(Business Wire) At a time when the competition between hospitals is at a fevered pitch, a new survey of 800 Massachusetts adults shows that consumers are questioning the longstanding practice of taking their doctor’s advice about where to go for medical care. They also are conducting their own research to determine where to receive their [...]

[Huffington Post] Just a little while ago, GOP Rep. Steve Scalise from Louisiana was riven with concern over the terrifying prospect of government intervention in health care. He came armed with a sob story that really just goes to show the lengths to which people will go to obfuscate the underlying issues.
SCALISE: When you look [...]

[NYT] PETER SINGER – You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?
The costs of the current [...]

 
[AP] WASHINGTON — Harry and Louise are coming back to television screens across the country to talk about overhauling health care. This time, they’ve switched sides.
TV ads featuring the fictional couple played a big role in derailing President Bill Clinton’s effort to revamp the medical system in the 1990s. Back then, actors Louise Caire Clark [...]

[NYT] LONDON — The controversy over the ethical and legal issues surrounding assisted suicide for the terminally ill was thrown into stark relief on Tuesday with the announcement that one of Britain’s most distinguished orchestra conductors, Sir Edward Downes, had flown to Switzerland last week with his wife and joined her in drinking a lethal cocktail of [...]

[WSJ] The Food and Drug Administration approved labeling that will allow 17-year-olds access to the Plan B emergency-contraceptive pill without a prescription.
The agency also approved a one-dose version of the product called Plan B One-Step that will also be available over the counter to women age 17 and older. Both products are sold by Duramed Pharmaceuticals, [...]

 
[AP] WASHINGTON – House Democratic leaders, pledging to meet the president’s goal of health care legislation before their August break, are offering a $1.5 trillion plan that for the first time would make health care a right and a responsibility for all Americans. Left to pick up most of the tab were medical providers, employers and the wealthy.
“We [...]

A study involving higher-resolution genetic screening suggests that healthy embryos may be wasted during IVF.
[Technology Review] Genetic tests designed to weed out embryos that are unlikely to grow into healthy babies after in vitro fertilization (IVF) are often administered to couples receiving treatment even though it seems to have little impact on pregnancy rates. A new [...]

In countries without comprehensive national health care systems and in resource-limited set-tings, clinical trial participants may lack access to medications and medical care after trials conclude. [1] Since approximately 2000, investigators, research participants, and ethicists have engaged in a vigorous debate regarding whether participants in clinical trials are entitled to receive post-trial medications and medical [...]

[Newswise] UCLA researchers have found that embryonic stem cells and skin cells reprogrammed into embryonic-like cells have inherent molecular differences, demonstrating for the first time that the two cell types are clearly distinguishable from one another.
The data from the study suggest that embryonic stem cells and the reprogrammed cells, known as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, [...]