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CMS official grilled on Medicare Secondary Payer program

Politics were at work as Deborah Taylor, the chief financial officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, faced tough questioning during a House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee On Oversight and Investigations hearing regarding the financial controls applied to this aspect of Medicare — a generally complex and obscure part of the program.

24 Jun 2011

Unavailability of Avastin more dangerous risk for breast cancer patients, says FAMEDS founder

Breast cancer patients and their families will rally together on Tuesday, June 28, at 7:00 am outside of the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). At issue will be the FDA's final hearing to remove the anti-cancer drug Avastin from the approved medication list for treatment of late stage breast cancer, despite the FDA approving it in 2008 for use to treat breast cancer.

24 Jun 2011

Arguments held in NJ Appeals Court over health law challenge

A federal appeals court hearing arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of last year's U.S. health reform law focused primarily on whether plaintiffs need to demonstrate they are suffering economic harm now or will when the part of the law mandating that everyone have health coverage takes effect.

24 Jun 2011

Project to explore aspects of music for cochlear implant users

Researchers from the University of Southampton are investigating how to help deaf people, who have received a cochlear implant, to get more enjoyment from music.

24 Jun 2011

First Edition: June 23, 2011

In today's headlines, reports that the Department of Health and Human Services will scale back the health law's rules on patient health care appeals.

23 Jun 2011

GUMC neuroscientists: Speech perception must have evolved from animals

Neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) have defined, for the first time, three different processing stages that a human brain needs to identify sounds such as speech - and discovered that they are the same as ones identified in non-human primates.

23 Jun 2011

GPs struggle to correctly identify patients with early dementia

New research from the University of Leicester demonstrates that general practitioners (GPs) are struggling to correctly identify people in the early stages of dementia resulting in both missed cases and misidentifications.

20 Jun 2011

Mother and baby cytomegalovirus screening important to prevent consequences

According to health experts, pregnant women and newborns should be screened for a virus that causes brain damage and deafness. The study that appeared in the latest issue of The Medical Journal of Australia yesterday says hundreds of cases of cytomegalovirus (CMV) are likely being missed each year in Australia because of a lack of screening, denying babies treatment for the condition.

19 Jun 2011

Cooperation needed to fight NCDs, U.N. officials note

Speaking Thursday at an informal civil society hearing that is a precursor to the first-ever high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), top U.N. officials "stressed the need for governments, the private sector and civil society to work together and more effectively to address cancers, diabetes and other non-communicable diseases, which account for nearly two thirds of global deaths each year," the U.N. News Centre reports.

18 Jun 2011

House appropriators ok measure that prohibits feds from enforcing individual mandate

By defunding this health law provision next year, even though it doesn't actually kick in until 2014, the measure could prevent the administration from hiring and training the necessary Internal Revenue Service personnel.

18 Jun 2011

GAO: HHS okayed waivers mostly when high cost increases were projected

Democrats view the report as evidence that waivers were not given out by the administration as political rewards to labor unions and other allies.

16 Jun 2011

Essential benefits rule, McKinsey study continue to draw headlines

Also, Neal Katyal, the acting solicitor general who has argued four of the cases challenging the health law before appeals courts, has announced that he will leave the Department of Justice at the conclusion of the current Supreme Court term.

15 Jun 2011

Obama administration regulatory review won't include health law rules

An official from the Department of Health and Human Services told a House oversight subcommittee that the health law's regulations are too new for a second look. However, some Republican members of the panel disagreed, saying that the waivers that have been granted are reason enough for such examination.

15 Jun 2011

Novartis Bexsero pivotal study data on meningococcal serogroup B presented at ESPID

New data from a pivotal study in more than 1,800 infants show that Novartis candidate vaccine Bexsero induces a robust immune response to meningococcal serogroup B when given alone or when co-administered with other routine vaccines.

15 Jun 2011

Food coloring additives do not cause ADHD in children

When University of Maryland psychologist Andrea Chronis-Tuscano testified before a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hearing last March, it changed her mind about possible risks of artificial food coloring for children, and drove her to look more closely at the products in her own pantry that she feeds her kids.

15 Jun 2011

New software holds promise for revolutionising treatment of hearing impairments

New software 'hearing dummies' are part of cutting-edge research that promises to revolutionise the diagnosis and treatment of hearing impairments.

14 Jun 2011

Roundup: States controlled by GOP pass sweeping changes; state budgets still very lean from recession; La. Gov. wrestling with legislature over spending

Republicans controlled all the levers of government in a staggering number of states this year — and it showed. Holding a lock on the governorship and both houses of the legislature in 20 states, GOP conservatives advanced an agenda that may change the face of state government for decades. They honored pledges not to raise taxes by enacting huge spending cuts to balance budgets in Florida and Texas.

14 Jun 2011

Too much coffee can make you hear things: Study

According to a new study as much as five cups of coffee a day could be enough to make a person develop hearing hallucinations.

13 Jun 2011

Study suggests link between brain activity of teens and song popularity

An Emory University study suggests that the brain activity of teens, recorded while they are listening to new songs, may help predict the popularity of the songs.

13 Jun 2011

Legislation that slows human embryonic stem cell research will also harm iPS cells study

Any legislation that slows human embryonic stem cell research is likely to also seriously harm the study of induced pluripotent stem cells, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, the Mayo Clinic and the University of Michigan.

10 Jun 2011