(Bloomberg) — Drugmakers face $105 billion in costs over 10 years, $25 billion more than the industry first estimated, from discounting medicines sold through government health programs, according to Leerink Swann & Co.
The extra costs will come from expanding drug rebates through Medicaid, the U.S. insurance program for the poor, Leerink’s John L. Sullivan said [...]

Church backs science to provide alternative to embryonic stem cells
[AP] The Vatican is pushing for research of adult stem cells as an alternative to the use of embryonic stem cells, which the Catholic Church opposes because it maintains that the destruction of the embryo amounts to the killing of human life.

On Friday, the Catholic Church [...]

[NYTimes] Seven years ago, the Havasupai Indians, who live amid the turquoise waterfalls and red cliffs miles deep in the Grand Canyon, issued a “banishment order” to keep Arizona State University employees from setting foot on their reservation — an ancient punishment for what they regarded as a genetic-era betrayal.
Members of the tiny, isolated tribe [...]

[msnbc] The number of women dying in childbirth worldwide has dropped dramatically, a British medical journal reports, adding that it was pressured to delay its findings until after U.N. meetings this week on public health funding.
A new, separate report by a group headed by the United Nations reached a very different conclusion on maternal mortality, [...]

[abc] Britain is considering paying organ donors as a way of increasing the number of transplants carried out in the United Kingdom.
A consultation being run by the independent Nuffield Council on Bioethics is canvassing opinions from the public and professionals on different incentives which could be provided to potential donors. 
Ethicists will examine whether laws prohibiting [...]

(Bloomberg) — The U.S. government’s cancer research network is “approaching a state of crisis” as waste and inefficiency cause 40 percent of late-stage trials it funds to be abandoned before completion, a report found.
The government-funded National Cancer Institute’s clinical trials group isn’t able to effectively study the benefits of new and current treatments, according to [...]

[nytimes] This could be one glimpse of the future of health insurance.  The UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, is teaming up with the Y.M.C.A. and retail pharmacies to try a new approach to one of the nation’s most serious and expensive medical problems: Type 2 diabetes.
Rather than simply continuing to pay [...]

[whitehouse] Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues:

Lonnie Ali, Member, Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues
Anita L. Allen, Member, Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues
Barbara Atkinson, Member, Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues
Nita A. [...]

[nytimes] By the time she was 38, Dr. Desiree Pardi had become a leading practitioner in palliative care, one of the fastest-growing fields in medicine, counseling terminally ill patients on their choices.

She preached the gentle gospel of her profession, persuading patients to confront their illnesses and get their affairs in order and, above all, ensuring [...]

The Explores Club will host a lecture on disaster and pandemic preparedness ethics with Jennifer Miller, Executive Director of Bioethics International on June 23, 2010 6.30 – 8.30pm. 
Description:  Disasters including pandemics are a real and significant threat … not a question of if, but of when.
Jennifer Miller, executive director of Bioethics International (BEI), will [...]