Category: Bridge the Gap Between Basic Research and Patient Care, NIH Head Urges

MEwens
Associated Press
Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health, painted a stark picture at TEDMED about the difficulty of translating basic scientific knowledge into applications that could be useful to patients.
We need to “build a bridge across this yawning gap,” Collins told the audience at this gathering in Washington of researchers and […]

MEwens
Here’s what’s making health news this morning:
Pain-Pill Crackdown Spreads (WSJ)
Federal agents searched six stores and a Florida distribution center owned by Walgreen Co., WAG -1.38%, as federal authorities widen efforts to curb abuse of pain pills.
FTC Wins Temporary Halt to Hospital Merger (WSJ)
A U.S. District Court judge sided with the Federal Trade Commission, which […]

MEwens
Much of what is written about sibling rivalry focuses on its effects during childhood. But experts say adult sibling rivalry remains one of the most harmful—and least addressed—issues in a family. This week Bonds columnist Elizabeth Bernstein explores the issue and offers some tips for confronting and diffusing that lingering tension. What […]

MEwens
Anthropologists often work in exotic climates and cultures, but for the past ten years, they’ve been studying middle-class American families in California. WSJ health reporter Shirley Wang wrote about research being done out of UCLA, which spotlights how dependent American kids are in comparison to their peers in other regions. Their findings seem […]

MEwens
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation filed a citizen’s petition yesterday asking the FDA not to approve Gilead Sciences’ antiretroviral drug Truvada for use in healthy people as a way to prevent HIV infection.
Why? As the WSJ reports, there is debate in both the scientific and advocacy community about whether Truvada should be approved for […]

MEwens
The Health Blog has been writing about the nasty bug Clostridium difficile for a while now. As other infections associated with health-care contact have gone down, C. diff infections have been on the rise — and only recently have leveled off. Some 14,000 deaths each year are linked to the bug, which lives […]

MEwens
For several years, Medicare’s Hospital Compare initiative has published quality measures for hospitals. While the data are intended to help patients make better decisions, some experts have noted that the public nature of the information might also help spur lower-performing hospitals to shape up, improving the quality of care.
But the project hasn’t led […]

MEwens
Treatment for acute promyelocytic leukemia, a type of cancer that forms in the bone marrow, has been improved significantly using a therapy that combines arsenic trioxide, a traditional Chinese medicine, with the chemo drug ATRA (otherwise known as all-trans retinoic acid).
The Chinese researchers who pioneered the treatment, Zhen-Yi Wang and Zhu Chen, were […]

MEwens
Play Videogames, Improve Yourself? : Research is increasingly pointing to benefits gained from playing videogames, including improved creativity, decision-making and improved perception in the form of better hand-eye coordination and vision changes, the WSJ reports. One independent study, for example, found that experienced gamers can pay attention to more than six things simultaneously, […]

MEwens
As the debate about screening for some types of cancer — think prostate and breast cancer — has gotten more heated over the past several years, doctors and patients are increasingly being called upon to make tough decisions about whether and how to screen.
That kind of informed decision is hard to make, though, […]