Month: March 2013

By Suzi Parker LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) – A cost analysis released on Monday shows that a state plan to move Medicaid-eligible low-income citizens into a "private option" under upcoming federal healthcare exchanges would result in little additional federal costs. "These estimates find that the private option can be fully funded with existing resources at the state level and would add less than 15 percent to federal health-care costs in Arkansas," the report said. "In some realistic scenarios, there could be no additional federal costs at all. …

NEW YORK (AP) — Cigarettes would have to be kept out of sight in New York City stores under a first-in-the-nation plan unveiled by Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday, igniting complaints from retailers and smokers who said they've had enough with the city's crackdowns.

(This story contains graphic material that may upset some readers) By Dave Warner PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Dr. Kermit Gosnell ran a “house of horrors” in a West Philadelphia health clinic where women went for late-term abortions, a prosecutor said in his opening statement on Monday in a trial that will decide if the doctor is guilty of murder in the deaths of seven infants and a woman. The district attorney’s office contends Gosnell, 72, delivered live babies and then deliberately severed their spinal cords, killing them. …

(Reuters) – That toasty warm building in winter may not just be psychologically comforting. According to a UK study, improving buildings to enhance “thermal comfort” – with central heating or insulation, for instance – pays off in both physical and mental wellbeing. “I think the main message is that housing improvement can improve health, especially if it’s warmth and energy improvement targeting people with respiratory illnesses,” said Hilary Thomson, the study’s lead author from the Medical Research Council in Glasgow, UK. …

By Zeba Siddiqui (Reuters) – Drugmaker Affymax Inc said it was considering selling itself or filing for bankruptcy among a range of alternatives, as it struggles to stay afloat following the recent recall of its sole commercial product, the anemia drug Omontys. Affymax’s shares slumped nearly 57 percent to $1.27 in extended trade on Monday, not far above the $1.00 minimum average trading price required to stay listed on the Nasdaq. …

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) – In the latest installment in the mammogram debate, a new study finds that getting a mammogram every other year instead of annually did not increase the risk of advanced breast cancer in women aged 50 to 74, even in women who use hormone therapy or have dense breasts, factors that increase a woman’s cancer risk. The findings, released on Monday by researchers at the University California, San Francisco, support the conclusions of the U.S. …

Breast Cancer Screening Carries Serious Risks, Researchers Say

By Jonathan Allen NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday proposed requiring that cigarettes be hidden from view in retail stores as a means to reduce smoking in what he said would be the first law of its kind in the United States. Bloomberg plans to introduce to the City Council on Wednesday two bills that would require retailers to keep cigarettes in a drawer, behind a curtain or in some other concealed location. Some retail trade groups and tobacco companies criticized the proposed display ban as an unnecessary burden. …