Hospitals and physician practices that form care-coordinating networks called "Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs)," under provisions of the new health-care law could reap cost-savings and other benefits. However, experts at Johns Hopkins and the University of Pennsylvania warn that such networks could potentially be designed to exclude minorities and widen disparities in health care.
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OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA — Canada needs a national pharmacare program and federal leaders must commit adequate funding, states an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/doi/10.1503/cmaj.110643.
Unlike many countries in Europe and Australia and New Zealand, Canada lacks a national pharmacare program that provides consistent coverage across all regions of the country. Currently, drugs that are covered in some provinces may not be in others.
As they might with most endangered animals, scientists consider the whereabouts and activities of right whales extremely important. "It is helpful to know where they go, why they go there and what they do when they're there," says Mark F. Baumgartner of the biology department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
Inspection of medical records, case files, and legal affidavits provides compelling evidence that medical personnel who treated detainees at Guantánamo Bay (GTMO) failed to inquire and/or document causes of physical injuries and psychological symptoms they observed in the detainees, according to a paper published this week in PLoS Medicine. Vincent Iacopino, Senior Medical Advisor for Physician for Human Rights, and Brigadier General (Ret) Stephen Xenakis, U.S.
EUGENE, Ore. -- (April 26, 2011) -- Take millions of puzzle pieces containing partial words and put them back together into full words, sentences, paragraphs and chapters until the book these random parts came from is rebuilt.
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- Two discoveries at UC Santa Barbara point to potential new drug therapies for patients with kidney disease. The findings are published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
News Release Embargoed until Monday, April 26, 2011, noon EDT.Please credit CMAJ, not the Canadian Medical Association. CMAJ is an independent medical journal; views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of its owner, the CMA.
With the increase in numbers of overweight children and young adults, Canada and other developed countries are facing an obesity epidemic and legislative approaches are required to address this issue, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj101522.pdf.
BOSTON--Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists have discovered new details of how cancer cells escape from tumor suppression mechanisms that normally prevent these damaged cells from multiplying. They also demonstrated a potential link between this cell proliferation control mechanism and the cognitive deficits caused by Down syndrome.
The findings add to a still-sparse understanding of how normal and cancerous cell growth is regulated and have potential implications for improved treatments, say the authors of a pair of articles in Genes & Development.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists are playing a key role in efforts to contain the emerald ash borer's destructive march through the nation's forests.
Researchers with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are testing a fungal pathogen that could be used as a biocontrol, along with the release of non-stinging wasps that are the beetle's natural enemies. Wasps have been released in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland, and releases are planned in several other states.
BINGHAMTON, NY – It's an unfamiliar neighborhood and you find yourself in the middle of a bunch of streets and buildings you've never seen before. Giving the environment a quick once-over, you make a snap decision about whether you're safe or not. And chances are, that first 'gut' call is the right one, say Binghamton University researchers Dan O'Brien and David Sloan Wilson in an article published in the current issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Having power over others and having choices in your own life share a critical foundation: control, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The paper finds that people are willing to trade one source of control for the other. For example, if people lack power, they clamor for choice, and if they have an abundance of choice they don't strive as much for power.
Lower vitamin D levels may explain part of the disparity in hypertension that exists between Black and White people in the US. High blood pressure is more common in Blacks than in Whites and persons with darker skin generally produce less vitamin D. This is particularly true at higher latitudes where UV radiation is less intense and the climates are colder leading to less skin exposure. Dr. Kevin Fiscella, from the University of Rochester School of Medicine in the US, and colleagues identify vitamin D status as one piece of the complex puzzle of race and blood pressure.
An invention by Rice University bioengineering students in collaboration with the Texas Heart Institute (THI) is geared toward giving immediate second chances to arrhythmia victims headed toward cardiac arrest.
For their capstone design project, a team of Rice seniors created a unique pad system for automated external defibrillators (AEDs), common devices that can shock a victim's heart back into a proper rhythm in an emergency.
High blood pressure, or hypertension, is more common and often more deadly in blacks than in whites, and a new University of Rochester study shows that low vitamin D levels among black people might be a powerful factor that contributes to the racial differences in hypertension.
The University of Rochester Medical Center findings, published online today in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, are consistent with growing evidence that lower vitamin D status is associated with higher blood pressure, and that people with darker skin generally produce less vitamin D.