CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — With legislation to diminish private- and public-sector collective bargaining rights already in the books in Wisconsin and Ohio, should more labor unions steal a page from the playbook of the NFL Players Association and decertify? Although there are parallels between the pros and regular Joes (and Janes), union decertification is not a viable strategy for ordinary workers to use when bargaining for better wages and working conditions, says a University of Illinois law and labor expert.
Culture
The Medicare program adjusts its baseline payments to hospitals and individual health care practitioners based on regional variations in expenses beyond providers' control, such as rents, wages, and liability premiums. The goal is to ensure that payments are accurate and fair, but many providers and policymakers have expressed doubts about the accuracy of these adjustments. Geographic Adjustment in Medicare Payments, a new report from the Institute of Medicine, assesses the methodology and data sources used to calculate payment adjustments and recommends ways to improve their accuracy.
STANFORD, Calif. — A widely used combination of two common medications may cause unexpected increases in blood glucose levels, according to a study conducted at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University and Harvard Medical School. Researchers were surprised at the finding because neither of the two drugs — one, an antidepressant marketed as Paxil, and the other, a cholesterol-lowering medication called Pravachol — has a similar effect alone.
Research led by the University of Warwick's Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy has found that not only did the events of 9/11 produce an immediate shift in favour of the Republican party among new young US voters but that shift persisted into later years. The research shows that party strategists should focus on winning over voters when they are young.
For many patients with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), direct antiviral agents (DAA) offer a potential cure for the disease. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently approved two new DAAs, telaprevir and boceprevir, and with that clinicians must now decide who should be the first to receive this treatment. Discussion of this timely topic is now available in the June issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – By the age of 20, most people have reached skeletal maturity and do not grow any taller. Until recently it was assumed that skeletal enlargement elsewhere in the body also stopped by age 20.
But a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found evidence that, even though you're not getting taller anymore, the pelvis ("hipbones") does continue to widen as people advance in age from 20 years to 79 years.
Data presented today at the EULAR 2011 Annual Congress demonstrated that initial treatment with adalimumab (Humira, ADA) plus methotrexate in early RA patients can provide high levels of disease control in many patients, and may also offer the opportunity to change future treatment options for some.
Results of a Phase III study presented today at the EULAR 2011 Annual Congress show that at 6 months, 58.3 percent of patients who had previously not responded to treatment with DMARDs, achieved ACR20 response (a 20 percent improvement in symptoms) when treated with the novel oral Janus kinase inhibitor tofacitinib at 10mg BID compared to 31.2 percent in the placebo group. Significant improvements were also observed in the 5 mg BID dose.
Most adverse events were mild and no new safety signals were reported, according to study authors.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Primary care doctors have long been on the front lines of depression treatment. Depression is listed as a diagnosis for 1 in 10 office visits and primary care doctors prescribe more than half of all antidepressants.
Now doctors at the University of Michigan Health System have developed a new tool that may help family physicians better evaluate the extent to which a patient's depression has improved.
LONDON – (May 25, 2011) – Crescendo Bioscience™ today announced data indicating that Vectra™ DA, a first-in-class multi-biomarker blood test used to assess rheumatoid arthritis (RA) disease activity, provides physicians with an objective measure which may help determine whether patients are responding to therapy.
Gerardo Chowell and coworkers report the incidence of pandemic influenza H1N1 morbidity and mortality in 32 Mexican states in 2009 and quantify the association between local influenza transmission rates, school cycles, and demographic factors.
If internal and international migrants comprised a separate nation, it would be the third most populous country in the world, just after China and India. Thus, there can be little doubt that population mobility is among the leading policy issues of the 21st century.
New information has come to light explaining how injured skin cells and touch-sensing nerve fibers coordinate their regeneration during wound healing. UCLA researchers Sandra Rieger and Alvaro Sagasti found that a chemical signal released by wounded skin cells promotes the regeneration of sensory fibers, thus helping to ensure that touch sensation is restored to healing skin. They discovered that the reactive oxygen species hydrogen peroxide, which is found at high concentrations at wounds, is a key component of this signal.
Medicare beneficiaries residing in areas with higher levels of primary care physicians per population have modestly lower death rates and fewer preventable hospitalizations, according to a study in the May 25 issue of JAMA.
In a follow-up of participants from the Women's Health Study, seemingly healthy middle-aged women with new-onset atrial fibrillation had an associated increased risk of cardiovascular, noncardiovascular, and all-cause death, with some of the risk potentially explained by nonfatal cardiovascular events, according to a study in the May 25 issue of JAMA.