[huffingtonpost] Should sugar be regulated like alcohol?
That’s the premise of a new position paper, published today in the journal Nature by three leading obesity researchers from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.

They argue that added sugar in all forms — sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup alike — is as perilous to [...]

[ScienceMag] The U.S. government released new final rules today that will tighten up oversight of financial conflicts of interest in biomedical research. The rules are similar to draft regulations released in May of last year, but a requirement aimed at informing the public about conflicts has been watered down.
The 159-page rule (including preamble) tightens a [...]

[Denver Post]- U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette on Wednesday unveiled her latest legislative effort to support embryonic-stem-cell research.
The Denver Democrat used Craig Hospital, which is internationally acclaimed for its rehab facilities for people with spinal- cord and brain injuries, as the backdrop to introduce the Stem Cell Research Advancement Act of 2011, which she is co-sponsoring [...]

[Reuters]- France looked set on Thursday to maintain its curbs on human embryonic stem cell research after the conservative government fought off a parliamentary bid to liberalize the country’s bioethics law.
The National Assembly voted to uphold the curbs in the second reading of the new bioethics law. Conservative legislators and the Roman Catholic Church had [...]

[First Word]- The US Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned whether Vermont’s decision to enact laws that prohibit the use of prescription drug records for marketing purposes violates free-speech rights. All states currently allow pharmacies to collect and pass on data about the prescription-writing habits of physicians, but Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire banned use or [...]

[Washington Post]  Federal law protects pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits by parents who claim that vaccines harmed their children, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The court ruled 6 to 2 that going before a special tribunal set up by Congress is the only way parents can be compensated for the negative side effects that in rare instances [...]

[WSJ] GlaxoSmithKline PLC said it will record a £2.2 billion ($3.49 billion) charge for the fourth quarter to cover costs relating to a U.S. investigation of its marketing practices, as well as additional costs tied to consumer lawsuits over the diabetes drug Avandia.
The amount is the latest in a series of large charges the U.K. [...]

[NYT] The Obama administration, reversing course, will revise a Medicare regulation to delete references to end-of-life planning as part of the annual physical examinations covered under the new health care law, administration officials said Tuesday.  The move is an abrupt shift, coming just days after the new policy took effect on Jan. 1.

Many doctors and [...]

[NYTimes] When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.
Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who [...]

[PharmTechTalk] The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues released a report last week that supported continuing research in the emerging field of synthetic biology with some additional federal oversight. President Obama had asked the Commission in May 2010 to study the implications of synthetic biology following the announcement by the J. Craig Venter [...]