With more than 40,000 Americans diagnosed with cancers of the mouth, head and neck each year, the American Academy of Otolaryngology . Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS) supports the Yul Brynner Foundation in promoting the need for education on these conditions during Oral, Head, and Neck Cancer Awareness Week (OHANCAW) 2008.

An article published in JAMA reports that forpatients with anal canal cancer, experimental chemotherapy treatmentwith the drug cisplatin (administered prior to othertreatments) failed to increase disease-free survival rates. Compared tothe standard treatment regimen, therapy with cisplatin also increasedthe likelihood of colostomy procedures.Commonly, the first treatment therapy for anal canal cancer ischemoradiation.

Supported by celebrities such as Jo Brand, Janet Ellis, Polly Toynbee, Beverley Turner and Dr Miriam Stoppard, and marking today’s Parliamentary event[1], fpa is officially launching its campaign to protect the current 24-week time limit for abortion. The time limit is currently under attack by anti-abortion groups and MPs who want to deny women access to the procedure. Hosted on fpa’s website (www.fpa.org.

The Washington Post on Monday examined the Philippine government’s “rejection” of contraception and how its support for only “natural” family planning methods correlates with increasing poverty in the country.

Only one girl, who was 14, during the last six months has utilized a program at an independently operated health care center at King Middle School in Portland, Maine, that provides students in grades six through eight with a range of contraception and counseling for sexually transmitted infections, officials said recently, the AP/Google.

In the 2009 fiscal year state budget, the Maryland General Assembly included millions of dollars in funding for initiatives that will expand dental care to more children enrolled in Medicaid, the Washington Post reports.

House Democratic leaders have scheduled a vote Tuesday on a bill (HR 5613) aimed at blocking seven new Medicaid regulations for one year under a “suspension of the rules,” which prohibits amendments and requires a two-thirds vote for passage, CQ Today reports.

Australia’s medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), has issued further advice on its website for women exposed to diethylstilboestrol.Diethylstilboestrol, or DES (also known as stilboestrol), is a synthetic oestrogen which was used between 1940 and the early 1970s to prevent miscarriage in women with a previous poor pregnancy outcome.

The Government will fail to deliver on standards it set itself five years ago if it doesn’t refocus NHS efforts. This is the warning from Diabetes UK’s report ‘Five years on….Are we half way there?’, launched today. In 2003, the National Service Framework (NSF) for Diabetes set out a vision for diabetes services in England to be delivered by 2013.

Medicaid rule changes put in place by the Bush Administration will cost North Carolina more than $2.7 billion in federal funds over the next five years. The cut in federal funding will, in fact, act like a giant anti-stimulus package. Those lost Medicaid funds will eliminate an estimated 11,700 jobs and an accompanying $412.1 million in wages, and, even worse, cost the state an estimated $1.1 billion in lost business activity.