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This page contains an archive of the last 100 entries posted to ProgressNow.org Daily News Digest in the Health Care and Public Safety category. They are listed from newest to oldest. You can find older entries using the search box below.

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Health Care and Public Safety Archives

February 29, 2008

U.S. official defends meat inspections - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-beef29feb29,1,2821800.story...
Agriculture Secretary Edward T. Schafer sparred with Senate lawmakers Thursday, insisting that regulations governing inspections of slaughterhouses are sufficient to ensure the safety of the nation's meat supply. Schafer rejected senators' calls to completely ban from slaughter any cattle unable to walk. "Downer" cows are at higher risk of carrying E. coli and salmonella bacteria and of having the wasting neurological illness known as mad cow disease. The standoff came at a Senate subcommittee hearing triggered by practices at Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. of Chino that led to the largest meat recall in U.S. history. Undercover video shot by the Humane Society of the United States showed downer cows being forced to slaughter by workers who poked them with electric prods or rolled them with forklifts.
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FDA Cites Problems at Chinese Plant Making Blood Thinner - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022803046....
The Chinese plant at the center of a controversy over the safety of half the nation's supply of the blood thinning drug heparin had problems involving impurities, the quality and use of its equipment, and overall quality control, a preliminary inspection by the Food and Drug Administration found. In a heavily redacted report made public yesterday, the FDA inspectors also described at least one instance of the company using active ingredients -- which are made from pig intestines -- supplied by a "workshop" deemed to be "unacceptable." Heparin made from that source, the report said, was marketed to the United States. Also yesterday, the maker of the drug, Baxter International, recalled virtually all of its remaining heparin products. Earlier this month, the firm stopped production, but the FDA wanted to keep the existing Baxter heparin in doctors' hands because it did not want to cause a shortage of the life-saving drug. Agency officials said increased production by the other heparin manufacturer can now satisfy the demand.
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USDA Rejects 'Downer' Cow Ban - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022804117....
Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer told Congress yesterday that he would not endorse an outright ban on "downer" cows entering the food supply or back stiffer penalties for regulatory violations by meat-processing plants in the wake of the largest beef recall in the nation's history. Appearing at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Schafer said the department is investigating why it missed the inhumane treatment of cattle at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino, Calif., including workers administering electric shocks and high-intensity water sprays to downer cows -- those too sick or weak to stand without assistance. The secretary announced interim steps such as more random inspections of slaughterhouses and more frequent unannounced audits of the nearly two dozen plants that process meat for federal school lunch programs.
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Vet shortage threatens food system - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-28-vetshortage_N.htm...
A shortage of veterinarians who treat farm animals is stressing the nation's food inspection system, prompting the federal government to offer bonuses and moving expenses to fill hundreds of vacancies. Veterinarians increasingly have chosen to live in metropolitan areas and pursue more lucrative practices specializing in pets. The result is a shortage of veterinarians who treat farm animals or work as government inspectors. The scarcity is most severe in the USA's Farm Belt, the lightly populated rural areas in the Midwest that produce much of the nation's meat.
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Las Vegas clinic accused of reusing syringes - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-02-29-hepatitis-exposure_N.htm...
A former patient sued a surgical center believed to have spread hepatitis C by reusing syringes and vials of medication, saying Thursday he fears for his health. The suit comes a day after the Southern Nevada Health District announced that unsafe practices at the clinic may have led to six reported cases of hepatitis C, a potentially fatal blood-borne virus. Another 40,000 people who received anesthesia at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada between March 2004 and January 2008 are being urged to be tested for hepatitis, strains C and B, and HIV. "I feel like a ticking time bomb. I'll get tested ASAP, but since HIV can lay dormant for many years, my wife and I face a future of uncertainty and fear," according to a statement from the plaintiff, Charles Anthony Rader, Jr., who says he received treatment during that period and may have been exposed. The suit, filed in the Eighth Judicial District Court of Nevada, alleges gross negligence and seeks punitive damages "in excess of $10,000" per patient.
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February 28, 2008

Private Medicare Plans’ Cost Questioned - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/washington/28medicare.html?ref=washington...
Private Medicare plans often cost beneficiaries more than the traditional government-run Medicare program, Congressional investigators say. Many private plans advertise extra benefits and low costs. But in a report to be issued Thursday, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, says that many people in private plans face higher costs for home health care, nursing homes and some hospital stays. About one-fifth of the 44 million Medicare beneficiaries — 9 million people — are in private plans, known as Medicare Advantage plans. The report says, “Medicare spends more per beneficiary in Medicare Advantage than it does for beneficiaries in the original Medicare fee-for-service program, at an estimated additional cost to Medicare of $54 billion from 2009 through 2012.”
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Health Care Improves, GAO Says - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022702435....
The Army has significantly improved its support for service members undergoing medical treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other military hospitals, but it still faces shortages of staff and other gaps, GAO officials told a congressional committee yesterday. "Challenges remain, but the trend is in the right direction," John Pendleton, acting director of health care for the Governmental Accountability Office, told a House subcommittee on oversight and governmental reform. Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), chairman of the subcommittee, credited the Army with improving military health care in the year since a scandal developed over reports in The Washington Post of poor treatment for wounded service members at Walter Reed. But he raised concerns about the continuing shortfalls identified and the progress of efforts to streamline the disability-evaluation process. "It's equally clear we have a ways to go," Tierney said.
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Pact Would Give Global AIDS Fight Triple the Money - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022701409....
House leaders from both parties and the White House yesterday reached agreement on a bill that would more than triple funding for the Bush administration's global AIDS program, already the largest foreign aid initiative aimed at fighting a single disease in U.S. history. In a compromise reached late Tuesday night, the bill loosens the requirement for abstinence messages in AIDS-prevention strategies, a source of criticism of the program since it was unveiled by President Bush in 2003. The bill authorizes $50 billion over five years to prevent infection, treat people already ill from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and care for children orphaned by the epidemic. The program, known as the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), provided $15 billion over its first five years.
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Senator Queries F.D.A. and Spinal Disk Maker - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/business/28device.html?ref=washington...
A ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee has asked the Food and Drug Administration and the maker of an artificial spinal disk about potential financial conflicts of many doctors involved in the clinical research that led to F.D.A. approval of the device.
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Annual flu shots urged for nearly all children - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-vaccine28feb28,1,6322807.s...
A federal panel recommended Wednesday that all children over the age of 6 months should be vaccinated for influenza every year. The recommendation, which is expected to be adopted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would call for an estimated 30 million more children to be vaccinated -- although current vaccination rates suggest that less than a quarter of them, about 7 million, would actually receive the shots. The shots would not be mandatory, but the federal imprimatur would make physicians more likely to offer the vaccine to children.
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UN Backs Push to End Female Circumcision -- chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-un-female-circumcision,1,7...
Ten U.N. agencies have launched a campaign to significantly reduce female circumcision by 2015 and eradicate the damaging practice within a generation. In a statement released Wednesday, the agencies said female circumcision violates the rights of women and girls to health, protection and even life since the procedure sometimes results in death. The agencies pledged to support all efforts by governments, communities, women and girls to reduce and end the practice.
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Congress Requests A Clemens Inquiry - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022701886....
The Justice Department should investigate whether pitching great Roger Clemens committed perjury when he told a congressional committee two weeks ago that he never used steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs, two prominent lawmakers wrote yesterday in a letter to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey.
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February 27, 2008

5% of TB Cases Don't React to Some Drugs - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/26/AR2008022603194....
About one in every 20 new cases of tuberculosis worldwide is now resistant to two or more drugs, and in some regions of the former Soviet Union the proportion is closer to one in every five cases, the World Health Organization reported yesterday. In addition, "extensively drug-resistant" tuberculosis (XDR-TB), a relatively new subtype of the disease that takes $15,000 in drugs and two years to treat, has now been found in 45 countries. TB epidemiologists estimate 40,000 new cases emerge each year, and the death rate in untreated or poorly treated cases is close to 100 percent. "Multi-drug-resistant" tuberculosis (MDR-TB) could account for 22 percent of all cases in Baku, Azerbaijan, and 19 percent of Moldova's, a rate that "was not thought to be possible" in the 1990s, said Mario Raviglione, the head of WHO's tuberculosis department, who will discuss the data today at a congressional hearing.
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Study Finds Death Risk From Anemia Drugs - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/business/27anemia.html?ref=business...
Widely used anemia drugs sold by Amgen and Johnson & Johnson raise the risk of death among cancer patients by about 10 percent, according to a new analysis of previous clinical trials that is to be published Wednesday.
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Surgeon Accused in Death of Patient to Get Organs - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/us/27transplant.html?ref=us...
On a winter night in 2006, a disabled and brain damaged man named Ruben Navarro was wheeled into an operating room at a hospital here. By most accounts, Mr. Navarro, 25, was near death, and doctors hoped that he might sustain other lives by donating his kidneys and liver. But what happened to Mr. Navarro quickly went from the potentially life-saving to what law enforcement officials say was criminal. In what transplant experts believe is the first such case in the country, prosecutors have charged the surgeon, Dr. Hootan C. Roozrokh, with prescribing excessive and improper doses of drugs, apparently in an attempt to hasten Mr. Navarro’s death to retrieve his organs sooner.
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Smoking-ban bill approved in Mexico - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-smoke27feb27,1,7854307.story...
Mexico's Senate approved a bill Tuesday that would ban smoking in workplaces, public buildings and public transportation across the country, and allow it in private businesses only if special, ventilated smoking areas are set up. The bill, approved 101-5 with two abstentions, had already passed the lower house of Congress, and only awaits enactment by the president.
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February 26, 2008

Spending on Health to Rise Dramatically -- chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-health-care-spending,1,589...
By 2017, total health care spending will double to more than $4 trillion a year, accounting for one of every $5 the nation spends, the federal government projects. The 6.7 percent annual increase in spending -- nearly three times the rate of inflation_ will be largely driven by higher prices and an increased demand for care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Monday. Other factors in the mix include a growing and aging population. The first wave of baby boomers become eligible for Medicare beginning in 2011. With the aging population, the federal government will be picking up the tab for a growing share of the nation's medical expenses. Overall, federal and state governments accounted for about 46 percent of health expenditures in 2006. That percentage will increase to 49 percent over the next decade.
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Court Considers Protecting Drug Makers From Lawsuits - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/washington/26drug.html?ref=washington...
Less than a week after issuing a sweeping ruling that bars most lawsuits against medical device makers, the Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in the first of two cases that could determine whether drug makers receive similar protection. Justice Stephen G. Breyer said the fundamental question in the cases was who should make the decisions that will determine whether a drug is “on balance, going to save people or, on balance, going to hurt people?” “An expert agency on the one hand or 12 people pulled randomly for a jury role who see before them only the people whom the drug hurt and don’t see those who need the drug to cure them?” Justice Breyer asked. Normally a member of the court’s liberal wing, Justice Breyer came down squarely on the industry’s side when he answered his own question, saying Congress left the role of policing the medicine market exclusively to the Food and Drug Administration. “What worries me is, what happens if the jury is wrong?” he said.
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Court Rules Against Tobacco Companies - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/25/AR2008022501016....
The Supreme Court has rejected a tobacco industry request to intervene in a lawsuit by over a thousand West Virginia smokers. The justices declined Monday to examine a trial procedure in which a jury first determines whether smokers as a group are entitled to punitive damages before establishing whether any single smoker is entitled to compensation. Later, a new jury addresses issues unique to each alleged smoking victim who sued. West Virginia courts are allowing the approach, which has been used in other types of lawsuits, including claims for asbestos exposure.
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NJ Needle Exchange Slow to Reach Addicts -- chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-needle-exchange,1,2360932....
New Jersey has become the last state where intravenous drug users can legally get clean needles, but two of the state's three needle exchanges are struggling to get clients. A lack of funding, winter weather, remote locations and a mistrust by drug users are all making it tough for the exchanges to reach clients. One program in Camden distributes needles out of the back of a blue van that sets up Tuesday afternoons near an overgrown vacant lot in an industrial waterfront section of the city, where bottles of all types, trash, condoms and clothing are strewn.
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Chinese drug maker defends plant's safety - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fi-heparin26feb26,1,7382856.sto...
Heparin, a widely used blood thinner, was once made from cow lungs. Drug makers shifted to pig intestines as concerns over mad cow disease heightened in the 1990s, and no place has more hogs than China. In October 2005, Li's company made its first shipment to the U.S. Since then, Shenzhen Hepalink Pharmaceutical Co. has become the world's largest producer of heparin's main ingredient. Now Li and his staff of 370 are watching to see what will happen to their main Chinese rival for the U.S. market. That company is under intense scrutiny in the wake of four deaths in the U.S. that were linked to heparin made by Baxter International Inc. Baxter has said that tests detected irregularities in samples of the drug processed with ingredients from China. Baxter's Chinese supplier, Changzhou SPL -- a joint venture with a Wisconsin company -- was never inspected by the Food and Drug Administration, nor was it registered with Chinese drug regulators as required. FDA inspectors last week arrived at the Changzhou SPL plant. On Monday, an FDA spokeswoman said the investigation was continuing.
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Pfizer to End Lipitor Ads by Jarvik - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/business/26pfizer.html?ref=business...
Under criticism that its ads are misleading, Pfizer said Monday that it would cancel a long-running advertising campaign using the artificial heart pioneer Robert Jarvik as a spokesman for its cholesterol drug Lipitor. Pfizer has spent more than $258 million advertising Lipitor since January 2006, most of it on the Jarvik campaign, as the company sought to protect Lipitor, the world’s best-selling drug, from competition by cheaper generics. But the campaign had come under scrutiny from a Congressional committee that is examining consumer drug advertising and has asked whether the ads misrepresented Dr. Jarvik and his credentials. Although he has a medical degree, Dr. Jarvik is not a cardiologist and is not licensed to practice medicine. One television ad depicted Dr. Jarvik as an accomplished rower gliding across a mountain lake, but the ad used a body double for the doctor, who apparently does not row.
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Chinese Woman Dies of Bird Flu -- chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-china-bird-flu,1,1772191.s...
A migrant worker has died of the H5N1 virus in southern China, the Hong Kong government said Tuesday, as the country confirmed its fourth outbreak of bird flu among poultry this year. The woman who died Monday in Shanwei, a coastal city in eastern Guangdong province, tested positive for the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus, Hong Kong's Health Department said in a statement issued after receiving confirmation from China's Health Ministry. Her death marked the country's 20th fatality from the deadly H5N1 virus and its third this year.
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February 25, 2008

Insurer fined $9M for dropping cancer patient - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/insurance/2008-02-23-healthnet_N.htm...
A woman who had her medical coverage canceled as she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer has been awarded more than $9 million in a case against one of California's largest health insurers. Patsy Bates, 52, a hairdresser from Lakewood, had been left with more than $129,000 in unpaid medical bills when Health Net Inc. canceled her policy in 2004. On Friday, arbitration judge Sam Cianchetti ordered Health Net to repay that amount while providing $8.4 million in punitive damages and $750,000 for emotional distress. "It's hard to imagine a situation more trying than the one Bates has had to endure," Cianchetti wrote in the decision. "The rug was pulled out from underneath, and that occurred at a time when she is diagnosed with breast cancer, one of the leading causes of death for women." Bates, a mother of two, said she screamed when she heard about the damage award.
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LASIK failure toll can be high -- chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-lasik_25feb25,1,2082427.story...
Patients who undergo vision-correcting laser eye surgery sign a release form with an extensive list of risks, but some researchers and former patients say a potential complication is not mentioned: depression that can lead to suicide. In response to patient complaints, the Food and Drug Administration plans to convene a large, national study to examine the relationship of LASIK complications and quality of life, including psychological problems such as depression. Malvina Eydelman, an ophthalmologist with the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, wrote in an e-mail that the scant clinical data available "failed to suggest significant problems following LASIK surgery." But she said the FDA wants a broad and systematic review. She wrote, "We also noted that quality of life issues related to LASIK had not been evaluated consistently, and there were few reports of well-designed studies." Frustration and sorrow can follow any unsuccessful surgery, but when the procedure leaves a patient with unremitting eye pain or permanently impaired vision, the emotional toll can be severe.
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Impact of beef recall widens - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2008-02-24-beef-recall-impact-wide...
The nation's largest meat recall could grow into its largest food recall as companies destroy products with any amount of the 143 million pounds of beef recalled last week. The recall's scope is unprecedented, says the Grocery Manufacturers of America. The value of foods affected — including soups, sauces, burritos and bouillon cubes — could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, a senior GMA official says. "It's going to be very, very sizeable," says Craig Henry, the group's senior vice president. "We've never had a recall like this." He says it will take weeks to find out how many products the recalled beef went into. Westland/Hallmark Meat of Chino, Calif., recalled the beef on Feb. 17 after federal officials found it had allowed cattle that could not walk to be slaughtered without notifying a federal inspector to do a required second inspection. Those cattle are generally prohibited from the food supply because they carry a higher risk of mad cow disease and bacterial contamination.
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February 22, 2008

Medical Device Ruling Redraws Lines on Lawsuits - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/business/22device.html?ref=business...
The Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday protecting many types of medical device makers from personal injury lawsuits began rippling through the courts and law offices almost immediately. Hours after the decision in the case, Riegel v. Medtronic, was announced, lawyers involved in a group of Florida state court cases related to Johnson & Johnson’s drug-coated Cypher heart stent received an e-mail message from Judge Mary Barzee Flores asking for briefs on whether the lawsuits should be allowed to continue. And lawyers for patients with injuries they attribute to other devices like heart valves, artificial hips and defibrillators said they were girding for a flood of court filings from device makers like Medtronic asking judges to dismiss such lawsuits. “Medtronic probably already has summary judgment motions ready to go, and I expect to see them filed in the next few days,” said Hunter J. Shkolnik, a New York lawyer. “The next six months will be consumed fighting about such motions,” Mr. Shkolnik predicted.
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Feds Prescribe New Recipe for Flu Shot -- chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-flu-vaccine,1,5109904.stor...
Next year's flu vaccine is getting a complete overhaul to provide protection against three new and different influenza strains -- hopefully better protection than this year's version. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration unanimously backed the new recipe on Thursday, echoing an earlier decision by the World Health Organization. It's a highly unusual move: Seldom are more than one or two strains swapped out from one year to the next. Now the question is whether vaccine manufacturers can make such a big change in time to produce more than 100 million doses by the fall.
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Much of Recalled Meat Sent To Schools - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR2008022102694....
More than a third of the 143 million pounds of California beef recalled this week went to school lunch programs, with at least 20 million pounds consumed, Agriculture Department officials said Thursday. About 50 million pounds of the meat went to schools, said Eric Steiner, deputy administrator of special nutrition programs for the department's Food and Nutrition Service. Of that amount, about 20 million pounds has been eaten, 15 million pounds is on hold at storage facilities and 15 million pounds is still being traced, he said. USDA officials have said that the meat poses little or no hazard to consumers.
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Naps, mammograms, blood-sugar tests may give clues to stroke risk - The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/22/naps_mammograms_blood_suga...
What do mammograms, blood-sugar tests, and daytime dozing have in common? All may offer clues that someone is headed for a stroke, new studies suggest.
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Google to Test Medical-Record Service - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR2008022100004....
Google will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people in a test of a health service that is likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader. The pilot project announced yesterday will involve 1,500 to 10,000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic who agreed to an electronic transfer of their personal health records so they can be retrieved through Google's service, which will not be open to the general public. Each health profile, including information about prescriptions, allergies and medical histories, will be protected by a password. Google views its expansion into health-records management as a logical extension of its search engine business, which already processes millions of requests from people trying to find about more information about injuries, illnesses or treatments.
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February 21, 2008

Justices Add Legal Complications to Debate on F.D.A.’s Competence - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/washington/21fda.html?ref=washington...
THE Supreme Court’s ruling on Wednesday limiting lawsuits by patients over medical devices comes just as independent groups have raised questions about the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to ensure the safety of these products. The Institute of Medicine, the Government Accountability Office and the F.D.A.’s own science board have all issued reports concluding that poor management and scientific inadequacies have made the agency incapable of protecting the country against unsafe drugs, medical devices and food. A result, said David Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, is that the public is facing the worst of both worlds: a government health agency that cannot protect them and rules that block them from winning compensation when injured. Randall Lutter, the F.D.A.’s deputy commissioner for policy, said that the agency was responding to reports of its deficiencies and improving. And advocates for the administration’s position say that regardless of the recent reports, the F.D.A. is a far better judge of product safety than the courts.
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Supreme Court gives business 2 wins - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scotus21feb21,1,5342055.sto...
The Supreme Court gave business two big wins Wednesday by shielding companies from lawsuits and state regulations. In one ruling, the court said makers of medical devices, such as heart valves and pacemakers, cannot be sued by injured patients if the Food and Drug Administration had approved the devices for sale. In the second, the court freed shippers and delivery services, such as UPS, from state regulations requiring them to verify that an adult was the recipient of cigarettes delivered to a residence. In the medical devices case, the court threw out a lawsuit against Medtronic Inc. over a balloon catheter that burst in the chest of a New York man. He underwent emergency surgery and died some time later. His wife sued Medtronic, saying the catheter was defective. But in an 8-1 decision in Riegel vs. Medtronic, the court rejected her suit, saying juries may not second-guess the FDA on whether such devices were safe.
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Supreme Court Shields Medical-Device Makers - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/20/AR2008022001140....
The Supreme Court yesterday protected the makers of medical devices that have passed the most rigorous federal review standards from lawsuits by consumers who allege that the devices caused them harm. The court ruled 8 to 1 against the estate of a New York man who was seriously injured when a balloon catheter manufactured by Medtronic burst during an angioplasty in 1996. Charles Riegel, who died three years ago, and his wife sued under New York law, alleging that the device's design was faulty and its labeling deficient. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said federal law preempts the imposition of liability under state laws for devices that have undergone the Food and Drug Administration's pre-market approval process, the most rigorous of the FDA's testing procedures.
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Supreme Court Strikes Down State's Law to Diminish Internet Tobacco Sales to Teens - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/20/AR2008022002743....
The Supreme Court yesterday shut down state efforts to curb Internet sales of tobacco to teenagers, saying that the efforts were well-intentioned but violated federal restrictions against states regulating shipping. The unanimous holding reverses a lower court decision that had barred individuals from suing over losses related to mistakes and misconduct, and thus had insulated employers from lawsuits even as more U.S. workers came to rely on the savings accounts to help fund their retirements. In the opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens recognized that the landscape of retirement investing had been reshaped since the high court's prior ruling on related issues more than two decades ago. Since then, individual plans known as 401(k) accounts have mushroomed as employers moved away from defined-benefit plans, or pensions.
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Embryonic Stem Cells - Diabetes Treatment - Novocell - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/health/research/21stem.html?ref=us...
Scientists reported on Wednesday that they were able to control diabetes in mice by harnessing human embryonic stem cells. The work raised the prospect that the embryonic cells might one day be used to provide insulin-producing replacement cells to treat the disease in people.
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States act to protect individual health insurance coverage - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2008-02-20-cancel_N.htm...
Lawmakers in several states are limiting insurers' ability to cancel health policies for consumers who buy their own coverage. The state actions come as more people buy individual insurance policies because they are self-employed, unemployed or don't get coverage at work. More than 18 million people have individual coverage. Unlike group health policies offered by employers, individual plans require applicants to submit many years' worth of detailed medical information. The insurers use that information in deciding whether to offer coverage and how much to charge. Most states allow insurers to revoke an individual policy — generally within two years of granting it — if they find an applicant lied or inadvertently omitted information on an application. Cancellation of a policy is retroactive. Patients must pay for all their past medical care, even if the insurer previously approved and paid for the care. There is little nationwide data on the extent of cancellations. Blue Cross of California has said it cancels fewer than one-half of 1% of all new policies, an average of 1,000 a year.
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Cesium chloride limits urged - The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/02/21/cesium_chloride...
Radioactive cesium chloride found in medical and research equipment can be used as an ingredient in a dirty bomb, and US leaders should try to curb its use, the National Research Council said yesterday. About 1,000 machines at US hospitals and universities used for irradiating blood for transplant patients and other purposes contain cesium chloride, the council said. The concern is that individuals or groups eager to detonate a dirty bomb in a US city could steal this cesium chloride and combine it with conventional explosives such as dynamite into a "dirty bomb" or radiological dispersal device.
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US deemed unready for health crisis - The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/21/us_deemed_unready_for_heal...
In the first report of its kind, US health officials said the nation's cities and states made a strong effort to prepare for a flu pandemic, bioterrorism, or other emergency health crises, but big challenges remain. "I think in terms of effort and progress, an 'A,' " Dr. Richard Besser of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said when asked to assign a letter grade. "In terms of amount of work to be done, I would say that's absolutely enormous." It was the government's first assessment of the payoff from its investment of more than $5 billion since the terrorist attacks of 2001 to make the country better prepared for a variety of public health emergencies. The report looked at staffing, laboratory capability, and other resources of state, local, and territorial health departments for handling bioterrorism or other disasters. The number of state and local health departments able to detect biological agents grew to 110 in 2007, up from 83 in 2002. Labs able to detect chemical agents increased to 47, from zero in 2001, the CDC found.
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Probe: FEMA misdirected $13M in disaster relief - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-02-20-FEMA_N.htm...
The Federal Emergency Management Agency took money from the sale of used travel trailers and inappropriately used it to buy $13 million worth of SUVs, global positioning systems and other items, according to a new government probe. The Homeland Security Department's inspector general found that FEMA misspent millions after the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons that should have either been returned to the U.S. Treasury or used to buy more trailers for hurricane victims. "Even allowing for the hectic situation that arose in the aftermath of the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes, FEMA officials at all levels did not take appropriate action to ensure that proceeds from the sale of trailers and mobile homes were properly used," Inspector General Richard Skinner wrote in a report to be released Friday. The report says FEMA spent about $2.9 billion on 230,000 trailers and mobile homes for displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina and other storms. By law, when residents leave the trailers, FEMA may sell them to the public but the money can only be returned or spent on more trailers.
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Paying Patients Test British Health Care System - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/world/europe/21britain.html?ref=world...
Created 60 years ago as a cornerstone of the British welfare state, the National Health Service is devoted to the principle of free medical care for everyone. But recently it has been wrestling with a problem its founders never anticipated: how to handle patients with complex illnesses who want to pay for parts of their treatment while receiving the rest free from the health service.
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Sears Settles Suit by Agreeing to Install Safety Brackets on Stoves - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/20/AR2008022002666....
Sears will install safety brackets on its stoves in millions of households or offer gift cards in settling an Illinois class-action lawsuit over the appliances' supposed propensity to topple. Under an agreement a judge signed off on last month, Sears will offer to fix all brands of its freestanding or slide-in kitchen ranges in as many as 3.9 million homes by bolting them to a wall or floor. The deal covers ranges sold from mid-2000 through Sept. 18, when a judge granted the settlement temporary approval. The deal resolving the lawsuit dating to July 2004 also requires Sears to install safety brackets in newly purchased ranges for the next three years.
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India's Young Pick Up A Dangerous Addiction - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/20/AR2008022002918....
Lounging in a smoke-filled cafe, Purvi Ahuja, 20, and her hip friends like their text messages to be fast, their cappuccinos to be milky and their cigarettes to be plentiful. "I know it's so bad. My skin is even gross, my lips are black because of it," sighed Ahuja, her ashtray filled with cigarette butts. Her friends, a pilot and a writer, took long drags on their cigarettes, exhaled puffs of smoke and agreed that it's just not easy to stop smoking. Young Indians, especially young women like Ahuja, represent one of the cigarette companies' largest markets. Because they are so heavily targeted, they are also at particular risk of smoking-related death, according to health officials. Recent findings from the first nationally representative study of smoking in India found that this country is in the grip of a smoking epidemic likely to cause nearly a million deaths a year starting in 2010. There are 120 million smokers in India, half of them younger than 30, the study found. India has a larger population of smokers than any other country in the world except China.
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February 20, 2008

Medicare won't pay hospitals for errors - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-02-19-hospitalerrors_N.htm...
It's a new way to push for patient safety: Don't pay hospitals when they commit certain errors. Medicare will start hitting hospitals where it hurts in October, and other insurers are hot on the trail. That has the nation's hospitals exploring innovative programs to prevent injury and infection: Hand-washing spies. Surgical sponges that sound an alarm if left in the body. Even a room sterilizer that promises to wipe out bacteria left lurking on bedrails. "Money talks," says Dr. Steven Gordon, infectious disease chief at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. "Every hospital CFO, this gets their attention." And patients' first sign that something is changing may involve lessening of a big indignity: Today, one in four hospitalized patients is outfitted with a urinary catheter. The tubes trigger more than half a million urinary tract infections a year, the most common hospital-caused infection.
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African AIDS Crisis Outlives $15 Billion Bush Initiative - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/19/AR2008021902847....
Five years after President Bush vowed to "turn the tide against AIDS" in Africa, he is traveling across a continent where the government's $15 billion investment has extended the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and eased the sense of certain doom once experienced by millions of others. But in the worst-hit areas, clustered mainly on Africa's southern tip, the tide has decidedly not turned. The epidemic continues to spread at a torrid pace that shows little sign of easing, with people contracting HIV much faster than sick ones can be put on crucial antiretroviral drugs, research shows. Bush's initiative, the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, has not found a way to