As a leading innovator in renal care, Gambro launches the AK 96 machine that takes the best of its predecessor, the AK 95 S, and improves upon it by enabling more flexibility and greater savings for dialysis providers. The AK 96 machine is developed with changing economic and market needs in mind, providing reliable high quality care innovative features and high value. [click link for full article]

Medicaid paid for more than one-third of the 1.3 million hospital stays related to prescription or illegal drug abuse in 2005, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. These admissions, for which drug abuse was listed as the primary or secondary cause of hospitalization, cost nearly $10 billion. About 17 percent of those hospitalized for drug abuse were uninsured, according to the AHRQ analysis. [click link for full article]

A novel mechanism to predict survival in older women with early stage lung cancer has been uncovered by researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, a discovery that may have significant implications for new treatment approaches. [click link for full article]

The Louisville Courier-Journal on Tuesday examined health care proposals from Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear (D) and incumbent Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R). [click link for full article]

The World Food Programme over the next three years hopes to raise $103 million for a relief program in Malawi aimed at people affected by HIV/AIDS and natural disasters, WFP officials said on Monday, Reuters Africa reports. [click link for full article]

A study of births in Latin America has found that women who have non-emergency caesarean deliveries have double the risk of illness and complications or even death compared to women who have vaginal deliveries. However, the study found that caesarean delivery prevented deaths in breech born infants. [click link for full article]

Physician groups are pushing members of Congress to work quickly on passing legislation to avert a 10% Medicare physician reimbursement rate cut scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2008, The Hill reports (Young, The Hill, 10/31). The Senate Finance Committee is discussing a Medicare package that could prevent the scheduled payment cut and provide subsidies for rural and low-income seniors. [click link for full article]

“Medicaid’s Role in Family Planning,” Guttmacher Institute, [click link for full article]

BioDelivery Sciences International, Inc. (Nasdaq: BDSI, http://www.biodeliverysciences.com/) has submitted its New Drug Application (NDA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for BEMATM Fentanyl, BDSI’s treatment for patients with “breakthrough” cancer pain. [click link for full article]

Although abstinence messages are effective for some teenagers “who embrace [their] religious roots or who choose to abstain for other reasons,” they should not be the “centerpiece for any state’s sexual education policy” because such messages “wor[k] only for some” teens, Abigail Jones and Marissa Miley, co-authors of Restless Virgins: Love, Sex, and Survival at a New England Prep School, write in a [click link for full article]