A major group of insurers said it would invest $55 million to create cheaper versions of expensive generic drugs for which there is little competition, in a further sign of dissatisfaction with the pharmaceutical industry’s price-setting practices. The decision by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and 18 of its member organizations, which insure about…
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Washington, DC – January 23, 2020 – Government and academic investigators have developed a vaccine against African swine fever that appears to be far more effective than previously developed vaccines. The research appears this week in the Journal of Virology, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology. Currently, there is no commercially available vaccine…
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According to an article published ahead-of-print in the April issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), a Stanford University team has developed a quantitative framework able to sonographically differentiate between benign and malignant thyroid nodules at a level comparable to that of expert radiologists, which may prove useful for establishing a fully automated system…
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Family caregivers of the deceased rated the quality of end-of-life care in the intensive care unit (ICU) higher than the end-of-life care in other hospital departments (also called wards), according to new, large Penn Medicine study in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. The research challenges a common belief that dying in…
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Global climate change has raised concerns that mosquito-borne diseases could become increasingly prevalent in the United States as warmer temperatures lead to increased mosquito activity. The 2015-2016 Zika outbreak, which impacted much of the Americas, prompted efforts to accelerate the development of a Zika vaccine. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),…
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The International Sweeteners Association (ISA) welcomes the publication this month of a new scientific report* by Ashwell et al. in Nutrition Research Reviews.(1) This new publication points to the extensive body of robust scientific evidence that shows that low/no calorie sweeteners: – Are safe: all of them have undergone an extensive safety evaluation process by…
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Living near major roads or highways is linked to higher incidence of dementia, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis (MS), suggests new research published this week in the journal Environmental Health. Researchers from the University of British Columbia analyzed data for 678,000 adults in Metro Vancouver. They found that living less than 50 metres…
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Just like the body contains lungs, liver, and lymph nodes, so does each of the body’s cells contain tiny specialized organs. Perhaps most peculiar among them are lysosomes–bubble-like sacks that act as part recycling bin, part stomach. Among other things, a lysosome devours cellular debris–and, like a stomach, it needs to be acidic to do…
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Chronic alcohol abuse and hepatitis can injure the liver, often leading to a buildup of collagen and scar tissue. Understanding this process, known as liver fibrosis, could help researchers develop new ways to prevent or treat conditions such as alcoholic liver disease, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and nonalcoholic flatty liver disease (NAFLD). In a study published…
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Engineered human capillaries are providing an astounding view of how red blood cells transit ultra-small blood vessels. This new platform was used in a recent study to learn how severe malaria infection causes red cells to get stuck in blood microvessels. As they accumulate, the parasite-infected red cells obstruct the narrowest routes of blood flow…
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