Americans have become increasingly alarmed about the swine flu, but many are wary about getting vaccinated against the disease, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. A majority of those surveyed—5%—now say they are "a great deal" or "somewhat" worried that they or someone in their household will be infected with it, up from 39% of those polled in August. At the same time, however, more than six in 10 say they will not get vaccinated, and only 52% of parents say they plan to have their children vaccinated.
Senate Democrats backed down from their effort to increase Medicare payments to doctors without offsetting any of the cost over the next 10 years. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, said the bill would "fix" a flawed formula that threatens to cut Medicare payments to doctors by 21% in 2010 and by about 5% in each of the next few years. If such cuts occurred, he said, fewer doctors would accept Medicare patients. Republicans support the goal, but said they could not swallow the Medicare bill because it would cost $247 billion over 10 years and none of the cost would be offset or paid for, reports the New York Times.
To remain certified, most of the nation's 700,000 doctors are required periodically to take continuing medical education courses. But critics have said that too many of those courses are little more than drug company marketing in the guise of education. Sponsorship by the pharmaceutical industry pays an estimated half of the cost of such programs in the United States, and critics have argued that the national nonprofit group that accredits the course providers has not done enough to fight drug industry influence in the classroom. But now Murray Kopelow, MD, chief executive of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, said he would make public a previously confidential listing of classes and companies that violated rules against commercial bias, the New York Times reports.
The M.D. Anderson-Orlando Cancer Research Institute has opened its new research facility in the University of Central Florida's Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences building, officially becoming a part of Lake Nona's "medical city." The 30,000-square-foot facility will triple the cancer research institute's wet lab space and provide thousands of additional square feet of work space.
After sitting on the question for the better part of the year, the Louisiana Supreme Court has handed the Louisiana State University System a legal victory and ruled that a lawsuit challenging the closing of Charity Hospital must be heard in East Baton Rouge Parish. The seven patients who filed the lawsuit want it tried in New Orleans, and a group of New Orleans lawyers originally filed the suit in January 2008 asking the Orleans Parish court to order the reopening of the giant hospital or mandate that the state replace it with equivalent services.
Alarmed by the spread of the H1N1 flu, hospitals throughout California restricted visitors, barring children and capping the number of visitors per patient. In Los Angeles, Cedars- Sinai Medical Center raised the minimum age for visitors from 12 to 18 and restricted the number of visitors for patients at greatest risk for H1N1, including those in labor and delivery, or in the pediatric and neonatal intensive care units.