A news agency reported from Kampala, capital city of Uganda, earlier this morning that an outbreak of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in the district of Bundibugyo in the western part of the country had killed 16 people. [click link for full article]
The Wall Street Journal on Thursday examined how the “number of Americans burdened with massive medical bills has soared” and how hospital bills that exceed $1 million, “while still unusual, are becoming more common as insurance policies once thought to provide catastrophic coverage prove inadequate when it comes to high-cost illnesses.” According to a recent survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund, 34% of U.S. [click link for full article]
Genentech’s plan to limit the availability of cancer drug Avastin, which would require physicians to use a more expensive version of the drug called Lucentis to treat wet age-related macular degeneration, will cost taxpayers $1 billion to $3 billion annually, according to Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), Bloomberg/New York Times reports (Bloomberg/New York Times, 11/29). [click link for full article]
China’s efforts to fight HIV/AIDS-related discrimination in the country are failing to prevent widespread stigmatization of people living with the disease, United Nations officials said Wednesday, Reuters reports. [click link for full article]
Advocacy groups have begun to lobby lawmakers as Senate Finance Committee members discuss a Medicare bill that likely will decrease reimbursements for some health care providers to finance the suspension of a 10% reduction in payments for physicians scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2008, CQ HealthBeat reports. [click link for full article]
Former National Basketball Association player Earvin “Magic” Johnson’s wife, Cookie Johnson, on Wednesday said she will take a leading role in Magic Johnson’s five-year, $60 million “I Stand With Magic” campaign to fight HIV/AIDS among blacks, USA Today reports (Sternberg, USA Today, 11/29). [click link for full article]
The American Health Information Community on Wednesday recommended that HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt seek authority from Congress to mandate electronic prescribing in Medicare, CQ HealthBeat reports. [click link for full article]
Most Democratic presidential candidates would support lifting a ban on federal funding for needle-exchange programs and replacing abstinence-only sex education with comprehensive HIV prevention programs if elected, according to a survey released Wednesday ahead of World AIDS Day, the AP/Sioux City Journal reports. [click link for full article]
A new classification system of rare lung diseases in infants is improving diagnosis and treatment. The system clears up considerable confusion about how to classify and treat diseases that are rarely seen by most doctors and pathologists, says Gail H. Deutsch, M.D., lead author of the multi-center study that developed the new guidelines. [click link for full article]
Treatment with ibuprofen is associated with a significantly slower rate of decline in lung function in children and adolescents with cystic fibrosis, according to a new study. [click link for full article]