A widower, 83, has joined the ranks of less than 100 ‘altruistic donors’ in the UK who have donated an organ to a stranger while alive – and is now the oldest (File pic).

A giant frame full of baby pictures covers a hallway wall at the University of Kansas Hospital’s Women’s Health Center in Overland Park.

After being told there was a 38 per cent chance the cancer would return, Emma Neville, from Wythenshawe, Manchester, underwent a double mastectomy.

Keeping Low-Density Lipoprotein or LDL (known as bad cholesterol) under check is good for your heart. But raising levels of good cholesterol may not have any impact on your heart disease risk, a new study says.

The Department for Health and Human Services released guidelines detailing the requirements states must meet in their proposals if they want to gain federal approval to operate these insurance markets.

The Wall Street Journal: Bid To Coax States On Health Exchanges
The Obama administration on Wednesday made a fresh bid to coax reluctant governors to work with the federal government to help enact the health-overhaul law. The move centers on new marketplaces that sell health insurance, a key plank of the law that states are supposed to open by 2014. Republican governors, who lead 29 of the 50 states, are divided over whether to set up the exchanges, which would allow consumers to shop for insurance plans if they don’t receive affordable coverage through an employer (Radnofsky, 5/16).

Reuters: U.S. Sets Deadline For Proposals On State Healthcare Exchanges
The Obama administration forged ahead with healthcare reforms on Wednesday, announcing a November 16 deadline for state governments to submit proposals showing how they intend to operate health insurance exchanges in 2014. The Department for Health and Human Services released a detailed blueprint of the legal and operational requirements states must meet in their proposals if they expect to win federal approval to begin operating regulated insurance markets, in whole or in part, by January 1, 2014, when the 2010 law is scheduled to come into full force (5/16).

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: States Must Submit Plans For Insurance Marketplaces By Nov. 16
States must provide details to the federal government by Nov. 16 – just 10 days after the presidential election – on how they will run online insurance marketplaces, according to guidance released Wednesday (Appleby, 5/16).

CQ HealthBeat: HHS Seeks To Re-Energize Exchange Creation Via New Grants, Guidance
Six states will get grants totaling $181 million to help them establish health insurance exchanges under the health care law, Health and Human Services officials announced Wednesday. That makes 34 states and the District of Columbia that have received such federal assistance. Officials also released a guidance document detailing how they will work with states to establish a “federally facilitated exchange” (FFE) for those that elect not to create their own such marketplace (Reichard, 5/16).

Modern Healthcare: Insurance Exchanges Could Mean Savings For Some, Researcher Says
People who purchase health insurance policies on the individual market may save an average of $280 annually under the healthcare overhaul’s coming insurance exchanges, according to projections by a federal researcher. Steven Hill, a senior economist in the Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, analyzed costs for the 11 million beneficiaries in the individual insurance market in recent years and projected their future costs under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Daly, 5/16).

I haven’t been able to post here much lately because of work and life and whatnot, but after the Medical Library Association conference (#mlanet12) wraps up next week, things should loosen up a bit.

This year, MLA, the  professional association for medical librarians, is having its annual conference in Seattle, WA. I’ve never been there and am looking forward to it. At the conference, I’m presenting in a section on building successful collaborations, facilitating a roundtable on librarian involvement in systematic reviews, attending the government relations committee meeting as a member, and am serving as an official conference blogger. My posts on things seen and learned in the conference exhibit hall – my area of coverage – will be up here. Oh, yeah, I’m also attending a tweet up and participating in a zombie hunt, and hoping to see some old friends while I’m there.

I’ve also had recent posts up at Our Bodies Our Blog, on long-term bisphosphonate use, a recent CDC report on teen girls’ sexual activity and use of contraceptives, and recent research into progesterone-alone for menopausal hot flashes. There’s something I’m enthused about coming out of OBOS soon, and after MLA wraps up I’ll share that here as well, but watch the site and blog for news.

I’m also hitting the one-year mark now on being car-free in Nashville, TN. I have it in mind to do one or more posts on that experience soon, as well. Thankfully, I’ll be off work and home for 5 days after returning from the conference, during which there will be some blogging and probably a lot of Diablo III and WoW.

Oh, and lest anybody get any ideas about my being out of town – the house will be guarded by the spouse, the attack kitties, and the huge dog seen in the top left.

Filed under: Events & Observances, Miscellaneous

IntelligentMDx announced recently that it has obtained CE-marking for a new automated, high-throughput, qualitative in vitro diagnostic test designed for the rapid detection of Group B Streptococcus for use in screening pregnant women and those in labor who may be infected with the pathogen.

Today’s headlines includes reports about the deadline set by the federal government regarding the creation of state-based health insurance exchanges.  

Kaiser Health News: Can I Pay Negotiated Rates When I Pay Out Of Pocket? (Video)
Kaiser Health News’ Insuring Your Health columnist Michelle Andrews responds to a readers question about how to get the negotiated rates insurers pay even when paying for a medical procedure directly (5/16). Watch the video.

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Senate Panel Looks At Innovative Health Care Strategies; States Must Submit Plans For Insurance Marketplaces By Nov. 16; Targeting Diabetes Prevention Among Medicare Beneficiaries; D.C. Health Program For Illegal Immigrants Avoids Cuts
Now on Kaiser Health News’ blog, Mary Agnes Carey reports on Wednesday’s Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing: “No matter how the Supreme Court rules next month on the challenges to the 2010 health care law, there will be a continued focus on making the health care system more efficient, and senators looked at some promising options Wednesday” (Carey, 5/17).

Julie Appleby reports: “States must provide details to the federal government by Nov. 16 – just 10 days after the presidential election – on how they will run online insurance marketplaces, according to guidance released Wednesday” (Appleby, 5/16). In addition, Shefali S. Kulkarni reports on diabetes prevention efforts: “Recent studies might suggest an increase of Type 2 diabetes among children and young adults, but the real low hanging fruit, according to diabetes and policy experts, may be among the Medicare population” (Kulkarni, 5/16).

Also on the blog, Sarah Barr reports on a D.C. health program for illegal immigrants: “A public health insurance program that primarily serves illegal immigrants in the District of Columbia avoided the chopping block Tuesday under a budget compromise approved by the D.C. Council” (Barr, 5/16). Check out what else is on the blog.

Los Angeles Times: Congress’ Partisan Fight Persists Despite High-Level Overture
As President Obama welcomed congressional leaders for a White House chat over hoagies about setting aside differences to improve the economy, a far different scenario was unfolding at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Republicans in the House and Senate were conducting a series of partisan maneuvers Wednesday on legislation that has no chance of reaching the president’s desk. The votes in the Senate on budget measures, which would slash social programs and revamp Medicare, were designed to underscore the GOP’s alternatives to Obama’s policies in advance of the November election (Mascaro, 5/16).

The Washington Post: Senate Rejects Obama Budget, Republican Alternatives
Among the Republican plans advanced on the floor was the spending plan authored by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). It would balance the budget over the next three decades, in part by cutting deeply into social safety network spending and revamping Medicare. Like Obama’s budget, it failed to garner adequate votes to continue to a full debate. Republicans forced the series of budget votes to highlight Democrats’ failure to advance their own plan. The Senate rejected Obama’s budget on a 0 to 99 vote (Helderman, 5/16).

The New York Times’ The Caucus: Senate Republicans Engineer Rebuke On Budget
Republicans charged that Democrats have been derelict in their statutory duty to bring forward a budget. No long-term solution to the nation’s fiscal problems can be reached, they say, unless both parties are willing to agree on their visions for spending and taxes, then go to the table to negotiate. Democratic leaders have made it clear that they do not want to subject their members to the politically difficult votes Republicans would spring on them if they brought a budget to the floor (Weisman, 5/16).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: Senate Democrats Reject House GOP Budget Plan But Don’t Offer Alternative
Each GOP measure, though, would sharply cut domestic programs and called for a dramatic transformation of Medicare that would turn it into a voucher-like program in which future beneficiaries, those presently under the age of 55, would have to buy health insurance on the open market rather than have the government pay hospital and doctor bills. Democrats called for a “balanced” solution blending tax increases on wealthier people with less severe spending cuts (5/16).

Reuters/Chicago Tribune: Taxes Lurk Behind Court Test Of Obama Health Law
While Supreme Court watchers focus on the controversial insurance requirement in President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, lesser known is that the court’s ruling next month will also decide the fate of billions of dollars in new taxes. The 2010 law includes a 3.8-percent boost in taxes on investment income and a 0.9-percent increase in the Medicare payroll tax, both hitting people who earn more than $200,000 a year (Dixon, 5/16).

The Wall Street Journal: Bid To Coax States On Health Exchanges
The Obama administration on Wednesday made a fresh bid to coax reluctant governors to work with the federal government to help enact the health-overhaul law. The move centers on new marketplaces that sell health insurance, a key plank of the law that states are supposed to open by 2014. Republican governors, who lead 29 of the 50 states, are divided over whether to set up the exchanges, which would allow consumers to shop for insurance plans if they don’t receive affordable coverage through an employer (Radnofsky, 5/16).

Reuters/Chicago Tribune: U.S. Sets Deadline For Proposals On State Healthcare Exchanges
The Department for Health and Human Services released a detailed blueprint of the legal and operational requirements states must meet in their proposals if they expect to win federal approval to begin operating regulated insurance markets, in whole or in part, by January 1, 2014, when the 2010 law is scheduled to come into full force (5/16).

Politico: Health Care Reform: GOP Preps Plan For Ruling On Law
House Republican leaders are quietly hatching a plan of attack as they await a historic Supreme Court ruling on President Barack Obama’s health care law. If the law is upheld, Republicans will take to the floor to tear out its most controversial pieces, such as the individual mandate and requirements that employers provide insurance or face fines (Sherman and Haberkorn, 5/16).

Los Angeles Times: Crossroads GPS Fires Back At Obama With $25-Million Ad Buy
The 2012 campaign air battle grew more intense Wednesday with the news that Crossroads GPS, the cash-flush conservative advocacy group, is pouring another $25 million into television ads castigating President Obama for “broken” promises. The massive ad buy matches the $25 million that Obama’s reelection campaign announced last week it would be spending on a month of TV airtime. … The commercial charges Obama with, among other items, raising taxes through his health care reform plan and failing to meet his pledge to cut the deficit in half (Gold, 5/16).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: Ad By Outside Group Accuses Obama Of Broken Promises On Health Care, Taxes And Deficit
The ad is from Crossroads GPS, the sister group of American Crossroads, a super PAC that has promised to raise millions of dollars to defeat Obama. A 30-second abridged version of the ad is also airing. The two ads are the latest in the intensifying TV ad war focusing on 10 presidential battleground states about six months before the fall election. The $8 million dollar buy for the two spots is part of a monthlong $25 million ad campaign by Crossroads GPS (5/16).

The Washington Post’s The Fact Checker: Obama: Broken Promises On Taxes And Health Care?
The Republican-aligned Crossroads GPS has scheduled a massive $25 million ad buy, starting with this hard-hitting ad that purports to list a bunch of “broken promises” by President Obama. We are not going to quibble with some of these claims. The president, for instance, certainly has not met his pledge to cut the budget deficit in half. But we were interested in exploring more carefully the two health care-related items (Kessler, 5/17).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius To Address Georgetown Grads, Despite Church Criticism
A planned graduation speech by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at Georgetown University is going forward, despite criticism from the Archdiocese of Washington that Sebelius is an inappropriate choice for the Jesuit school (5/16).

The Wall Street Journal: Georgetown Defends Sebelius Invitation
Georgetown University is defending an invitation for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to address its graduate students Friday amid criticism from Catholics angry with the Obama administration’s health policies. Ms. Sebelius is set to speak at an awards ceremony at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute immediately after its commencement event (Radnofsky, 5/17).

The New York Times: New Fight On A Speaker At A Catholic University
As a two-term governor of Kansas, Ms. Sebelius was told by her bishop that she should be denied communion at Mass because of her support for abortion rights. As health secretary, she has been vilified for upholding the mandate in the health care overhaul that requires even religiously affiliated institutions to provide birth control coverage to their employees (Goodstein, 5/16).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: Doctors Ditching The Prescription Pad As More Than A Third Of Prescriptions Now Are Electronic
Doctors increasingly are ditching the prescription pad: More than a third of the nation’s prescriptions now are electronic, according to the latest count. The government has been pushing doctors to e-prescribe, in part because it can be safer for patients. This year, holdouts will start to see cuts in their Medicare payments (5/17).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: Protestors Seeking More Political Disclosure Disrupt Insurer WellPoint’s Annual Meeting
WellPoint Inc. shareholders rejected a call for more disclosure about the health insurer’s political contributions Wednesday during a shout-filled, contentious annual meeting. Union representatives and other protesters repeatedly interrupted Chairwoman and CEO Angela Braly after she opened the meeting and introduced proposals for shareholder voting (5/16).

The New York Times: Senate Passes Bill Creating Monitor For Disabled Care
The State Senate unanimously passed Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s legislation to protect developmentally disabled and mentally ill New Yorkers on Wednesday, but some high-profile advocates have been unnerved by what they perceive as flaws in the bill. Assembly Democrats have said that they intend to pass the bill, but will negotiate some changes before the legislative session ends on June 21 (Hakim, 5/16).

The New York Times: U.S. Expected To Retry Ex-Senator On 4 Unresolved Charges
Federal prosecutors will try to recover nearly $500,000 that Pedro Espada Jr., a former Democratic state senator from the Bronx, was convicted this week of stealing from a nonprofit health care network, as they seek a retrial for Mr. Espada and his son, according to a person familiar with the case (Hu, 5/16).

Check out all of Kaiser Health News’ e-mail options including First Edition and Breaking News alerts on our Subscriptions page.

Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, discovered that breast cancer is a diverse range of species rather than a single one.

The more coffee you drink, the less likely you are to die from a number of different ailments, a study of 400,000 aged between 50 and 71, by US researchers found.

VANDANA SHIVA: Traditional Knowledge, Biodiversity and Sustainable Living (via http://www.occupymonsanto360.org)

An Interview with Dr Vandana Shiva, one of the world’s foremost environmentalist, anti-GM activist and an advocate of ecological farming and sustainable agriculture as a solution to climate change, food security, hunger and peace. The interview was taken on 16th March 2011, during “Grandmonther…

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If you haven’t made up your mind yet about whether genetic engineering is equivalent to crop suicide, then watch this short video, which features a grandma in India who is trying to save the environment, and ultimately the world, with natural seeds and ecological farming. The star of this movement is Dr. Vandana Shiva, who founded the Navdanya Biodiversity Farm in India to help save traditional seeds before it’s too late.

This is vitally important because huge corporations like Monsanto are genetically modifying the world’s seeds and patenting them as their own. These corporations say they’re doing it to make farming more sustainable and better able to feed a growing, hungry world. But as Dr. Shiva points out, that premise is proving to be nothing but a big fat lie. It’s a lie that’s been the source of countless suicides committed by Indian farmers who’ve gone broke from farming GM crops.

It’s a scene that too many emergency rooms are seeing these days: a baby or toddler has swallowed something, and frantic parents want it out, now. Naturally, ER personnel also want to get it out quickly, especially since some objects such as batteries can harm or kill a child in as little as a couple hours.

As reported by Reuters:

“If a child swallows a button battery, the parent might not see it happen and the child might not have symptoms initially―and the clock is ticking,” said Dr. Gary Smith, head of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “We’ve seen children in less than two hours have severe, severe injuries from button batteries getting caught in the espophagus.”

The number of children seen in ER departments who’ve swallowed batteries in the past 20 years has doubled, Reuters says. But that’s not the only thing they’re swallowing or putting in their ears or up their noses. Other dangerous items include magnets, hair, pills, alcohol, nails, needles, pins, and tacks.

Weeds. Everywhere. Across America, from sea to shining sea, an insidious army of “super weeds” is taking over our farmlands. It’s a plague that even the most famous herbicide of all―Monsanto’s Roundup―can’t stop, mainly because it’s Roundup that’s caused the problem in the first place. Like the old axiom, “life finds a way,” the weeds Roundup targets have found a way to resist Roundup’s powerful poisons, making them stronger and more prolific than ever.

It’s a problem that’s helped some of the worst weeds grow more than 6 feet tall as they’ve attacked and taken over more than 12 million acres of prime U.S. farm ground, primarily afflicting the very crops Roundup was supposed to protect―corn and soybeans. We’ll probably never know whether Monsanto knew in advance that Roundup would only contribute to creating Frankenstein-like super weeds. But now that it’s happened, farmers who once embraced the genetically-modified Roundup Ready seeds and their companion herbicide are begging for relief and a solution to their woes.   

Rest assured, one of Monsanto’s competitors, Dow Chemical, has what they say will save the GM farming world: a newly-formulated herbicide built on the deadly 2,4-D compound better known as Agent Orange.

A major study by the University of Oxford shows the drugs – usually only given to high-risk patients – provided clear benefits among healthy ones too.

People in Hendersonville are questioning why the federal government didn’t tell them about an Immigration Enforcement Office planned for their town.

The relative risk for deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism jumps 7.9- and 6.5-fold in women using patches and rings, respectively, compared with women who do not use hormonal contraceptives.
Medscape Medical News

The results from the OraQuick Mouth-Swab Test show in 20 Minutes, yet false assurance is an issue.
WebMD Health News

Not, this is nothing at all compared to what a real heart attack is like or the heart attack a woman may be having.A A At a distance it can be really hard to tell what is going on, but knowing the symptoms ahead of time will make a difference in saving someone’s life.

A new study suggests that men undergoing robotic-assisted surgery for prostate cancer should look for a doctor who has performed at least 1,000 surgeries and who actively seeks to improve and enhance his surgical skills to help ensure a successful post-surgery recovery of erectile function.

Alcohol abuse causes one in eight deaths of British adults aged between 15 and 64, a conference of addiction specialists in Newcastle has heard.

Bethany Jane Turner, made a big splash when she was born a fortnight overdue at North Manchester General Hospital on May 11.

News outlets report on a variety of state health policy issues in California, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oregon and Utah.

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Louisiana Senate Panel Sinks Plan To Set Up Health Insurance Exchange
[W]ith a decisive 8-1 vote late Tuesday evening, the Louisiana Senate Finance Committee buried a bill that would have set up a body of elected and appointed officials to craft the exchanges that are an anchor of President Barack Obama’s health insurance overhaul. With the death of Senate Bill 744, Louisiana remains one of a handful of states that have refused to set up their own exchanges, with Gov. Bobby Jindal punting the job back to federal government that he accuses of taking over the American health care system (Barrow, 5/15). 

Reuters/Chicago Tribune: In Abortion Move, Kansas Pharmacists Can Refuse Some Prescriptions
The Republican governor of Kansas has signed a law allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for drugs they believe may induce abortions, a move opponents said could hinder some women’s access to birth control. Governor Sam Brownback’s office said on Tuesday that the bill “gives more legal protection to Kansas health care providers who refuse to participate in abortions” based on their conscience (Murphy, 5/15).

Kansas Health Institute News: New Law Extends Legal Protections For Refusal Of Abortion-Related Care
Current law already prohibits forcing health care providers to participate in abortions and protects from lawsuits those who refuse to participate. SB 62 extends that liability protection to all medical care facilities, administrators and governing boards. … Brownback also signed House Bill 2631, which will allow dental hygienists with a Level III Extended Care Permit to provide more types of care to underserved patients. Procedures allowed under the new permit include certain types of temporary fillings, smoothing chipped teeth, adjusting dentures and applying local anesthetics (5/15). 

The Associated Press/Washington Post: Utah Technology Director Resigns In Wake Of Data Theft At State Health Department
Utah’s chief technology officer has resigned following the theft of hundreds of thousands of online medical records from state computers by unknown hackers (5/15).

Kaiser Health News: Attention Health Care Shoppers: Colorado’s Price List For Procedures
Shopping for the best price for a given health care need is nearly impossible. Unlike shopping for other big ticket items, there’s no place to compare prices. Providers often can’t, or won’t, quote a price for a given procedure — different people are charged different rates based on what kind of coverage they have, or whether they have coverage at all (Whitney, 5/16). 

Boston Globe: Mass. Health Insurers’ Earnings Fall Off
After registering sharply higher earnings in 2011, the state’s nonprofit health insurers posted falling operating income — and in two cases, operating losses — for the first quarter of this year as they handled more medical claims. The early months of the year typically bring more claims. People delay elective procedures until after the holidays and insurance companies have to make payments for supplemental Medicare policies until members meet their deductibles and government funding kicks in. But another factor affected health insurers’ finances in the first quarter of 2012: mounting pressure to hold down premiums (Weisman, 5/15).

Fox News: I’m Paying For What?! Mandated Health Insurance Benefits
Ten states require health insurance plans to cover antipsychotic drugs. Nine states say health plans must cover bone marrow transplants. Clinical trials for cancer patients are required benefits in 29 states. Those are just a few examples of state health insurance mandates. As of Dec. 31, 2011, states had enacted 2,262 such laws, according to the “Health Insurance Mandates in the States 2011″ report by the Council for Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI) in Washington, D.C. (Marquand, 5/15).

KQED: Cash-Only Practices: Better For Patients Or Just Better for Doctors?
Some primary care doctors around the Bay Area are converting to cash-only practices, rather than taking insurance payments. Doctors who choose this model are leaving some of their patients behind. … [Dr. Samir Qamar:] “We don’ think primary care needs insurance. I think it’s ridiculous to pay $500 a month to be treated for a sinus infection every spring. Insurance should be saved for the catastrophes” (Menghrajani, 5/15). 

The Philadelphia Inquirer:  Court To Hear Appeal Of Pa.’s Risperdal Lawsuit
Johnson & Johnson’s courtroom fights over Risperdal resume in Philadelphia on Wednesday, when Commonwealth Court judges are scheduled to hear an appeal of decisions to dismiss Pennsylvania’s 2008 lawsuit that alleged the company fraudulently profited from sales of the antipsychotic drug through the Medicaid program. While Pennsylvania’s case did go to trial in Philadelphia, it did not get far. In 2010, a Philadelphia judge threw out the lawsuit, which sought to show that J&J had tricked the state into paying millions more for the drug than it should have (Sell, 5/16).

California Healthline: Senate Committee Rejects Care Changes
Hearings on the latest round of cuts — including $2.5 billion in reductions to health care programs in California — are scheduled to start today … At last Thursday’s Senate subcommittee hearing, government officials proposed several ways to cut back on nursing home regulation. … The “special fund efficiencies” included elimination of the periodic survey that identifies nursing home deficiencies, and to repeal the 45-day deadline for investigating adverse events at hospitals (Gorn, 5/16).

California Watch: Calif. Schools Employing Fewer Nurses, Librarians
California is issuing fewer credentials for public school service positions. … School nurse credentials saw the biggest drops, with just 209 issued in 2010-11 – a 26.4 percent decline from 2006-07. At the same time, the number of school nurses employed in public schools fell by 13.3 percent to 2,474 (Lin, 5/16).

North Carolina Health News: NC Faces Potentially Massive Legal Settlement Over Housing For Mentally Ill
Close to a year of negotiations between the state Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Justice over North Carolina’s practice of housing people with mental health problems in adult care homes could mean the state is on the hook for tens, or even hundreds of millions of dollars. … The situation dates back to 2010, when Disability Rights North Carolina wrote to the US Department of Justice, complaining about the state’ use of adult care homes to house thousands of people with mental health disabilities (Hoban, 5/16).

The Lund Report (an Oregon news service): Customers Of LifeWise Health Plan And Health Net May Expect Rebates
In Oregon, customers from two for-profit insurance companies – LifeWise Health Plan and Health Net of Oregon – are likely to benefit from these [medical loss ratio] rebates, based on financial information filed with the Oregon Insurance Division. At the end of 2011, the medical-loss ratio for LifeWise was 78.3 percent overall compared to Health Net’s average of 78.79 percent (Lund-Muzikant, 5/15). 

Rep. Jan Schakowsky accused Rep. Robert Dold Tuesday of introducing legislation merely to cast himself as a political moderate, while Dold replied Schakowsky is unwilling to act in a bipartisan fashion.

Abiraterone, marketed as Zytiga, should be given to patients in England and Wales, after a U-turn by the NHS rationing body. It has already been turned down in Scotland.

Scientists have found that dieters seeking to stay at their new weight need to eat 300 calories a day fewer than a non-dieter of the same weight.

Today’s headlines highlight the growing partisan faultlines regarding budget issues, including spending cuts and entitlement reforms.

Kaiser Health News: Attention Health Care Shoppers: Colorado’s Price List For Procedures
Colorado Public Radio’s Eric Whitney, working in partnership with Kaiser Health News and NPR, reports: “Shopping for the best price for a given health care need is nearly impossible. Unlike shopping for other big ticket items, there’s no place to compare prices. Providers often can’t, or won’t, quote a price for a given procedure – different people are charged different rates based on what kind of coverage they have, or whether they have coverage at all” (Whitney, 5/16). Read the story.

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Obama Administration: A Plan To Prevent Alzheimer’s By 2025
Now on Kaiser Health News’ blog, Christian Torres reports: “The Obama administration is moving forward with an ambitious, fast-moving agenda to improve the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and unlock a method to prevent it by 2025. The final draft of the plan, released today, also sets up a wide-ranging effort to improve the care that Alzheimer’s patients receive and support families” (Torres, 5/15). Check out what else is on the blog.

The New York Times: Republicans Pledge New Standoff On Debt Limit
But Republicans have not been able to unify around an alternative. Instead, they will bring forward four different budgets for the 2013 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1 — with a budget passed by House Republicans viewed as the most liberal of the lot. One by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky would eliminate the Departments of Education, Commerce and Energy; cut the National Park Service by 30 percent and NASA by a quarter; and end Medicare in 2014. Senator Mike Lee of Utah proposes a budget that would raise the retirement age to 68, cut the size of government in half over 25 years, and end the payroll tax as well as all taxes on savings and investment and replace them with a 25 percent flat tax (Weisman, 5/15).

Politico: Moderate Dems Frustrated By No Budget
The Democratic-led Senate on Wednesday is expected to reject all four GOP budget plans, including the contentious House-passed proposal authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.). A fifth budget, offered by Republicans and based on President Barack Obama 2013 spending blueprint, also will likely fall short of the 50 votes needed to pass, dealing the White House an embarrassing election-year blow. But Democratic leaders have defiantly refused to lay out their own vision for how to deal with federal debt and spending, arguing that last summer’s debt-ceiling deal essentially serves as an actual budget (Wong, 5/15).

The Washington Post: Boehner Threatens Another Debt-Ceiling Fight
Boehner, meanwhile, made it clear that he is ready to use the debt limit as a cudgel to force Democrats to compromise, particularly on a strategy for restraining spending on Medicare and other federal health programs, which are the biggest drivers of future borrowing (Montgomery, 5/15).

The Wall Street Journal: Boehner Draws Line In Sand On Debt
Tuesday’s salvos were the latest in the election-year debate over the size and scope of the federal government. Democrats have called for a mix of tax increases and spending cuts to reduce the deficit and Republicans have called for spending cuts and overhauls of entitlement programs like Medicare (Paletta, 5/15).

The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire: Clinton To Obama: Talk About Cuts
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said Tuesday that President Barack Obama should spend more time talking to the American people about his budget proposals to launch a national dialogue about the crucial issues. The “president should talk more about the Medicare cuts he has proposed” and the “defense cuts he has proposed,” Mr. Clinton said. … “He is at least trying to honor the deal he made with Republicans, and I think he should talk more about it and I think they should talk more about it,” he said during remarks at a “fiscal summit” held in Washington by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (Paletta, 5/15).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: After Last Year’s Budget Failures, Lawmakers Gather For Annual Deficit Pep Talk
Boehner made the top headline at this year’s summit by declaring that when it comes time for Congress to raise the nation’s borrowing cap he will again insist on spending cuts and budget reforms exceeding the amount of the debt increase to offset it. He also promised a vote on renewing trillions of dollars in tax cuts passed during the Bush administration, prompting a predictable response from top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California (5/16).

The Des Moines Register/USA Today: Romney Discuses Debt During Iowa Stop
Romney’s ideas for cutting the $15.67 trillion national debt — don’t raise taxes, reform entitlement programs, limit spending — were met with strong applause from the crowd of more than 300 people. An additional 100 people stood in an overflow area. On his first trip to Iowa since the caucuses when he was initially declared the winner, Romney didn’t offer new proposals, but the way he framed his argument was fresh and probably telegraphs a strategy to chip away at Obama’s credibility on his pledge to cut the deficit in half (Jacobs, 5/15).

Los Angeles Times: Average Annual Healthcare Cost For A Family Tops $20,000
Healthcare or a Hyundai? The average cost of healthcare for a family of four this year has increased nearly 7% to $20,728 annually, according to a new study by benefits consultant Milliman, or similar to the cost of a mid-size sedan (Terhune, 5/15).

Politico: Immigration Status Is A Health Policy Challenge
The Obama administration’s drive to cut down on America’s uninsured is about to get multilingual. Come 2014, when core provisions of the Affordable Care Act kick in, millions of legal immigrants will have new options for gaining health coverage. And like U.S. citizens, most will be subject to the individual mandate, under which they will be required to get coverage to avoid a penalty (Cheney, 5/16).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: Alzheimer’s Focus Shifts To Testing Therapies Earlier, Before Patients Show Many Symptoms
Look for a fundamental shift in how scientists hunt ways to ward off the devastation of Alzheimer’s disease — by testing possible therapies in people who don’t yet show many symptoms, before too much of the brain is destroyed (5/15).

NPR: Poll: Americans Show Support For Compensation Of Organ Donors
Federal law bans payments for organs. But given the need, we wondered what Americans thought about compensation for three kinds of donations that can be made while people are alive: kidneys, bone marrow and a portion of liver big enough to help someone whose liver is failing (Hensley, 5/16).

NPR: Medical Records Could Yield Answers On Fracking
A proposed study of people in northern Pennsylvania could help resolve a national debate about whether the natural gas boom is making people sick. The study would look at detailed health histories on hundreds of thousands of people who live near the Marcellus Shale, a rock formation in which energy companies have already drilled about 5,000 natural gas wells (Hamilton, 5/16).

Reuters/Chicago Tribune: In Abortion Move, Kansas Pharmacists Can Refuse Some Prescriptions
The Republican governor of Kansas has signed a law allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for drugs they believe may induce abortions, a move opponents said could hinder some women’s access to birth control. Governor Sam Brownback’s office said on Tuesday that the bill “gives more legal protection to Kansas health care providers who refuse to participate in abortions” based on their conscience (Murphy, 5/15).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: Utah Technology Director Resigns In Wake Of Data Theft At State Health Department
Utah’s chief technology officer has resigned following the theft of hundreds of thousands of online medical records from state computers by unknown hackers (5/15).

The Washington Post: Washington’s Catholic Archbishop, Georgetown President Spar Over Graduation Invitation To Kathleen Sebelius
Since Sebelius was announced earlier this month as one of the speakers for this week’s Georgetown graduation ceremonies, about 27,000 people have signed a petition, circulated by a conservative Catholic think tank, urging the university to withdraw the invitation. Sebelius was a key architect of the 2010 health-care law, and she authored the requirement that employers, including most religious ones, provide their employees with contraception coverage (Boorstein, 5/15).

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Main Category: GastroIntestinal / Gastroenterology Also Included In: Women’s Health / Gynecology ; Pediatrics / Children’s Health Article Date: 16 May 2012 – 0:00 PDT A new University of Illinois study shows that human milk oligosaccharides, or HMO, produce short-chain fatty acids that feed a beneficial microbial population in the infant gut.

Anyone with an important presentation coming up or an exam looming should stay off the fizzy drinks, say scientists from UCLA.