Year: 2014

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Monday rejected a request by Planned Parenthood and a private women’s health clinic to block new Arizona regulations that would limit the use of abortion-inducing drugs. The regulations, which go into effect on Tuesday, would require any medicine used to induce an abortion to be administered strictly according to protocols issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and instructions on the label. Planned Parenthood and the Tucson Women’s center sued to overturn the rules and sought a temporary restraining order to stop them from going into effect while the lawsuit was being litigated. They argued that the regulations could force women to travel to other states to get an abortion or prevent them from getting the procedure altogether.

The U.S. Senate gave final congressional approval on Monday to legislation to avert a pay cut for doctors who participate in the Medicare insurance program for the elderly and disabled. By a vote of 64-35, the Democratic-led Senate sent the measure, approved last week by the Republican-led House of Representatives, to President Barack Obama to sign into law. The bill would give doctors a one-year reprieve from a 24 percent cut set to kick in this week under the Medicare payment formula, known as the Sustainable Growth Rate, or SGR. The payments affect doctors treating patients under Medicare, which pays for healthcare for nearly 51 million people in the United States who are 65 and older or disabled.

Americans for Prosperity’s latest anecdotal TV ad attacking the Affordable Care Act features a Michigan mom who says her family’s “new plan is not affordable at all” and that the law is “destroying the middle class.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a flood of last-minute sign-ups, hundreds of thousands of Americans rushed to apply for health insurance Monday, but deadline day for President Barack Obama's overhaul brought long, frustrating waits and a new spate of website ills.

By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A panel of advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave favorable reviews on Monday to two new medications to treat acute bacterial skin infections. The panel voted unanimously that Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc’s tedizolid and Durata Therapeutics Inc’s dalbavancin showed substantial evidence of safety and efficacy. The FDA is not obliged to follow the advice of its expert panels but typically does so. Cubist’s shares closed up 4.4 percent at $73.15.

District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray on Monday signed a bill that decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce (28 grams) of marijuana in the U.S. capital. Proponents had backed the marijuana measure as an issue of fairness. A study by the American Civil Liberties Union had shown that blacks in Washington were eight times more likely to be arrested for pot than people of other races. Decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana in the District of Columbia is part of a nationwide trend to lessening penalties for marijuana.

A scam in which telemarketers targeted elderly victims’ bank accounts – stealing more than $20 million by impersonating government and bank officials through fake companies – was shut down by a U.S. court, the Federal Trade Commission said on Monday. The FTC accused Ari Tietolman, Marc Ferry and others of setting up a boiler room in Canada to cold-call senior citizens and others, saying they were from the government or from the victim’s bank and were selling fraud protection and pharmaceutical benefit services or other services. Once the seniors were convinced to give their bank account information, the group would withdraw money without authorization, the FTC said. “They targeted and called senior citizens and lied to them to get their bank account information.