly raise the cost of many prescriptions in New York by 10 percent, according to the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association. If enacted, the Bill would prohibit consumers from getting discounted prescriptions through mail-service pharmacies.

2 Dec 2011