For the first time, pain researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that it’s possible to separate the good effects of opiate drugs such as morphine (pain relief) from the unwanted side effects of those drugs (tolerance, abuse and addiction).The investigators, led by Zhou-Feng Chen, Ph.D. [click link for full article]

As part of a joint effort to combat illegal Medicare activity, HHS and the Department of Justice on Monday announced charges against R&I Billing in South Florida for fraudulently billing Medicare $170 million for infusions of HIV drugs, [click link for full article]

Researchers hoping to better understand the development of the infant brain have long been stymied by a formidable obstacle: babies just don’t want to sit still for brain scans.”There have been some studies that obtained brain scans of infants while they were napping or sedated, but what we’d really like to do is to scan their brains when they’re sitting on a parent’s lap, seeing new things, hearing new words and interacting with the environment,” says Joseph Culver, Ph.D. [click link for full article]

The Medicare prescription drug benefit has significantly increased the share of seniors with drug coverage, but one in five beneficiaries reported delaying or not filling prescriptions because of cost, according to the results of a survey published online Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs, the [click link for full article]

Dr. Thomas Illig, head of the working group Molecular Epidemiology at the GSF National Research Centre for Environment and Health in Neuherberg, near Munich, has been involved in this large-scale study. The team examined over 300,000 genetic markers in thousands of asthmatic children and compared this data with those of healthy controls. [click link for full article]

The Bush administration in a letter to state lawmakers on Friday outlined new standards for SCHIP enrollment that aim to limit coverage to the lowest-income children, the New York Times reports. [click link for full article]

State records show that New Jersey health officials inspected only one of the six-state licensed abortion clinics in two years until recently when complaints brought inspectors to two other clinics, which were closed because of health violations, the Press Atlantic City reports. [click link for full article]

A patient’s expectations about the side effects of chemotherapy usually focus on nausea, hair loss, fatigue and other side effects. Worries about severe allergic reactions to their therapy is usually not a concern. [click link for full article]

Some dentists are giving patients blood tests before and after treatment of gum disease to help screen for more than 20 medical conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, colon cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma and chronic heartburn, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. [click link for full article]

A team of researchers from Emory and Georgia State Universities has been awarded a four-year, nearly $850,000 grant from the American Cancer Society to study risk factors for long-term social and cognitive problems in adult survivors of pediatric brain tumors. The study will focus on more than 100 adults, currently in their 20s, who have survived at least ten years beyond their initial diagnosis. [click link for full article]