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Senate Subcommittee hearing looks at USAID budget request, potential for reform

A Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs hearing on Tuesday about USAID's FY 2011 budget addressed the potential for "broad changes in the culture and operations of" USAID, CQ reports.

22 Apr 2010

Age delays time taken for recovery of sense of taste following nerve injury

Age dramatically delays the time if takes to recover the sense of taste following a significant nerve injury, Medical College of Georgia researchers said.

22 Apr 2010

Senate Democrats seek legislation to regulate insurer rate hikes

The New York Times: "Fearing that health insurance premiums may shoot up in the next few years, Senate Democrats laid a foundation on Tuesday for federal regulation of rates, four weeks after President Obama signed a law intended to rein in soaring health costs." Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced legislation that would allow the federal health secretary to block "any rate increase found to be unreasonable," an authority that would be shared with some state insurance officials.

22 Apr 2010

Berwick may face difficult confirmation in Senate

News outlets continue to report on Donald Berwick, who was nominated by President Barack Obama to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

22 Apr 2010

Sonic Innovations wins Best in Show award at AudiologyNOW! conference

Sonic Innovations, Inc. received a Best in Show award based on attendees' votes at the AudiologyNOW! conference for its tradeshow booth. The conference was held April 14 through 17 in San Diego, California and was attended by nearly 7,000 hearing care professionals.

21 Apr 2010

New self-referencing glutamate biosensor to measure glutamate flux of neural cells in living organism

A new biosensor developed at Purdue University can measure whether neurons are performing correctly when communicating with each other, giving researchers a tool to test the effectiveness of new epilepsy or seizure treatments.

21 Apr 2010

Receiving cochlear implant before 18 months of age improves child's ability to hear: Study

Receiving a cochlear implant before 18 months of age dramatically improves a deaf child's ability to hear, understand and, eventually, speak, according to a multicenter study led by scientists at Johns Hopkins.

21 Apr 2010

Hearing tests needed for children

The importance of hearing testing isn't widely understood by many parents. Parents may schedule appointments with an opthamologist for an eye exam for their children at regular intervals - but never think to similarly schedule a hearing test with an audiologist.

21 Apr 2010

Relative importance of genetic factors is low in tinnitus, says new research

The relative importance of genetic factors in tinnitus is low, according to new research from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. This is the first large population-based study to measure the heritability of tinnitus.

21 Apr 2010

Listening to personal music players can induce hearing loss

Young people who listen to personal music players for several hours a day at high volume could be putting their hearing at risk, warns an expert in an editorial published on bmj.com today.

21 Apr 2010

Early intervention therapy may improve language skills in children with hearing loss

Babies are being screened at birth for hearing loss in most (not all) provinces of Canada today. When identified early and given access to hearing technology and Auditory-Verbal Therapy the majority of children born with hearing loss today will learn to talk.

21 Apr 2010

UnitedHealth's profits rise while future gains may be impacted by reform

The Associated Press: "Insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc. trumped first-quarter earnings expectations and raised its 2010 profit forecast Tuesday, but a meager stock reaction showed investors haven't forgotten about the recently concluded health care reform push. The Minnetonka, Minn., insurer said it trimmed the percentage of premium revenue it spent on medical bills for its commercial insurance to 79 percent, down from 81 percent in last year's first quarter."

21 Apr 2010

Cochlear implantation improves comprehension and spoken language expression in children under 5

Children under 5 years of age with severe hearing loss who underwent cochlear implantation experienced greater improvement in comprehension and expression in spoken language than would be predicted from their pre-implantation language scores, with younger age at implantation associated with greater improvements, according to a study in the April 21 issue of JAMA.

21 Apr 2010

Warning on hearing loss from personal music players

For the generation that cannot imagine living without their iPods here is some bad news. Listening to music at high volume can cause grave damage to your hearing. The risk is even higher for those who use earphones that are inserted into the ear canal as this intensifies the volume. There is growing evidence of young people having poorer hearing when they use such devices on a regular basis.

21 Apr 2010

New technique that involves voice analysis to diagnose Parkinson's disease developed

A new technique assisting in early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease has been developed by Prof. Shimon Sapir of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Haifa. This technique involves analysis of voice and articulation. The research was carried out alongside U.S. scientists and with funding from the National Institutes of Health, and results have been published in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.

20 Apr 2010

Encorium Group reports 21.4% decrease in fourth-quarter net revenue

Encorium Group, Inc., a full service multinational clinical research organization conducting studies in over 30 countries for many of the world's leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2009.

20 Apr 2010

Researchers discover link between protein structure and hearing process

Rising from the top surface of each of the specialized receptor cells in our inner ears is a bundle of sensory cilia that responds to the movement of sound. As sensitive as they are fragile, these cilia can move to wisps of sound no larger than a molecule-but can shear at sounds that are larger than life.

17 Apr 2010

TruthAboutGardasil.org: Governments need to suspend HPV vaccinations/programs

The global outrage at reports of injustices inflicted on the children of India from unethical trials and experimentation of HPV vaccines in socially disadvantaged groups extends to women and children worldwide subjected to similar violations.

16 Apr 2010

Waxman backs away from challenge to big corporations on health costs

Kaiser Health News staff writer Christopher Weaver writes about the cancellation of an upcoming House Energy and Commerce Hearing and what it might mean: "A new congressional staff report has defused a standoff between Democrats and large corporations over losses the firms anticipate because of the new health overhaul law" (Weaver, 4/14).

16 Apr 2010

IRS official: If an individual fails to show insurance coverage, refund could be withheld

"The Internal Revenue Service won't audit you to make sure you have purchased health insurance under provisions of the new health-care law—but it may withhold your tax refund if you can't demonstrate that you are insured, an IRS official said Thursday," The Wall Street Journal reports. "There are tools we can use. We obviously will be notifying folks [for whom there is no record of health insurance] that we have these questions," Steven T. Miller, IRS deputy commissioner for services and enforcement, said.

16 Apr 2010