[NJ.com, Princeton] This flu season has been especially mild, but Princeton researchers are working to prevent the pandemic influenza virus of the future.
Universal flu vaccines currently in development in a half-dozen places could provide widespread immunity against the seasonal flu — and also the dangerous pandemics that come every few decades, according to research published [...]

[PharmPro] People are relying on sleeping pills more than ever to get a good night’s rest, but a new study by Scripps Clinic researchers links the medications to a 4.6 times higher risk of death and a significant increase in cancer cases among regular pill users.
The results, published today by the open-access online journal BMJ [...]

[Sten Stovall, WSJ] The world drugs industry is tightening its code of practice in an attempt to clamp down on corruption and bribery, particularly in emerging markets.
The Geneva-based International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations said Thursday it has strengthened its code to ensure “that governments, health-care providers and patients are confident that interactions with [...]

[KHN]  Next time you go to an emergency room, be prepared for this: If your problem isn’t urgent, you may have to pay upfront.

Last year, about 80,000 emergency-room patients at hospitals owned by HCA, the nation’s largest for-profit hospital chain, left without treatment after being told they would have to first pay $150 because they [...]

[PharmPro] Drugmaker Glenmark Generics said Friday it is recalling seven lots of birth control pills because in some packages, the pills were in the wrong order.
The company, which is based in India, did not say how many pills or packages are being recalled. Glenmark said the pills were distributed between Sept. 21 and Dec. 30. [...]

[MSNBC, Thomson Reuters] According to a signal from the electronic tag around his ankle, Nenad Borojevic last left his apartment building at 6.25 p.m. on January 10. It was the festive season in Serbia; the capital was enjoying the lull between Orthodox Christmas and New Year.

Police said Borojevic, a doctor, headed to Kosutnjak park, a popular [...]

Over the course of a year two out of every 1,000 people will rack up $100,000 or more in medical bills. These are the “high cost patients” who make insurance premiums go up and bedevil policy makers. These are people who are really sick.
The conventional wisdom is that with better prevention, wellness, care-coordination, insurance reforms, [...]

[mercurynews.com] Raising the prospect of a world without birth defects, a Stanford-created blood test that can detect Down syndrome and two other major genetic defects very early in a woman’s pregnancy will be available next week.

The simple blood test spares women the risk and heartache of later and more invasive tests like amniocentesis.
But it has startling [...]

[NYT] Profits at pharmaceutical companies have been declining or showing little growth for the last year as austerity measures across Europe lead to cuts in health care spending. Some analysts say this trend could continue until at least 2014.
Budget cuts mean that many European governments are not willing to pay as much for pills. But [...]

[Juliana Bunim, UCSF] The ability to anticipate future events allows us to plan and exert control over our lives, but it may also contribute to stress-related increased risk for the diseases of aging, according to a study by UCSF researchers.
In a study of 50 women, about half of them caring for relatives with dementia, the [...]