[NYTimes] What might become the first drug derived from human stem cells failed in two late-stage clinical trials, dealing a setback to the drug’s developer and to the stem cell field.
The developer, Osiris Therapeutics, said Tuesday that its drug, Prochymal, was no more effective, over all, than a placebo in treating a life-threatening complication of [...]

[IBD Editorials] President Obama is staking the success of his health care plan on his personal popularity with a prime time address to the nation on Wednesday. House Democrats will be cheering him on and encouraging him to double-down in his support for a public plan option.  For Obama, this is the wrong message and [...]

[canada.com] An intensive care doctor speaking Wednesday at a conference on the H1N1 pandemic said the virus is the “most frightening” thing he has seen in his career — and other experts here warned that hospitals are not yet ready for a surge of severely sick patients.
In an interview just prior to his address, Dr. [...]

Official guidelines are causing a crisis in care of the terminally ill and growing anger among patients’ families, medical experts say.
[BBC] The advice allows food and fluids to be withdrawn from patients, who are then continuously sedated, if they are judged to be close to death.
In a letter to the Daily Telegraph the six doctors [...]

[AP] Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drug maker, will pay a record $2.3 billion civil and criminal penalty over unlawful prescription drug promotions, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. The department said the $2.3 billion settlement included a $1.2 billion criminal fine, the largest criminal fine in U.S. history. The agreement also included a criminal forfeiture [...]

[MIT Technology Review] A technique that allows the insulin-producing cells that are destroyed by type 1 diabetes to be re-created in the lab could help researchers understand how the disease develops and perhaps lead to more effective treatments for the condition.
A study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes a [...]