Categories
Cardiovascular
Diagnostics
Endocrinology
Health Insurance
Medical Devices
Mental Health
Nutrition
Oncology
Public Health
Sexual Health
Popular Articles
Stretch Mark Remedies

Under-Use Of Hospice Care By Many Terminally Ill Patients: Study
Hospice, a well-established approach to palliative care, has enabled countless people worldwide to die with dignity. Through focusing on the patient rather than the disease, individuals can spend the last weeks of their lives in an environment where hospice caregivers minimize their pain, maximize their comfort, and provide bereavement services for loved ones and family members.
generic viagra online
White House Budget Chief Says Issue Of Abortion Coverage In Health Reform Still Under Debate
In an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said that he is "not prepared to say explicitly" whether health care reform legislation would prohibit the use of federal tax revenue to fund abortion coverage, the New York Times reports. Orszag"s statement came in reply to a question asking whether he was prepared to say that "no taxpayer money will go to pay for abortions." Orszag said, "It"s obviously a controversial issue, and it"s one of the questions that is playing out in the debate" (Pear/Liptak, New York Times, 7/20).Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who also appeared on "Fox News Sunday," said, "No matter what your views are on abortion, you shouldn"t ask people to use their tax dollars if they think that abortion is taking a life." Gregg added, "I would hate to see the health care debate go down over that issue. We do really need health care reform, and it has to be substantive. ... So hopefully we won"t get ourselves wrapped around the wheel of abortion in this debate" (FoxNews.com, 7/19). According to the Times, there is an ongoing behind-the-scenes debate over handling abortion coverage in health overhaul legislation. The debate affects both the public insurance plan the legislation would create and private insurers, who would receive tens of billions of dollars in federal subsidies to expand coverage for low- and moderate-income U.S. residents. A provision in the House health reform bill (HR 3200) calls for a federal advisory committee to advise the HHS secretary on an "essential benefits package" that most insurers would be required to provide. Abortion-rights opponents want abortion coverage excluded from the package, while abortion-rights advocates say the decision should be left to medical professionals. House committees working on health reform legislation have rejected Republican amendments that would have restricted abortion coverage. The Hyde Amendment, first enacted in 1976, prohibits the use of federal Medicaid money for abortion services. However, abortion-rights opponents argue that federally subsidized coverage of the uninsured would not be subject to the existing restrictions. The National Right to Life Committee issued an analysis of the House bill, stating, "There is no doubt that coverage of abortion will be mandated, unless Congress explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of federal authority to define "essential benefits."" According to the group, even if the HHS secretary did not require abortion coverage, "federal courts would interpret the broadly worded mandatory categories of coverage to include abortion" (New York Times, 7/20).
News of the day
10,000 Australians Demand Bowel Cancer Screening - New Research Shows Nine In Ten Can Survive Bowel Cancer If Found Early
A community-based Cancer Council advocacy campaign has motivated 10,000 Australians to call for expansion of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, amid new research showing 93 per cent of bowel cancer patients can survive if diagnosed early.
Mental Health

Stem Cell Discovery May Bring Tissue Repair Closer

The goal of creating adult blood stem cells from human embryos to prepare a patient for tissue and organ transplant has been brought a step closer by research carried out at the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit at Oxford University. Blood, or haematopoietic, stem cells (HSCs), are a type of adult stem cell that can produce several different types of blood cell, including those of the immune system that are involved in tissue rejection. Scientists have so far been unable to generate HSCs from embryonic stem cells, largely because they have not known how the embryo makes these cells. By studying zebrafish embryos, the research team found BMP4, a protein involved in bone and cartilage development, to be the critical signal required to generate HSCs in the dorsal aorta, which is the chief artery that arises from the heart to distribute blood to the body. Lead author Professor Roger Patient, from the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit, said: "The ability to make adult stem cells from embryonic stem cells would obviously benefit regenerative medicine because one of the characteristics of adult stem cells is that they are present in very small numbers and are resistant to expansion. "There is substantial evidence for conservation of genetic mechanisms among vertebrates. Human embryos for example have been shown to express BMP4 under the dorsal aorta as seen in zebrafish. Zebrafish provide a large number of externally developing, and therefore manipulable, embryos that are transparent, allowing developmental processes to be observed in great detail." One of the benefits, in the specific case of HSCs, is the potential for preparation of patients for transplantation. Another benefit is that numbers are always limited, even from bone marrow or umbilical cord. Therefore an alternative, potentially limitless could be of great clinical benefit. Notes - This paper, Hedgehog and Bmp Polarize Hematopoietic Stem Cell Emergence in the Zebrafish Dorsal Aorta, is in the June edition of Developmental Cell. - Other centres involved in the research included Department of Chemistry, Chemistry Research Laboratory; Department of Pharmacology, Oxford University; Institute of Genetics, Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham University; Department of Biochemistry, Washington University; Centre for Developmental and Biomedical Genetics, Sheffield University. Medical Research Council


Add your comment:
Name:
Site address: http://
Your message:
Enter today\\\\'s date, 2 digits
(spam protection):

© Copyright 2009