New Jersey Human Services Commissioner Jenner Velez on Monday said that proposed Medicaid copayments for prescription drugs and some hospital visits raise a “valid concern” that low-income, uninsured residents would forgo medical care, the

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on Tuesday said that the Bush administration would accept a short-term moratorium on two of seven proposed Medicaid regulations to give lawmakers time to reach an agreement on the changes, CongressDaily reports (Johnson, CongressDaily, 4/29). Under the regulations, states could not use federal Medicaid funds to help pay for physician training.

Heart disease is the number one killer in Europe, taking over 2 million lives every year1, yet it is a preventable condition. Some segments of the population such as women and young athletes are not even aware that they are at risk.Experts from all over Europe will gather from today (May 1) in Paris to exchange scientific knowledge, professional experiences, upgrade skills and propose strategies to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease across the continent.

The Minnesota House on Monday voted 85-45 to pass a broad education bill (SF 3001) that includes a provision requiring school districts to adopt comprehensive sex education curricula by the 2011-2012 school year, the

Thalassemic patients were found to present a higher prevalence of anti-HAV IgG antibodies than matched healthy subjects from the same geographic area. This finding is difficult to explain, but it may be attributed to the higher vulnerability of thalassemics to HAV infection and to passive transfer of anti-HAV antibodies by blood transfusion.

Short-term lifestyle intervention is more effective than short-term vitamin E capsule therapy on NAFLD and so it should be the first step in the management of children with NAFLD.This study, performed by a team led by Professor Li Liang, is described in a research article to be published on March 14, 2008, in the World Journal of Gastroenterology.NAFLD is likely to reach epidemic proportions in children worldwide in this decade.

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on Tuesday suggested that the Bush administration is willing to reach a compromise on a bill (HR 5613) that would prevent seven new Medicaid regulations from taking effect until April 1, 2009, CongressDaily reports. The measure was

Taking aspirin on a daily basis may lower women’s risk of a particular type of breast cancer, according to results published in BioMed Central’s open access journal Breast Cancer Research. In this large study, aspirin use was linked to a small reduction in estrogen receptor-positive breast cancers. However, unlike in some previous research, aspirin and related painkillers were not found to reduce the total risk of breast cancer.

Tumor cells living in the cross hairs of radiation or chemotherapy may be able to escape death because their self-destruct mechanisms are jammed, say University of Florida scientists writing in a recent issue of Developmental Cell.

Stem cell researchers at UCLA were able to grow functioning cardiac cells using mouse skin cells that had been reprogrammed into cells with the same unlimited properties as embryonic stem cells.The finding is the first to show that induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells, which don’t involve the use of embryos or eggs, can be differentiated into the three types of cardiovascular cells needed to repair the heart and blood vessels.