Cephalosporins will be used in livestock only for very specific exceptions, after years of debate about the role of antibiotic resistance in farming and how it leads to new strains of microbes with the potential to shift into humans.

The FDA took this step to preserve the effectiveness of cephalosporin drugs for treating disease in humans, the agency announced in a press release.

In 2008, the FDA issued and then revoked an order that prohibited cephalosporins in food-producing animals with no exceptions. Three years later, the agency’s ban includes several exceptions:
–It doesn’t limit cephapirin, which the FDA doesn’t think contributes to antimicrobial resistance;
–Veterinarians will still be able to (more…)

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Health Costs:

BioMed Jobs: A Texas biomedical research center that was supposed to create 5,000 jobs with a $50 million state grant has fallen far short of those goals, and the private company that received 70 percent of the money has pulled out of the project, Matthew Watkins reports for The Eagle.

Health Reform: What’s happening in health reform this year? Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post lays out some key dates for 2012.

Medicare: (more…)

*This blog post was originally published at Reporting on Health - The Reporting on Health Daily Briefing*

The start of January has some exciting new technologies on the horizon. Recently, Wahoo Fitness announced their new product, BlueHR — a fitness heart rate monitor — can sync to your iPhone 4s via bluetooth and without the need for addition adaptors.

All users have to do with the BlueHR device  is to strap it around their sternum, and they will be able to monitor stats such as their heart rate and the number of calories they are burning via their smartphone. It currently uses Bluetooth 4.0 technology, and as such, the only smartphone that currently has that capability is the iPhone 4S.

We wrote an in-depth article about Bluetooth 4.0 when the iPhone 4s was released, commenting on how it could be a boom for mobile health devices due to the following features of the protocol: (more…)

*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*

A rural hospital on the verge of closing because of problems retaining its rotating door of physicians offered two months of leave for missionary work to keep a more stable roster. It worked, according to a profile written by the Associated Press.

All employees at Ashland Health Center in Kansas, from maintenance staff to the doctors, get two months off to do missionary work in other countries or other volunteering duties for the community. The move has attracted socially minded physicians and their families, many of whom had backgrounds in missionary work already and wanted an environment to keep doing it. The recruitment was developed with support of the Via Christi medical residency program in Wichita, which is sponsored in turn by the University of Kansas School of Medicine.

It’s not the only effort underway in Kansas. (more…)

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Hospitalist*

A hundred bucks doesn’t buy much these days. A crisp Ben Franklin can be exchanged for

• 50 Big Macs
• A Broadway show ticket
• A night in a New York City hotel (just joking)
• A college textbook (paperback)
• Your life

Your life? Yes, 5 crumpled Andy Jacksons can save your life, as was reported earlier this year in a front page article in The Plain Dealer, Cleveland’s only daily newspaper. University Hospital is now offering a $99 spiral computed tomography (CT scans) of the chest in individuals who are at increased risk of developing lung cancer. The rationale is that if cancers can be detected early, then the cure rate for surgical removal is very high.

Gary Schwitzer, medical blogger and press watchdog, tries to bring some balance to the distorted media coverage of CT lung cancer reportage.

The test is (more…)

*This blog post was originally published at MD Whistleblower*

Health Reform: California Healthline’s Dan Diamond highlights five health reform issuesfor reporters and policymakers to watch closely in 2012. First among them: the Supreme Court review of health reform’s constitutionality.

Medicare: Scammers create intricate webs of (more…)

*This blog post was originally published at Reporting on Health - The Reporting on Health Daily Briefing*

Why would a pediatrician draw blood from your 9-, 10-, or 11-year-old at his or her next annual wellness visit? Because the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently endorsed updated guidelines that call for checking LDL (bad) cholesterol levels in all kids between the ages of 9 and 11.

The cholesterol-test recommendation created quite a stir. But wait, there’s more. The guidelines also call for annual blood pressure checks beginning at age 3, and periodic blood sugar measurements starting between ages 9 to 11. There’s also a strong recommendation for kids and adolescents to limit sedentary screen time to two hours or less per day, and to get at least an hour a day of moderate physical activity.

The biological basis for these guidelines is that atherosclerosis (the fatty gunk in arteries that causes heart attacks, strokes, and other serious problems) starts during youth. In many cases, (more…)

*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*

The airline industry has long been a paradigm example of safety, but it was not always that way. The transition occurred over the second half of the 20th century and was marked by rigorous equipment testing and procedures, such as the strict incorporation of checklists. Healthcare is an industry that recently has become quite interested in the possibility of implementing airline industry standards to improve patient safety and care delivery (read the books The Checklist Manifesto and Why Hospitals Should Fly if you’d like a solid overview of this phenomenon)

This month Lockheed Martin and Johns Hopkins, two institutional leaders in the fields of aviation and healthcare, respectively, announced a partnership to bring cutting-edge systems integration to the intensive care unit (ICU).  According to the press release: (more…)

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*

…And all through the town not a creature was stirring except for some struggling to stay awake throughout the night shift….

So reads a newspaper ad for a federally-controlled substance in prescription drug form that is marketed for ES caused by SWD or OSA.

Don’t know what that means?

Come on.  Where have you been?

Like ED for erectile dysfunction, PE for premature ejaculation, and GERD for gastrointestinal reflux disorder, these are the new marketing names for conditions that drug companies want to sell you drugs for.

ES = excessive sleepiness

SWD = shift work disorder

OSA = obstructive sleep apnea

The drug company’s online ads feature a fireman, a police officer, a construction worker.  I am very sensitive to (more…)

*This blog post was originally published at Health News Review*

It’s an obstetrician’s worst nightmare and it continues to happen on a daily basis. The story of Michal Lura Friedman brings tears to my eyes. After 7 years of trying, the 44 year old songwriter finally became pregnant –with twins. Her husband, Jay Snyder, a free-lance voice-over artist, describes the 9 months of Friedman’s pregnancy as pure bliss. However towards the end, her blood pressure became elevated so she was scheduled to have a C. Section the day after Thanksgiving.

Snyder accompanied his wife to the hospital and witnessed the birth of his babies. Then Friedman began to bleed. And bleed. And bleed. At 9:30 p.m., she became yet another U.S. maternal mortality statistic.

At least 2 women die from complications of childbirth in the US daily. Some celebrities such as Christy Turlington Burns have become a Maternal Health Advocate as a result of first-hand experience. She (more…)

*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway*