Category: Regulations
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Chain Restaurants Still Serving High Calorie, Sodium Meals
Public health researchers at University of California in Davis and Rand Corporation in Santa Monica found restaurant chains in the U.S. continue to serve meals high in calories and sodium, despite requirements to post nutritional data about their menus. UC-Davis’s Helen Wu and Rand economist Roland Sturm published their findings yesterday online in the Journal…
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Health Reform To Cut Out-of-Pocket Costs for Newly Insured
A new study from the Rand Corporation shows health care costs will decline for most people, particularly those newly insured or changing their plans under the Affordable Care Act, the U.S. health reform law. The impact of the law is expected to vary, however, with newly insured consumers having higher incomes and thus ineligible for…
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FDA Approves Artificial Pancreas System with Glucose Sensor
The medical device manufacturer Medtronic Inc. in Minneapolis says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a wearable artificial pancreas system that combines an insulin pump and sensor to detect glucose levels for people with diabetes. The company also revealed it received a warning letter on 19 September from FDA about its factory…
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Trial Tests Chemo-Immunotherapy with Pancreatic Cancer
An early-stage clinical trial found a combination of chemotherapy and antibody protein caused some patients with pancreatic cancer to shrink their tumors. The findings of a study by researchers at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and University of Washington in Seattle appear online in the journal Clinical Cancer Research (paid subscription required). Cancer of the…
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FDA to Limit Oversight to Medical Device Mobile Apps
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will focus its regulation of mobile health apps on those that act as traditional medical devices, according to final guidance released yesterday. The guidance, to be published tomorrow in the Federal Register for public comment, says FDA will not enforce regulations on the majority of health-related smartphone and tablet…
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Clinical Trial to Test Engineered Enzyme with Kidney Failure
AM-Pharma, a biopharmaceutical company in Bunnik, the Netherlands, began recruiting volunteers to test an engineered form of the human enzyme alkaline phosphatase to treat acute kidney injury. The clinical trial will test the safety and tolerability of the human recombinant alkaline phosphatase as well as its enzyme-chemical activity in blood serum, an indicator of treatment…
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Cleveland Clinic Spin-Off Developing Breast Cancer Vaccine
Shield Biotech, a spin-off company from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, is creating a vaccine to prevent breast cancer based on research conducted at the clinic’s research institute. Vincent Tuohy, a Cleveland Clinic immunologist, founded the company with the clinic’s commercialization division, and serves as its chief scientist. Tuohy’s research seeks to find a method for protecting…
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Safer, Cheaper Ultraviolet PCB Disposal Process Developed
A team of engineers and chemists at University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada devised a new process for cleaning soil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, cancer-causing chemicals banned in the U.S. since 1979, but with residues still in the environment. The new methods, say Calgary engineering professor Gopal Achari and chemistry professor Cooper Langford,…
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Copper and Copper Alloys Found to Destroy Norovirus
Biologists at University of Southampton in the U.K. found surfaces made of copper and copper alloys can quickly destroy norovirus, the pathogen causing acute gastroenteritis. Researcher Sarah Warnes and Bill Keevil, director of the university’s Environmental Healthcare Unit, published their findings earlier this week in the online journal PLoS One. Norovirus is a highly contagious…
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Quality Incentives Found Effective for Health Care Outcomes
A test of financial incentives for delivering high quality health care shows patients of medical providers receiving those pay-for-performance incentives have better outcomes for a number of common conditions than patients receiving care through the traditional fee-for-service model. The research team from University of California in San Francisco and New York City Department of Health…