[EMBARGOED FOR July 11, 2013, ARLINGTON, Va.] – A new guide developed by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) will help physicians appropriately and accurately use laboratory tests for the diagnosis of infectious diseases. Laboratory test results drive approximately two-thirds of physicians' medical decisions.
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Chancellor George Osborne has announced an increase in health spending of 1.9% for 2015/16, but taking inflation into account the true figure will be just 0.1%. And although politicians are promising to protect and increase the health budget every year, the latest Comprehensive Spending Review shows that the reality to be quite different.
Some CCGs have tightened the thresholds for access to "low priority" surgery such as hernia and joint problems, while others have introduced new systems to restrict the flow of patients being sent to hospital.
The BMJ's investigation also found that only four of England's 211 new GP led organisations, which assumed statutory responsibility for commissioning around £60bn of NHS care on 1 April 2013, have adopted new guidelines to help widen access to IVF treatment. This has led to disparities in availability across England.
STANFORD, Calif. — A new study led by a researcher at the Stanford University School of Medicine shows that mammalian species can "choose" the sex of their offspring in order to beat the odds and produce extra grandchildren.
In analyzing 90 years of breeding records from the San Diego Zoo, the researchers were able to prove for the first time what has been a fundamental theory of evolutionary biology: that mammals rely on some unknown physiologic mechanism to manipulate the sex ratios of their offspring as part of a highly adaptive evolutionary strategy.
Researchers at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and colleagues have identified a new virus associated with the death of a short-beaked dolphin found stranded on a beach in San Diego. It is the first time that a virus belonging to the polyomavirus family has been found in a dolphin. Results appear online in the journal PLOS ONE.
OTTAWA, July 10, 2013—A new study by a Canadian Museum of Nature scientist helps answer a long-standing question in palaeontology—how numerous species of large, plant-eating dinosaurs could co-exist successfully over geological time.
Children who receive a vaccine to prevent blood and ear infections, appear to be reducing the spread of pneumonia to the rest of the population, especially their grandparents and other older adults.
Thresher sharks hunt schooling sardines in the waters off a small coral island in the Philippines by rapidly slapping their tails hard enough to stun or kill several of the smaller fish at once, according to research published July 10 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Simon Oliver of the Thresher Shark Research and Conservation Project, and colleagues from other institutions.
The population of the critically endangered large primate known as the drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus) has been largely reduced to a few critical habitat areas in Cameroon, according to a recently published study by researchers with the San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research. The study highlights the challenges faced by this species as its living area becomes ever more fragmented by human disturbance. In addition, the report directs conservation efforts towards key areas where the populations continue to survive and thrive.
Half a millennium after Johannes Gutenberg printed the bible, researchers printed a 3D splint that saved the life of an infant born with severe tracheobronchomalacia, a birth defect that causes the airway to collapse.
While similar surgeries have been preformed using tissue donations and windpipes created from stem cells, this is the first time 3D printing has been used to treat tracheobronchomalacia—at least in a human.
MINNEAPOLIS – Older people with Alzheimer's disease are less likely to also have cancer, and older people with cancer are less likely to also have Alzheimer's disease, according to the largest study to date on the topic, which appears in the July 10, 2013, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
SEATTLE – A second large, prospective study by scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has confirmed the link between high blood concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids and an increased risk of prostate cancer.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have discovered that a protein used by cancer cells to evade death also plays a vital role in heart health. This dual role complicates efforts to develop cancer drugs that target the protein, but may lead to new therapies for heart muscle damage. The research appeared in the June 15 edition of the scientific journal Genes & Development.
Individuals with excessive abdominal fat have a greater risk of heart disease and cancer than individuals with a similar body mass index (BMI) who carry their fat in other areas of the body, according to a study published online today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
According to the World Health Organization, 80% of blindness is preventable or treatable — but it remains a severe health concern across the globe, even in industrialized countries.