At the University of Minnesota Medical School, which is funded partly by clinical practices, the growth in unpaid bills means margins are narrowing to the point where just doing more procedures isn’t going to suffice, said Frank Cerra, senior vice president for health sciences. The university has postponed a $200-million building for outpatient care on campus and begun streamlining its management ranks. If things don’t improve, it might raise medical Read the rest of this entry »

Lillo Brancato 'lost in drugs,' says boss of 'Vault' sex club
Saturday, November 22nd 2008, 7:45 PM
goes on trial for a cop killing Monday, and sex-club impresario
won’t be on the witness list.
But the one-time owner of The Vault says what he knows about the suspect’s sordid past could shed light on how he went from promising prodigy to jailed junkie.
“He was always in a lot of trouble, always [on] a lot of drugs, always Read the rest of this entry »

Divide FDA into two agencies to oversee drug, food safety
Among the challenges facing the next U.S. president is fixing the U.S. regulatory system — namely the FDA — which is showing “early warning signs of failure,” according to two executives with a life sciences investment bank. They suggest breaking up the FDA into two agencies — one to oversee drug safety and another for food safety — to increase accountability, reduce duplication and Read the rest of this entry »

“No presidential candidate should get to the point that he has locked up his party’s nomination without public vetting of his health.”
–New York Times, on John McCain in May 4 2008 “
Many were the words written about John McCain and his medical records. That he delayed in releasing them, that his health records were crucial to the public’s right to know.
After McCain released nearly 1200 pages of medical records–the Read the rest of this entry »

DISCLOSURE NOTICE: The information in this press release includes certain “forward-looking” statements relating, among other things, to the remaining steps necessary for FDA approval of Surfaxin for the prevention of RDS in premature infants and the timing of the anticipated FDA review period. Although Discovery Labs believes that it has made significant progress towards gaining approval of Surfaxin, gaining approval of Surfaxin involves ongoing activities, Read the rest of this entry »

Federal regulators have approved two versions of a new zero-calorie sweetener developed by
Coca-Cola Co.
PepsiCo Inc.
, paving the way for new products.
Cargill Inc., which is marketing Coca-Cola
)’s Truvia, said on Wednesday it has received notification from the Food and Drug Administration. The panel said it had no objection to the product, calling it “generally recognized as safe,” Cargill said in a news release.
) said it also received Read the rest of this entry »

Do you find yourself spending more time in the snack aisle at the grocery store than the produce section? There may be a reason why and, curiously, it’s tied to the recession.
Experts call them the ‘recession pounds:’ When fewer people can afford healthier foods and they’re waistlines expand.
“If I am going to feel good, I have to tighten on other things,” said Becky Maidl, who said she’s working two jobs in order to keep her gym membership.
Read the rest of this entry »

Women are cutting back on health care due to costs, according to a Harris Interactive poll released Tuesday by the National Women’s Health Resource Center, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
That means their health and that of their families (since women usually take charge of household health matters) may be suffering, experts said.
More than 40 percent of the 754 adult women polled said their health had declined in the Read the rest of this entry »

ScienceDaily (Oct. 16, 2008)
— Patients have on average a 70 percent lower chance of dying at the nation’s top-rated hospitals compared with the lowest-rated hospitals across 17 procedures and conditions analyzed in the eleventh annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality in America Study, recently issued by HealthGrades, the leading independent healthcare ratings organization.
While overall death rates declined from 2005 to 2007, the nation’s best-performing Read the rest of this entry »

WHAT: In “New Technologies in Multi-Modality Breast Imaging,” three
physicians will discuss their experience using MRI and ultrasound
collaboratively for breast imaging, including how the two modalities
can be used together, the latest techniques and how this
multi-modality approach will ultimately provide better patient
Read the rest of this entry »