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| Federal judge lifts ban on public access to Medicare data Friday, May 31, 2013 05:01 PM PDT By Maurice Tamman (Reuters) - A federal judge lifted a 33-year-old injunction barring public access to a confidential database of Medicare insurance claims, a decision that could lead to greater scrutiny of how physicians treat patients and charge for their services. Judge Marcia Morales Howard ruled Friday in favor of a motion by Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, that the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida lift an injunction imposed in 1979. ... Full Story | Top |
| BDSM practitioners aren't mentally ill: study Friday, May 31, 2013 01:28 PM PDT By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Some good news for people who enjoy restraints, riding crops and floggers in the bedroom: A new study says you probably don't have a mental disorder. The results "seem contradictory to what the general public and professionals believe," said Andreas Wismeijer of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, who published the study along with Marcel van Assen. ... Full Story | Top |
| Not all very short kids need screening tests: study Friday, May 31, 2013 01:08 PM PDT By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Kids who are short for their age but otherwise healthy probably don't need extensive blood tests to determine if a disease is stunting their growth, researchers said in a new study. Of 235 short kids without symptoms who were referred for specialty testing, just three had a possible diagnosis picked up on those labs, and only one diagnosis - for celiac disease - was confirmed, researchers found. ... Full Story | Top |
| Italy announces first case of SARS-like coronavirus Friday, May 31, 2013 12:27 PM PDT ROME (Reuters) - Italy reported its first case of the SARS-like coronavirus on Friday, a 45-year-old man who had been travelling in Jordan, the health ministry said. The patient was in good condition and was being monitored in isolation, the ministry said in a statement. He was admitted to a hospital in Tuscany with a high fever, a cough and breathing difficulties. A resident of Italy with foreign nationality, the man recently spent 40 days in Jordan where one of his sons was suffering from an unspecified flu. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. Medicare outlook improves as healthcare costs ease Friday, May 31, 2013 12:04 PM PDT By David Lawder and Margaret Chadbourn WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Slower growth in U.S. healthcare costs improved the budget outlook for the Medicare program for the elderly from last year, but the fortunes of the Social Security pension program have not changed despite a better economy, trustees of the programs said on Friday. The trustees repeated warnings to Congress to pass reforms that will enable the programs to meet all of their long-term obligations, but their report adds to recent evidence of an easing in U.S. budget pressures, and could help encourage a sense of complacency in ... Full Story | Top |
| Probiotics with antibiotics may prevent diarrhea Friday, May 31, 2013 11:10 AM PDT By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Taking "good" bacteria known as probiotics may help prevent diarrhea brought on by a tough-to-treat infection that often results from taking antibiotics, according to a fresh look at some past research. "For older patients that are in hospital or in nursing homes who are exposed to antibiotics, we've shown that certain probiotics regimens at certain dosages result in large reductions in the incidence of C. ... Full Story | Top |
| Adding dip to veggies gets kids to eat more Friday, May 31, 2013 10:48 AM PDT By Kerry Grens NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Offering a dip alongside vegetables encourages kids to eat veggies they might normally push aside, according to a new study. "It is a good idea to try to pair less preferred foods, like vegetables, particularly those that your child doesn't like so much, with something to give it a little more flavor," said Marlene Schwartz, of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, who was not involved in the study. ... Full Story | Top |
| Woman in El Salvador abortion dispute to have Caesarean section Friday, May 31, 2013 10:27 AM PDT By Nelson Renteria SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - The woman at the center of an abortion controversy in El Salvador will be granted a Caesarean section to end a pregnancy endangering her life and avoid breaking the law in the Central American nation. El Salvador's health ministry said late on Thursday doctors attending the woman, who uses the name "Beatriz" to protect her identity, could perform a Caesarean to remove her malformed fetus and circumvent an abortion, which is illegal there. ... Full Story | Top |
| India's Sun Pharma in talks to buy Sweden's Meda for $5-$6 billion: sources Friday, May 31, 2013 10:25 AM PDT By Sumeet Chatterjee and Kaustubh Kulkarni MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd is in talks to buy Sweden's Meda AB for between $5 billion and $6 billion to boost its generics business in developed markets, two sources with direct knowledge of the process said. Meda makes specialty products, over-the-counter drugs and branded generics - the same areas of focus as Sun. The Swedish company had sales of about 13 billion crowns ($2 billion) in 2012 and has a stock market value of roughly $4 billion. ... Full Story | Top |
| Three more coronavirus deaths in Saudi Arabia: WHO Friday, May 31, 2013 08:29 AM PDT GENEVA (Reuters) - Three more people have died in Saudi Arabia from the new SARS-like coronavirus, bringing the worldwide death toll to 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. Saudi health officials also told the WHO of a new case in the eastern province of al-Ahsa, increasing the number of cases worldwide to 50, WHO spokesman Glenn Thomas told reporters at a news conference in Geneva. The latest deaths were also in al-Ahsa, Thomas said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Zumba madam tearfully talks of childhood abuse in Maine sentencing Friday, May 31, 2013 08:23 AM PDT By Scott Malone ALFRED, Maine (Reuters) - A Zumba instructor who admitted to using her exercise studio as a front for a prostitution business tearfully described a history of abuse before being sentenced to 10 months in county jail on Friday. The instructor, 30-year-old Alexis Wright, and her 57-year-old conspirator Mark Strong, had recorded Wright's sessions with clients and maintained a list of about 150 local men -- disclosures that shocked the seaside town of Kennebunk, Maine, where Wright operated. ... Full Story | Top |
| No rise in cancer seen from Japan's nuclear disaster: U.N. Friday, May 31, 2013 07:35 AM PDT  By Fredrik Dahl VIENNA (Reuters) - The evacuation of tens of thousands of people helped prevent rising cancer rates and other health problems after Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster, the world's worst in 25 years, U.N. scientists said on Friday. Radiation exposure following the reactor meltdowns more than two years ago did not cause any immediate health effects, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) said after its annual meeting. ... Full Story | Top |
| France to ban electronic cigarettes in public Friday, May 31, 2013 06:54 AM PDT  PARIS (Reuters) - France will ban electronic cigarette smoking in public places by imposing the same curbs enforced since 2007 to combat tobacco smoking, Health Minister Marisol Touraine said on Friday. Amid mounting global concern over the public health implications of so-called e-cigarettes, Touraine said they faced the same fate as traditional ones: a ban on smoking in public spaces and sales to minors and a blackout on media advertising. ... Full Story | Top |
| EU agency calls for curbs on GSK, Valeant epilepsy drug Friday, May 31, 2013 02:47 AM PDT LONDON (Reuters) - Use of an epilepsy drug developed by GlaxoSmithKline and Valeant Pharmaceuticals should be restricted to patients for whom other anti-epileptic medicines have proved inadequate or not tolerated, EU regulators said on Friday. The European Medicines Agency said the move followed cases of abnormal coloring of the skin, nails, lips and eye tissues, including the retina, in some patients who took Trobalt. It recommended a comprehensive eye examination should be performed at the start of treatment and at least every six months during treatment. ... Full Story | Top |
| Rising radioactive spills leave Fukushima fishermen floundering Friday, May 31, 2013 02:21 AM PDT  By Antoni Slodkowski HISANOHAMA, Japan (Reuters) - Dozens of crabs, three small sharks and scores of fish thump on the slippery deck of the fishing boat True Prosperity as captain Shohei Yaoita lands his latest haul, another catch headed not for the dinner table but for radioactive testing. Japan's government banned commercial fishing in this area, some 200 km (125 miles) northeast of Tokyo, after a devastating 2011 tsunami and the reactor meltdowns and explosions that followed at the nearby Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. ... Full Story | Top |
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