AllHealthcare

Professional medical associations (PMAs), such as the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists (SGO), play a vital role in the education of their members, health care providers and patients about emerging technologies and advancements to improve public health. The partnerships between PMAs and industry have become fundamental in the development of new, life-saving treatments. Funding for essential professional and public health educational programming ...

Each of the nation's 5,700 hospitals must cut $2.6 million a year on average in costs in the next 10 years to meet the demands of President Obama's proposed health care reform, a daunting task when half of those hospitals lose money. Criticism came from almost every corner leading up to Obama's speech before Congress on Wednesday night, yet many hospital ...

Men and women with large thighs have a lower risk of premature death and heart disease, a study has shown. People whose thighs measure at least 23.6in (60cm) in circumference were less likely to develop heart disease or die early, a 12-year study of almost 3,000 men and women in Denmark found. Professor Berit Heitmann said thigh size could be used ...

WASHINGTON - A vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline successfully blocks the virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday. In documents posted online, the FDA said Cervarix - Glaxo's vaccine against human papilloma virus or HPV - successfully blocked the two most cancerous strains of the virus nearly 93 percent of the time. [widget:1116] The main ...

WASHINGTON - People familiar with a record settlement to be announced Wednesday say Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker, will pay a $2.3 billion civil penalty over unlawful prescription drug promotions. [widget:1111] The U.S. Justice Department plans a news conference later in the day with FBI, federal prosecutors, and Health and Human Services Department officials to announce the terms of the ...

BARCELONA, Spain - Experts are concerned about the impact the swine flu epidemic will have on people with heart disease, with some doctors warning it could be a deadly mix leading to a worldwide spike in heart patient fatalities. For that reason, some doctors warned on the sidelines of a European cardiology meeting this week that patients with heart disease - ...

NEW ORLEANS - Louisiana's top prosecutor said Friday he will not reopen a probe into allegations of euthanasia at a hospital crippled by Hurricane Katrina, despite new statements from a doctor that he drugged a terminal patient to "get rid of her faster." Dr. Ewing Cook said that as staff at Memorial Medical Center desperately tried to care for and evacuate ...

RICHMOND, Va. - Only Virginia and the District of Columbia have moved toward requiring sixth-grade girls to get vaccinated for a potentially cancerous sexually transmitted disease, three years after federal health officials recommended the shots. About two dozen states considered requiring the vaccine, but balked amid funding woes, and parents' concerns it wasn't safe and would promote promiscuity. Publicity that a ...

NEW YORK - An experimental procedure that someday may enable women to avoid passing certain genetic diseases on to their children has gained an early success, with the birth of four healthy monkeys, scientists report. The technique still faces safety questions and perhaps ethical hurdles, but an expert called the work exciting. The experiment, which involved transferring DNA between eggs from ...

NEW YORK -- The premise of the latest hit medical drama sounds improbable even for television: A doctor who makes house calls. In the Hamptons. Dashing among the hedgerows, dropping in on the rich and sick at one eye-popping estate after another. But come on. Who makes house calls these days, even on TV? The last such doc who did was ...

CHICAGO - Calls to poison control centers about teens abusing attention-deficit drugs soared 76 percent over eight years, sobering evidence about the dangerous consequences of prescription misuse, a study shows. The calls were from worried parents, emergency room doctors and others seeking advice on how to deal with the problem, which can be deadly. Four deaths were among cases evaluated in ...

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. - A dozen New Jersey hospitals are paying doctors as an incentive to save the hospitals money. The principle is known as gainsharing, and it's generally prohibited under federal law. But the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are allowing tests of the practice, which doctors' groups and hospitals alike say could help their finances and improve patient ...

BEIJING - The Chinese government has issued a list of more than 300 commonly used medicines that will be sold at controlled prices starting next month as part of reforms aimed at making health care more affordable. China is pumping in 850 billion yuan ($124 billion) to reform its ailing health care system in the next three years as part of ...

ATLANTA - U.S. life expectancy has risen to a new high, now standing at nearly 78 years, the government reported Wednesday. The increase is due mainly to falling death rates in almost all the leading causes of death. The average life expectancy for babies born in 2007 is nearly three months greater than for children born in 2006. The new U.S. ...

ATLANTA - Four years after the government severely restricted its use, the lung cancer drug Iressa may be poised to make a comeback: A study concludes it can slow the deadly disease better than standard chemotherapy in certain patients. The research released Wednesday is the first to show Iressa can be more effective than chemotherapy as a first-line treatment, and some ...

An angry patient kicked a nurse in the chest and she suffered a cardiac contusion. One patient was mad at a hospital employee because she wouldn't let him smoke. So he left, came back with a can full of gasoline, doused her and set her on fire with his lit cigarette. She died a month later. Both incidents happened at an ...

WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration is warning diabetes patients that certain blood sugar tests can give inaccurate results in patients taking other medications. Public health regulators told consumers on Friday not to use certain glucose testing strips from Roche, Abbott Laboratories and other companies in combination with dialysis and other biologic drugs. According to FDA those formulations contain non-glucose ...

NEW YORK - Scientists say they've found a big reason why treatment for chronic hepatitis C infection works better for white patients than for African-Americans. It's a tiny variation in a gene. People with a certain gene variant are far more likely to respond to treatment, and that variant is more common in people with European ancestry than African-Americans, researchers report. ...

LONDON - Since swine flu first emerged in April, it has sparked panic, vaccine production and now, a video game. In an effort to raise awareness, Dutch researchers have created a game that challenges players to control a new pandemic. "It is actually what is happening now, what is happening in the real world," said Albert Osterhaus, head of virology at ...

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's push to revamp health care got a boost Thursday as a new coalition of drug makers, unions, hospitals and others launched a $12 million pro-overhaul ad campaign. Meanwhile, the administration sought to regain control of the health care debate by asking supporters to forward a chain e-mail to counter criticism that's circulating on the Internet. The ...