Month: March 2014

By Jon Herskovitz AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Thursday upheld a Texas law that places restrictions on abortions, saying a provision requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital was a reasonable regulation. A federal judge erred last year in blocking the law, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found. The U.S. Supreme Court later allowed it to go into effect. The law requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges, the ability to admit a patient for treatment at a hospital usually by being recognized as a doctor who can use hospital facilities, at an adequately equipped hospital within 30 miles of their practice.

By Susan Cornwell and Susan Heavey WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation on Thursday to avert looming pay cuts for doctors under the government’s Medicare health insurance program for older Americans and the disabled. The measure to postpone the cuts was approved in a voice vote after an earlier delay signaled potential trouble mustering support for the bill, which halts the pay cuts for one year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said the bill would be brought up for a vote in that chamber on Monday, with no opportunity to amend it, meaning that if it passes it will go straight to President Barack Obama to sign into law. The Senate has 100 members.

An Oklahoma City doctor suspected of molesting two female patients during examinations has been charged with sexual assault, the Oklahoma District Attorney’s office said on Thursday. Dr. John Fuller, a 60-year-old pain specialist, has been charged with one count of sexual battery and one count of rape by instrumentation, it said. Fuller’s attorney, Scott Adams, was not immediately available to comment on Thursday.

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) – As many as one in 68 U.S. children have autism, a 30 percent increase in just two years, U.S. health officials said on Thursday, but experts think the rise may simply reflect that parents and doctors are getting better at recognizing and diagnosing the disorder. “It’s not that surprising because as people get more aware, the prevalence has always increased in a psychiatric disorder,” Dr Thomas Frazier, director of Cleveland Clinic Children’s Center for Autism, said in a telephone interview. The latest report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which looks at data from 2010, estimates that 14.7 per 1,000 8-year-olds in 11 U.S. communities have autism. That compares with the prior estimate of 1 in 88 children, or 11.3 of 1,000 8-year-olds, in 2008, and 1 in 150 children in 2000.

By Dana Feldman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Incompetent teachers in California are holding back poor and minority children, an attorney for several students said on Thursday in closing arguments for a closely watched trial that could change the way public school teachers are hired and fired in the most populous U.S. state. The two-month trial has focused on whether five laws meant to protect teachers’ jobs are unfair to poor and minority students by putting them at a disproportionately greater risk of being taught by less effective teachers. But the group’s approach also brings in the novel argument that the five laws they are challenging violate the civil rights of students. “We’re asking the court to declare that these five education codes are unconstitutional and that they violate the equal protection clause,” Marcellus A. McRae, one of several attorneys arguing on behalf of plaintiffs, told Reuters.

NEW YORK (AP) — The government's estimate of autism has moved up again to 1 in 68 U.S. children, a 30 percent increase in two years.

By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 6 million people have now signed up for private insurance plans under President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law known as Obamacare, reflecting a surge in enrollments days before the March 31 deadline, the White House said on Thursday. The milestone gives the White House some ammunition to counter Republican critics, who have described the program as an expensive flop in the build-up to midterm congressional campaigns in November, when Democratic control of the U.S. Senate is at stake. Only 10 days ago, the administration had pegged enrollment at more than 5 million people, and enlisted celebrities and top government officials to try to persuade more uninsured people, particularly the young and healthy, to sign up. The last-minute boost has exceeded the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's estimate that 6 million people would sign up in the program's first year, down from earlier expectations of 7 million enrollees because of problems with websites used for shopping for insurance.

(Reuters) – A colon cancer screening method that analyzes DNA from stool samples won the unanimous backing of a U.S. advisory panel on Thursday, paving the way for potential regulatory approval of the non-invasive test. A panel of outside experts advising the Food and Drug Administration voted 10-0 to recommend approval of the Cologuard screening test made by Exact Sciences Corp. The company said a large clinical trial found that its test detected 92.3 percent of colorectal cancers in average-risk patients based on a combination of DNA and hemoglobin markers. While a colonoscopy is considered the most accurate method of detecting colon cancer and polyps, many people avoid the test, which involves inserting a flexible tube into the colon. If Cologuard is approved by the FDA, patients who have a positive cancer finding with the test, which identifies abnormal cells shed in the stool, would then undergo a colonoscopy.

A drug made by Novartis AG to treat acute heart failure should not be approved because there is insufficient evidence it improves symptoms, a panel of advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration concluded on Thursday. The FDA is not obliged to follow the advice of its advisory panels but typically does so. Novartis filed for approval of the drug, serelaxin, based on a single study that showed that when given alongside standard treatment it alleviated shortness of breath by slowing the rate of worsening heart failure following hospitalization. Panelists said that while the drug may have reduced worsening heart failure, additional study would be needed to determine the magnitude of the effect.

By Richard Valdmanis BOSTON (Reuters) – Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick on Thursday declared a public health emergency over rising heroin and opioid addiction in the state, and announced measures to make overdose reversal medication more widely available. The move comes as states across America report sharp increases in heroin use, a trend the Obama administration this month called an “urgent public health crisis.” “We have an epidemic of opiate abuse in Massachusetts, so we will treat it like the public health crisis it is,” Patrick said in a statement. Patrick said his administration would permit first responders to carry and administer overdose reversal medication naloxone, also known as narcan, and will make the drug available in pharmacies for those “who fear a loved one might overdose.” He said he would also temporarily prohibit hydrocodone-only formulation pain killers in the state, which he said pose “a significant risk to individuals already addicted to opiates and to the public at large.” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said this month that heroin overdoses had become “an urgent public health crisis,” and reiterated the Obama administration’s call for more law enforcement to train and equip personnel with naxolone.