The American Medical Student Association (AMSA) supports confidential treatment programs for physicians with mental illness, including substance abuse, despite recent scrutiny. Mental illness is a chronic disease and all patients deserve the same privacy rights. To treat physicians differently is discriminatory. Such discriminatory treatment is perpetuated by stigma in society regarding persons with mental illness. [click link for full article]

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) today issued its annual Clinical Practice Recommendations to help health care providers treat people with diabetes using the most current evidence available. This year, one notable change occurs in the Medical Nutrition Therapy section dealing with weight loss. Until now, the ADA did not recommend low carbohydrate diets because of lack of sufficient scientific evidence supporting their safety and effectiveness. [click link for full article]

People who want to lose weight in 2008 but can’t decide which weight-loss plan to follow may want to ask their health care provider about the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) new Clinical Practice Recommendations, issued today. [click link for full article]

Treatment guidelines recommend tiotropium as a first line maintenance treatment for patients with all severities of COPD. Inhaled corticosteroids are recommended for patients with severe or very severe COPD and a history of repeated exacerbations. [click link for full article]

Patients with severe COPD may benefit more from therapy that combines salmeterol and fluticasone [SFC] than treatment with tiotropium, according to results from a long-term, multi-center study, “Investigating New Standards for Prophylaxis in Reducing Exacerbations” (INSPIRE) that directly compared the two therapies. [click link for full article]

Perrigo Company (Nasdaq: PRGO; TASE) announced that it has received final approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for over-the-counter (OTC) Cetirizine Hydrochloride Tablets, 5 and 10 mg. [click link for full article]

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) issued its annual Clinical Practice Recommendations to help health care providers treat people with diabetes using the most current evidence available. This year, one notable change occurs in the Medical Nutrition Therapy section dealing with weight loss. Until now, the ADA did not recommend low carbohydrate diets because of lack of sufficient scientific evidence supporting their safety and effectiveness. [click link for full article]

FASgen is pleased to report the publication of important research results for lung cancer treatment using FAS093, one of the Company’s proprietary compounds. In a long-standing cooperation with The Johns Hopkins Oncology Center, FASgen supported research into the selective inhibition of fatty acid synthase (FASi) at the Hopkins Oncology Center as a potential therapeutic agent against various forms of solid tumor cancers. [click link for full article]

Contrary to previous studies, married patients with lung cancer do not have longer survival, according to analysis of an extensive Mayo Clinic database in the December issue of “The Oncologist.” However, the results suggest some other potentially important differences among patient subgroups — including the possibility that married patients receive a more aggressive approach to lung cancer treatment, write Dr. Aminah Jatoi and colleagues. [click link for full article]

Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) announced the first occupant in its Biogen Idec Innovation Incubator (bi3). Bi3 is a corporate initiative designed to contribute to the company’s drug development pipeline by offering entrepreneurial scientists the opportunity to rapidly convert novel biological insights into life saving and life changing therapies. [click link for full article]