Medicare To Pay $2 Bln For Impotence Drugs - Study
Reuters
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government will spend nearly $2 billion over the next decade to pay for impotence drugs for elderly and disabled patients under Medicare, according to a congressional estimate released on Monday. Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican who has written legislation to outlaw Medicare coverage for "recreational sex drugs," said the Congressional Budget Office had tallied the costs of Pfizer Inc.'s Viagra and other medicines to enhance sexual performance. Medicare will start broad prescription drug coverage in January. "The Medicare system is already strained, and taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for drugs that aren't medically necessary," King said in a statement.
South Bay, Harbor Hospitals Scrambling For Nurses
Daily Breeze
Hospitals just wrapped up a week of activities for National Nurses Week, but the nurse appreciation won't stop there. Thanks to a state law requiring minimum levels of nurse staffing around the clock, coupled with the aging of the baby boom generation, hospitals have to make nurse appreciation week last all year long. As the state's longtime nursing shortage continues, hospitals are scrambling to hire and retain nurses in the seller's market for the nursing profession.
Nurse-Midwife Shifts From Home To Hospital
Fairbanks Daily News
Mary Beth Gardner practices one of the oldest female professions--midwivery. Today, Gardner is breaking new ground as the first certified nurse-midwife allowed to deliver babies at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.
Autism May Be Linked to Difficult Births
MSNBC Health News
ATLANTA -- A difficult birth or a history of mental illness in a parent may put a baby at greater risk for autism, according to a study that may provide clues to the causes of the devastating neurological disability. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that in a study of 698 Danish children with the developmental disorder, researchers found a disproportionately high number had been born before the 35th week of pregnancy, had suffered from low birth weights and were in a breech position at birth.
Child Abuse Death Risk High in Military Families
HealthDay News
TUESDAY -- Children from military families are twice as likely to die from severe abuse as other children are, according to a North Carolina study. Based on the findings, the pediatric experts who led the study are calling on officials at the Pentagon to do more to investigate the reasons children growing up in military households face such risks.
Swedish Study Finds Cell Phone-Brain Tumor Link
Consumer Affairs
A Swedish study finds that users of digital phones in rural areas may be at greater risk of brain cancer. Its authors say the link is troubling, although they acknowledge that the amount of data is small and wider research is needed to amplify the findings.
Veterans Home Nurse Shortage Closer to Resolution
WBAY, WI
A nursing shortage at the Wisconsin Veterans Home in King could be one step closer to being resolved. Tuesday, the state Legislature's Joint Finance Committee takes up the staffing issue at the home. The staff has waited nearly a year to get funding for more nurses. Twelve months ago, two government reports drew attention to problems at the home. That led to state and federal citations for not properly testing patients taking anti-blood clotting medication.
New drug combination prevents
breast cancer growth pre-surgery
News-Medical.Net
A new type of drug originally developed for lung cancer can reduce the size of breast cancer tumours when taken in combination with other drugs. A London-based group of scientists, reporting today (Tuesday 17 May) in The Lancet Oncology, say that taking the new drug combination prior to surgery could make breast cancer surgery less invasive and more effective, and reduce the risk of cancer spreading to other parts of the body.
Low-Fat Diet Slows Breast Cancer Return
The Washington Times
Orlando, FL, -- Los Angeles researchers have described how a low-fat diet has been shown to reduce the recurrence of breast cancer tumors. The five-year study by Dr. Rowan Chlebowski of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute in Torrance, Calif., found that of 975 assigned to a low-fat diet, 96 or 9.8 percent, had recurrences. But 181 of 1,462 women, or 12.4 percent, who were assigned to maintain their usual diet had their cancer return.
Transplanted Liver Cells Can Produce Insulin
Reuters Health
NEW YORK -- Insulin is produced by islet cells in the pancreas, but scientists have been able to persuade adult liver cells to do the same thing. Moreover, insulin production goes up in response to glucose levels, mimicking what happens in the body. People with diabetes have been cured with transplants of islet cells, but donor islet cells are scarce. The possibility of using a person's own liver cells instead "may overcome the shortage in tissue availability from cadaver donors and the need for lifelong immune suppression," Dr. Sarah Ferber told Reuters Health.
