Month: March 2013

By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The House of Representatives eliminated the threat of a government shutdown next week, approving on Thursday a stop-gap funding bill that temporarily eases partisan tensions after months of bitter fights over budgets. In a rare show of cooperation, the Republican-controlled House voted 318-109 to approve legislation that keeps government agencies and programs funded through the end of the fiscal year on September 30. …

By Zeba Siddiqui (Reuters) – Advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended that Titan Pharmaceuticals Inc treatment for opioid addiction be approved, but were unconvinced that the company’s marketing plan was safe enough, given the potential for abuse of such drugs. The panel of advisers, who met in Silver Spring, Maryland to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Titan’s Probuphine, also echoed concerns expressed on Tuesday by FDA staff, who said it was difficult to decide if the intended dose of the drug would be effective enough. …

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) – Monitoring patients at home using modern technology, so-called ‘telehealth’, is tipped as the next big thing in healthcare, but a new study by British researchers suggests it may not be worth the extra expense. The findings will fuel controversy over the economic case for telehealth, which many information technology and telecoms companies are betting on as a multibillion-dollar market opportunity. …

By Rachelle Younglai WASHINGTON (Reuters) – House Speaker John Boehner and his fellow Republicans say they are preparing to use the next debt limit deadline to fight for further spending cuts and major changes to federal healthcare and retirement programs. Boehner's demand that any debt cap increase be matched with commensurate budget savings sets up Republicans for another fiscal battle with the Obama administration and a possible repeat of the 2011 debt limit brawl that cost the United States its top credit rating. …

By Kim Dixon WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Opponents of a 2.3 percent tax on medical device companies will likely win passage this week in the Senate of a largely symbolic resolution calling for repeal of the tax, with some Democrats likely to join all Republicans. The tax helps to fund President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare law. It applies to a range of medical products – from bedpans to expensive heart devices – many manufactured in the home states of the senators backing the repeal. …

(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is alerting health care providers that a Georgia compounding pharmacy has recalled all of its sterile products distributed in the United States since October 19, following reports of serious eye infections, the agency said on Thursday. Until further notice, health care providers should stop using all sterile products distributed by Clinical Specialties Compounding and return them to the company, the FDA said. …

Even as the Oklahoma legislature works to get its Affordable Care Act, ACA, nullification law through the Senate, having already won approval in the House of Representatives, the federal government, via the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services , CMS, notified Oklahoma’s state officials, that ACA will be enforced there.

Why Total Reporting of Genetic Results Is a Bad Idea

By Anna Ringstrom STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Furniture retailer IKEA’s trademark meatballs are returning to the menu after last month’s horsemeat scare, with new supply chain controls “from farm to fork”, the company’s head of foods said on Thursday. IKEA in February stopped selling meatballs from its main supplier, Familjen Dafgard in Sweden, after tests showed a batch contained horsemeat. The discovery widened a Europe-wide horsemeat scandal that has damaged confidence in the continent’s vast and complex food industry. …

(Reuters) – A list of tentative tax reform options, most of them modest administrative steps, was circulating on Thursday in the U.S. Senate among members of the finance committee and lobbyists. In a nine-page document obtained by Reuters, some of the specific options included the following: – Repeal the individual and corporate alternative minimum tax, a levy meant to ensure the payment of at least some tax, but which often requires duplicate tax calculations. This was one of few options on the list that would represent a major change in U.S. tax policy. …