A group of British lawmakers on Tuesday during a review of the United Kingdom’s Human Tissues and Embryos Bill proposed requiring that birth certificates indicate if a child was born by egg or sperm donation, London’s Times reports. [click link for full article]

The House on Wednesday voted 225-204 to approve legislation (HR 3162) that would reauthorize SCHIP and make changes to the Medicare program, Roll Call reports (Dennis, Roll Call, 8/2). Five Republicans voted with 220 Democrats to pass the measure, while 10 Democrats and 194 Republicans voted against it (Pear, [click link for full article]

Asthma affects 300 million people worldwide and, according to World Health Organization, it killed 255 000 people in 2005. Asthma attacks are caused by an acute inflammatory reaction in the airways, a reaction that is largely due to actions of LTC4 synthase (an enzyme which catalyzes a synthesis process). For this reason asthma medicines often aim to block the downstream effects of LTC4 synthase. [click link for full article]

The National Institutes of Health has provided $11.5 million in support to the Indiana University School of Medicine for the only institutional grant looking at the cause and treatment of heart failure in children.Congenital heart disease is the most common birth defect in children and many of those structural abnormalities can lead to heart failure. [click link for full article]

Medicare beneficiaries often cannot obtain medications prescribed for “off-label” uses — such as the treatment of pain, rare diseases and other conditions — through the prescription drug benefit, according to a report released on Thursday by the Medicare Rights Center, USA Today reports. [click link for full article]

A new optical technology, coupled with routine endoscopy, may enable doctors to detect the subtle tell-tale traces of early pancreatic cancer, according to researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois. [click link for full article]

Amgen on Wednesday criticized part of a final decision announced on Monday by CMS that will limit Medicare coverage for anemia medications — Aranesp and Epogen, manufactured by the company, and Procrit, manufactured by Johnson & Johnson — in cancer patients, [click link for full article]

CMS on Tuesday and Wednesday issued final rules on Medicare reimbursements for inpatient hospital, inpatient rehabilitation and skilled nursing facility care that agency officials said would help ensure the program’s long-term sustainability, CQ HealthBeat reports. [click link for full article]

Oral intake of allergens or auto-antigens via the lactic acid bacterium Lactococcus lactis might be a new strategy for treating various kinds of auto-immune and allergic disorders. VIB researchers associated with Ghent University, in collaboration with the Academic Medical Center (AMC) in Amsterdam, have shown that auto-antigens or allergens can be administered orally via the lactic acid bacterium. [click link for full article]

A high number of HIV cases has been detected among female inmates in the Washington, D.C., jail, according to data released recently by the district Department of Health as part of a summary of its six-month campaign encouraging district residents to be tested for HIV, the [click link for full article]