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Obama Takes Public Plan Case To Doctors, Push-Back Continues
President Barack Obama told the American Medical Association Monday that a health care fix can"t wait, The New York Times reports. ""The public option is not your enemy," Mr. Obama said. "It is your friend, I believe." Saying it would "keep the insurance companies honest," the president dismissed as "illegitimate" the claims of critics that a public insurance option amounts to "a Trojan horse for a single-payer system" run by the government. Mr. Obama twice referred to the use of such "fear tactics" about "socialized medicine" in past legislative battles, without pointing out that the A.M.A., a traditionally Republican-leaning group, was among those using the charge, as in the mid-1960s debate over creating Medicare for people 65 and older"

Brain Molecule Reduces Food Intake
Researchers at Imperial College London have identified a new appetite suppressant for promoting weight loss that they say works in rodents and may one day be used to develop an effective anti-obesity treatment. Results of the new study were presented at The Endocrine Society"s 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
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Family History May Predict The Severity Of Mental Disease
We"ve all been asked at routine visits to the doctor to record our family"s history with medical problems like cancer, diabetes or heart disease. But when it comes to mental disorders, usually mum"s the word.
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Medical Staff Cut Down On Hospital-Acquired Infections

CNN reports on Alfonso Torress-Cook and his efforts to eliminate fatal infections at Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, California: "Torress-Cook is part of a growing movement in medicine that no longer accepts hospital-acquired infections as inevitable complications. Every year, such infections sicken 1.7 million and kill 99,000 people in the United States." CNN reports: "Approximately one out of every 22 patients who checks into a U.S. hospital acquires a bacterial infection, adding more than $28 billion to health care costs, according to a 2009 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But there are signs of improvement. Pennsylvania, which requires the most extensive reporting of hospital-acquired infections, saw the annual rate for all infections drop 8 percent, according to the most recent figures available from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. And there are other signs of progress. The development and use of a simple checklist for a common procedure that threads a so-called central line to supply medicine directly to the bloodstream has been extraordinarily effective. ... The checklist is now being adopted in all 50 states and three countries: the United Kingdom, Spain and Peru, says checklist designer Dr. Peter Pronovost, from Johns Hopkins Hospitals. At hospitals large and small, raising the head of the bed for patients on ventilators, brushing patients" teeth and taking other precautions have dramatically reduced ventilator-associated pneumonia, another common and costly infection. ... Simply requiring hospitals to report their infections has forced them to be more accountable to their patients, says Lisa McGiffert, who heads Consumers Union"s Stop. Twenty-six states now have laws requiring hospitals to report rates for urinary tract and other infections. CNN also notes new financial incentives to cut infections: "As of Oct. 1, 2008, Medicare no longer pays hospitals for the added costs incurred by patients who develop catheter-related urinary tract infections and other catheter- or surgery-related infections" (Martin, 7/9). This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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