A group of Republican senators on Wednesday sent a letter to President Bush requesting that HHS stop granting waivers to states that allow adults to receive coverage under SCHIP, CongressDaily reports (CongressDaily, 7/12). Sens. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Pat Roberts (Kan.) and Orrin Hatch (Utah), all members of the [click link for full article]

“Female-Initiated HIV Prevention: What Will We Learn From Upcoming Trials?” AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition: The report — which was published by AVAC in collaboration with the African Microbicides Advocacy Group and the [click link for full article]

Summaries of several recent developments related to Medicare appear below.Independent pharmacies: The implementation of the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2006 “made pharmacies of all sizes far more dependent on reimbursements from pharmacy benefit managers,” and PBMs “have put the squeeze on independent pharmacies,” the [click link for full article]

One of the major issues associated with longer life expectancy in man and his best friend is an increase in the incidence of cancer. Even though they cannot talk it seems dogs might be able to tell us why and how certain cancers develop. In turn that could lead to better treatments for both canine and human cancer patients. [click link for full article]

Individuals with diabetes appear to spend more days in the intensive care unit, use more ventilator support and have more complications during hospitalization for trauma than non-diabetics, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Approximately 17 million Americans have diabetes, with one-third remaining undiagnosed, according to background information in the article. [click link for full article]

Efforts to control the increasing birth rate in the Philippines could fail if the government does not provide funding for contraceptives, health experts said at a news conference Wednesday to highlight World Population Day, Reuters reports. [click link for full article]

North General Hospital — a Harlem, N.Y., community hospital that had reported a profit for the first time in fiscal year 2005 — last week revised those financial results and announced a $6.2 million loss for the period, a case that highlights the complexity of the Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rate formulas, the Wall Street Journal reports. North General also estimated a $7. [click link for full article]

A US study has shown that using a “robot” to help remotely visit patients who have had noncomplicated surgery helps surgeons to be in two places at one time and this results in shorter hospital stays.The study is published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons and is the work of Dr Alex Gandsas of the Division of Bariatric and Minimally Invasive Surgery, Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, in Maryland, and colleagues. [click link for full article]

Use of electronic prescribing could save Medicare as much as $29 billion over the next 10 years and prevent almost two million medication errors, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, CQ HealthBeat reports (Carey, CQ HealthBeat, 7/12). The report, prepared by [click link for full article]

Most women get it - smoking and drinking don’t mix with pregnancy, but not so with excess weight before and during pregnancy. Physicians need to be aggressively counseling women about the importance of starting pregnancy at a healthy weight, according to Temple University obstetrician-gynecologist, Vani Dandolu, M.D.In a recent analysis, Dandolu and colleagues found that obesity, increasingly common in pregnant women, raises the risks to mother and baby. [click link for full article]