The National Council on Aging (NCOA) and Total Care, Inc., an outsourcing program serving as a resource to local agencies, have joined forces to help some of the neediest people with Medicare find and in some cases apply for federal, state and other benefits programs they may qualify for. [click link for full article]

A new warning on skin safety was released by Crown Laboratories to draw attention to the fact that while summer is over, the high risk of skin cancer development is not. “Many people still don’t understand the difference between Ultraviolet-A rays (UVA) and Ultraviolet-B rays (UVB),” said Don Kilday, Doctor of Pharmacy and President of Crown Laboratories Inc., the manufacturer of the popular Blue Lizard Australian Sunscreen, located in Johnson City, Tennessee. [click link for full article]

Bupropion in combination with counseling seems to help teenagers give up smoking more successfully in the short term, according to an article in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine (JAMA/Archives).Approximately one quarter of all American high school students are cigarette smokers, the authors explain. A large number of teenage smokers would like to give up. However, according to recent studies, only approximately 4% manage to successfully quite each year. [click link for full article]

The HIV Care and Treatment Program in the Oregon Department of Human Services recently received a three-year, $1.2 million grant from the U.S. [click link for full article]

Skin cancer specialists at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando are recruiting patients into a large Phase 3 study to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of Allovectin-7(R), an investigational product for advanced melanoma. If Allovectin-7(R) is found to be safe and effective in clinical trials, it may offer patients a new option for fighting advanced melanoma (stage 3 or stage 4). [click link for full article]

Malawi’s National AIDS Commission in a statement issued Thursday announced that it has received $48.5 million from the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the World Bank to expand HIV/AIDS services in the country up to December, Xinhua News Agency reports. According to NAC, the Global Fund allocated $44. [click link for full article]

TouchTunes, the largest on-location digital entertainment network, recently donated a limited edition digital jukebox to an auction organized by Michael’s Way, a non-profit organization whose goal is to help the families of children with cancer to cope with the extraordinary expenses associated with medical care. The black and yellow jukebox is one of three in existence that is decorated in the LIVESTRONG theme as part of the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s Grassroots Fundraising campaign. [click link for full article]

Biovail Corporation (NYSE:BVF)(TSX:BVF) announced that Ralivia”, the Company’s once-daily tramadol formulation, has been officially launched in Canada, and is now commercially available. Ralivia” is indicated for the management of pain of moderate severity in patients who require continuous treatment for several days or more. [click link for full article]

Online drug sales in 2006 from Canadian pharmacies to U.S. consumers dropped about 50%, from $420 million Canadian dollars in 2005 to $211 million Canadian dollars last year, according to data from IMS Health, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Drug sales across the border to U.S. [click link for full article]

Heart experts at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere have evidence that at least 522 lives can be saved annually in the United States and Canada by the widespread placement of automated external defibrillators, the paddle-fitted, electrical devices used to shock and revive people whose hearts have suddenly stopped beating. [click link for full article]