3117 49031329 3774 45" style="max-width:400px;float:left;padding:10px 10px 10px 0px;border:0px;">As CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports, 나주출장마사지 - https://www.toptopanma.com/%eb%82%98%ec%a3%bc%ec%98%a4%ed%94%bc%ea%b1%b8... this is not the kind of report that instills public confidence in a government agency.

The study, conducted two years ago but released Thursday after two public interest groups who filed a freedom of information act to obtain it. The survey's results echo the concerns of Dr. David Graham, the FDA medical officer who recently outed the agency's safety problems before Congress.

As of two years ago, more than one third of FDA scientists have some doubts about the process for approving new drugs, the survey found.

And two-thirds of the FDA scientists surveyed were not highly confident that the FDA "adequately monitors safety of prescription drugs" once on the market. One in five said they'd been "pressured to approve" a drug "despite reservations about its safety" or other concerns, as CBS's Attkisson reports.

The survey was conducted by the Department of Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General. It comes in the wake of safety concerns forcing removal from the market of Vioxx, an arthritis drug, and congressional testimony by Dr. David Graham, an FDA scientist, that the agency mishandled safety concerns about five other drugs.

"By all appearances, FDA would rather be sorry than safe," said Rebecca Roose, director of the Attkisson reports, scientists interviewed by CBS News have expressed such concerns as far back as 2000. Drs. John Gueriguian, Robert Misbin and Leo Lutwak said their FDA bosses ignored their concerns about the diabetes drug Rezulin, which eventually was pulled from the market.FDA scientists have repeatedly proven correct in their ability to flag dangerous drugs, but, as the study shows, are often scared to voice their concerns. Scientists have even been threatened with criminal prosecution for allegedly leaking important safety information to the public, which is precisely what happened to Gueriguian, Misbin and Lutwak. "Eighteen percent does not bode well," said Roose. "We would expect that in an agency that is protecting the public health that the number of scientists not feeling pressure - https://www.sportsblog.com/search?search=feeling%20pressure should be 100 percent. That is a matter of concern."But the FDA repeatedly has denied such pressuring or retaliation against scientists. Today, the agency said it "encourages scientific debate" and "weighs all the evidence" before deciding whether a drug should be on the market."Officials at the Union of Concerned Scientists and at the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility said requests for the full report were ignored by the FDA and the HHS until PEER filed the FOIA application. Even Rep. Stupak said he had been stymied in his efforts to get a copy of the full report.

While recipe books for diets like Atkins and South Beach are gospel for many in the United States, the American craze for low-carb versions of brownies, breads and pasta hasn't crossed the Atlantic to the Continent.

Only Britain, where junk-food habits and ample figures often mirror those of their American cousins, is turning into an island of low-carb fans.

"The Atkins Diet craze that has gripped America will not result in Germans eating more sausage and less potatoes," said Dr. Volker Pudel, director of nutrition psychology and research at the University of Goettingen in Germany.

"Just think about German breakfast. You cannot just have eggs without the bread, and you cannot eat butter without spreading it on bread. It just won't work in Germany, this diet," said Pudel in a telephone interview.

One reason for Europe's snub of low-carb diets like Atkins and South Beach might be need — or lack of it.

Europeans like to walk, even when they have no place to go.

An entire European family could make a picnic of canapés from the staggering high pile of cold cuts in just one New York deli sandwich. Italians return from abroad stunned by cherished U.S. dining habits like all-you-can eat restaurants and doggy bags for 광명출장마사지 - https://www.anmapop.com/%ea%b4%91%eb%aa%85%ec%b6%9c%ec%9e%a5%ec%83%b5%cf... all you can't eat.

"To give up a plate of pasta for a diet is, in my view, blasphemy," said Andrea Pargallo, a bartender in Napoleone bar on Piazza Venezia, as he served customers their morning cappuccino and cornetto (brioche).

"The Mediterranean diet is the best in the world. Indeed, we don't have all so many obesity problems like our friends across the ocean," said Pargallo, 31.

He was referring to Italy's staple diet, praised by nutritionists and built heavily around grains like rice and pasta and fruit and vegetables.

In France, where natives - http://www.medcheck-up.com/?s=natives walk dogs with one hand and clutch a white-flour baguette in the other, pharmacist Niama Wallah said she was unfamiliar with the cutting-carbs approach to weight loss.

"But with the level of obesity that you have in America, it doesn't surprise me that people are going to such lengths to diet," said Wallah, who runs a pharmacy off the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

With Europeans so loyal to their linguine and so faithful to their pommes frites, European food manufacturers and supermarket chains haven't been plunging into low-carb product lines.

"We don't have low-carbohydrate products," said Omer Pignatti, a spokesman for Conad, a chain of supermarkets in Italy. "There isn't any on the Italian market and we don't foresee any such initiatives."

Surveys seem to bear out his assessment.

"We've seen low-carb to be an entirely U.S. phenomenon," said Lynn Dornblaser, director of consulting services for London-based Mintel International Group, Ltd.

Dornblaser was among those presenting a country-by-country survey of low-carb products at a food industry meeting in Las Vegas, Nev., earlier this month.

In the United States, the number of new low-carb products ballooned from two in 1999 to 1,329 so far this year, the survey found.

Continental Europe saw few such products being introduced until this year, when a U.S.-based company which sells low-carb bagels, buns, cheesecakes and other products, began offering its fare via the Internet to Europe.

In Britain, new low-carb products sharply rose from five last year to 159 in 2004. Among the items are "no-bread" sandwiches sold by a popular sandwich chain, Pret a Manger.

"We did this very much in response to basically the low-carb fever that was sort of coming over here," Nellie Nichols, Pret a Manger's head of food, said of the product, which is sold in square boxes to resemble sandwiches. "They are going down very, very well."

"Carbs have become the devil's work, haven't they?" said Matt Hind, 25, a trainee lawyer buying his lunch in central London. "I think people are always looking for quick fixes when it comes to weight."

With obesity a matter for mounting concern in Britain, the tabloids there sprinkle their pages with names of celebrities going low-carb, including, reportedly, singer Robbie Williams, former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, actress Minnie Driver and food writer/celebrity chef Nigella Lawson.

Asked why low-carbs haven't caught on in most of Europe, Dornblaser, who works out of Mintel's Chicago office, said Europeans "have got a better understanding of portion control," as well as balance and variety in diet.

"In the U.S., rightly or wrongly, we like to have a magic pill."

By Frances D'Emilio

With outbreaks striking teenagers and adults, the government soon will decide if it's time for booster shots against the cough so violent it can break a rib. Last week, manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline sought Food and Drug Administration permission to sell a booster; competitor Aventis Pasteur isn't far behind.

While boosters are debated, however, don't lose sight of the real risk: Whooping cough can kill newborns before they start getting their vaccinations - http://www.google.com/search?q=vaccinations&btnI=lucky . And while older patients usually recover, they can easily spread the disease, known medically as pertussis, to infants.

"Parents who have very young infants need to get them vaccinated as early as possible," advises Dr. Trudy Murphy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Anyone who's coughing should "avoid contact with young infants on the chance this maybe is unrecognized pertussis."

Pertussis is a bacterial infection. Initial coldlike symptoms lead to fits of 15 to 20 coughs in a row that leave patients gasping for air — often, but not always, 여주출장마사지 - https://www.popanma.com/%ec%97%ac%ec%a3%bc%ec%b6%9c%ec%9e%a5%ec%83%b5%cf... with a high-pitched "whoop."

The incidence of pertussis plummeted in industrialized nations after vaccination began in the 1940s. It now is on the rise again globally.

Why isn't clear, but it's thought to be at least partly due to waning immunity. Children get five doses of pertussis vaccine between ages 2 months and 6 years. The protection begins to drop five to 10 years after the last shot.

In the United States, a preliminary CDC count found more than 11,000 pertussis cases last year. That's up from 9,771 the previous year, and the most recorded in three decades.

"We know that's an underestimate," Murphy said.

Experts say there may be 10 times as many cases, even more. Studies suggest almost a quarter of people with coughs that last longer than two weeks have undiagnosed pertussis, says Dr. Kathryn Edwards of Vanderbilt University.

In fact, about a third of CDC-recorded cases are among adolescents, which even health professionals may not realize. So far this year, CDC has counted outbreaks, most involving teens, in 11 states, including a Chicago-area one that has involved more than 100 cases since March.

"I really thought it was a disease of the Depression," said Monika Burke, a Philadelphia nurse who was stunned when her 15-year-old daughter, Sophia, caught whooping cough in May.

A doctor first diagnosed a viral infection. But Sophia was having 30 or 40 coughing fits a day, occasionally so violent they'd trigger vomiting. So the doctor prescribed antibiotics and performed a blood test for pertussis. By the time test results came back a week later, her 12-year-old brother was sick, too.

Enter the booster debate. Proponents say booster shots for older ages could prevent misery and school and work absences, plus indirectly protect vulnerable infants: Since 1990, pertussis has risen 72 percent among babies younger than 4 months, the age when their vaccine protection begins to kick in.

Studies show that giving one-third of youngsters' pertussis vaccine doses to teens and adults can safely boost waning immunity. Already, boosters are offered in Canada, Germany, France and Australia.

Here, Glaxo last week asked the FDA to approve its Boostrix version for teens. The idea: People are supposed to get boosters against two other diseases, tetanus and diphtheria, every decade, including one for 11- to 18-year-olds. Boostrix simply adds a pertussis booster to the scheduled adolescent shot.

Competitor Aventis Pasteur wants to target adults, too. It is preparing to seek FDA approval to sell its Adacel pertussis-tetanus-diphtheria booster to ages 11 through 64.

Once FDA makes sales decisions, expected early next year, a CDC-appointed committee must recommend who should get whichever shots are sold. Adolescents likely will be the first candidates, noted Vanderbilt's Edwards. After all, they wouldn't require an extra doctor's visit or needle prick.

Less is known about adult pertussis risk. Still, new parents and infant caregivers and health workers are logical next choices "so we can cocoon babies," she said. "It's the babies that could die."

By Lauran Neergaard

The pharmacies accuse the 15 drug makers of illegally conspiring to charge inflated prices in the United States while barring pharmacies from buying the makers' drugs at lower prices outside the country.

"Each of the companies, all of them, are doing exactly the same thing: They're charging substantially more in the United States than they are elsewhere," Joseph Alioto, the San Francisco attorney representing the pharmacies, told KCBS Radio's Matt Bigler. "Almost all of the countries of the world are in one price range and the United States is 300 to 400 times greater."

Alioto filed the suit in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland. The suit alleges the pharmaceutical companies have hurt the pharmacies' bottom lines by violating California's antitrust and unfair business practices laws.

"While Pfizer hasn't had an opportunity to review this lawsuit in detail, any allegations of price fixing are totally without merit," said Bryant Haskins, a spokesman for New York-based Pfizer Inc., which is named in the lawsuit. "Importation of pharmaceutical products into the U.S. market is both illegal and dangerous because it increases the opportunity to introduce counterfeit or unapproved drugs into the distribution system."

The California lawsuit comes at a time when pharmaceutical companies are coming under increased scrutiny over their drug costs and marketing practices. Many of the same drugs sold in the United States are available in Canada and elsewhere for fractions of the retail prices.

"I get people that are going online and checking prices and saying 'Wow, I can buy this drug up in Canada for a third of the price you're charging me here,' and I don't have anything to respond other than the fact that I say, 'Jeez, you better go do it,'" said San Francisco pharmacist John Gelinas.

The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly - https://www.biggerpockets.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&term=repeatedly denied requests to import drugs from Canada, where the government controls prices and drugs are less expensive. It says that would open the door, through Canada, to drugs from other countries where quality control isn't as stringent as in the U.S.

Alioto says there's an overall conspiracy to create an artificial trade barrier around the U.S.

"The smoking gun obviously is very obvious, and that is the extreme price differential on the same drug," he told KCBS-AM.

The state of Vermont has filed a lawsuit against the federal agency over the issue.

Last month, Schering-Plough Corp. agreed to pay $346 million to settle charges that it paid a kickback to a health insurer in an attempt to evade a law requiring it to give its lowest prices to Medicaid, the government health program for the poor. Bayer has paid $257 million and GlaxoSmithKline has paid $86.7 million to settle similar allegations that they failed to give their best prices to Medicaid.

Other companies named in the lawsuit include Merck, Johnson & Johnson, 나주출장마사지 - https://www.toptopanma.com/%eb%82%98%ec%a3%bc%ec%98%a4%ed%94%bc%ea%b1%b8... Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Abbott Laboratories.

The drug industry has in the past defended its U.S. prices as a way to recoup hefty research and development costs.

An Environmental Protection Agency official responded that the study misconstrued - http://www.stockhouse.com/search?searchtext=study%20misconstrued EPA data and created no reason for the government to change its recommendations on eating wild freshwater fish. An official of a commercial fish trade group said the study examined data on recreational fishing, not farm-raised freshwater fish found in supermarkets.

45052103 02" style="max-width:410px;float:left;padding:10px 10px 10px 0px;border:0px;">About 2,500 fish collected from 260 bodies of water from 1999 to 2001 showed the presence of mercury, the report said. The toxic metal can cause neurological and developmental problems, particularly in young children.

The report was prepared for Clear the Air, a joint campaign of the Clean Air Task Force, the National Environmental Trust and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. The study recommended more restrictions on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Seventy-six percent of the fish samples exceeded EPA's mercury exposure limit for children of average weight under the age of three, the report said. And 55 percent contained mercury that exceeded the limit for women of average weight, it said. The report assumed that people in both groups ate fish twice a week.

The high levels of mercury raise the risks of neurological problems in young children or in fetuses of women who ate the fish, said Emily Figdor, a clean air advocate at U.S. PIRG and the study's author. She could not say how many more such cases could be expected.

Although the EPA agrees that mercury exposure is a serious public health issue, the Clear the Air study misused EPA's exposure limits, said EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman.

The advocacy group, 바카라사이트 - http://www.caddietoursonline.com/cad_terms-and-conditions.php in saying the mercury exceeded safe levels, applied standards the EPA set very low to be on the conservative and safe side of any possible errors, Bergman said. The study also based its estimates on material not from EPA, taking its consumption estimates from the American Heart Association's recommendation that people ought to eat two fish meals a week, she said.

The report does not create a reason for the EPA and the Food and Drug Administration to change the guidance the agencies gave in March on eating wild fish, Bergman said. The agencies said people should check with state or local authorities to learn the safety of the fish. If no such advice is available, people should eat no more than one six-ounce portion a week and should eat no other fish, they said.

Consumers who buy their freshwater fish at markets should not be alarmed about the study, which looked at sources of recreationally caught fish, said Bob Collette, vice president for science and technology at the National Fisheries Institute, a fish industry trade group.

Most freshwater fish that people eat is raised on farms and is not a danger, Collette said.

The report said reducing mercury emissions from power plants is crucial to reducing unsafe levels of mercury in the fish. It criticized the Bush administration as planning to "delay even modest reductions in mercury - https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=mercury&btnI=lucky from power plants until after 2025."

The EPA's Bergman said the administration had taken a big step forward by deciding to regulate the emissions, but she said technology needed for plants to make the cuts had not yet proved itself. U.S. PIRG's Figdor disputed that, and said some states were imposing earlier deadlines on emissions control than the EPA has planned.

Updated 4:43 p.m. ET

The Cannes Film Festival got off to a blockbuster, if stormy start, as Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby" opened on a soggy French Riviera.

Amid heavy rain, dancing flappers flocked down the Cannes red carpet Wednesday night, bringing a touch of the Jazz Age to the Croisette. "Gatsby" stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire helped give the festival's opening day a strong dose of star power.

At the opening ceremony, DiCaprio, joined by his "Gatsby" co-star, Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan, declared the 66th Cannes officially begun.

Over the next 12 days, dozens of the world's most artistically ambitious films will premiere on Cannes' global stage. But Wednesday was a day for blockbusters - both the big-budget "Gatsby" and Hollywood's most accomplished director of spectacle: Steven Spielberg.

Spielberg is serving as jury president at this year's Cannes. His presence here is a rarity (he's had films at Cannes before, including "E.T." and "Sugarland Express," but never had a movie in competition), and 카지노사이트 - https://matras-crimea.com/ he was received like a visiting head of state, a king of cinema.

The "Lincoln" director received a standing ovation at the opening ceremony and was serenaded with a performance of "Miss Celie's Blues" from his 1985 film, "The Color Purple."

He heads the jury that will decide the prestigious Palme d'Or, given to one of the 20 competing films, with entries ranging from the Coen brothers ("Llewyn Davis"), Alexander Payne ("Nebraska") and Steven Soderbergh ("Behind the Candelabra").

This year's jury is an intimidating, starry bunch, including Nicole Kidman, Ang Lee and Christoph Waltz.

"Everyone sits in judgment of us," Spielberg said. "So it's our turn."

Luhrmann's 3-D adaption of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is this year's festival opener, a choice that surprised many since the film opened last week in North America. Cannes typically takes precedence over release schedules, but "Gatsby" sails to the Croisette - http://realitysandwich.com/?s=Croisette after a robust weekend haul of $51.1 million.

After Luhrmann noted in a news conference that the film had pushed Fitzgerald's novel to the top of the bestseller list (selling more copies in a week than in the author's lifetime), DiCaprio added with a grin: "And a little film adaptation is doing quite well at the box office."

But while "Gatsby" is getting a victory lap on the Cannes' red carpet, it comes to the festival with the sting of mixed reviews. Many film critics have taken issue with the movie's stylistic flourishes.

"I knew that would come," said Luhrmann, noting Fitzgerald's 1925 novel was also initially received poorly. "I just care that people are going out and seeing it. I really am so moved by that."

"Gatsby" plays out of competition at the festival, but Spielberg should have his hands full with a slate lacking any obvious favorite. Internationally-respected filmmakers like Roman Polanski ("Venus in Fur"), Asghar Farhadi ("The Past) and Jim Jarmusch ("Only Lovers Left Alive") are to premiere their films in competition.

Every year, the Cannes jury president is psychoanalyzed to help predict the Palme d'Or winner. This year is no different, with onlookers guessing that Spielberg will either gravitate toward the kind of warm-hearted films he's best known for, or seek to deliberately contradict that assumption with a more audacious choice.

The international jury also includes Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay, Japanese director Naomi Kawase, French actor Daniel Auteuil and Bollywood star Vidya Balan.

"I'm going to have to look at the Sidney Lumet film `12 Angry Men,' again as a tutorial to prepare myself for the final day of deliberation," Spielberg said with a smile.

Here's the list of the 19 films that will compete for the top prize, the Palme d'Or:

"A Chateau in Italy" by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi

"Inside Llewyn Davis" by Ethan and Joel Coen

"Michael Kohlhaas" by Arnaud Despallieres

"Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian)" by Arnaud Desplechin

"Heli" by Amat Escalante

"The Past" by Asghar Farhadi

"The Immigrant" by James Gray

"Grigris" by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun

"A Touch of Sin" by Jia Zhangke

"Like Father, Like Son" by Kore-Eda Hirokazu

"The Life of Adele" by Abdellatif Kechiche

"Shield of Straw" by Takashi Miike

"Young and Pretty" by Francois Ozon

"Nebraska" by Alexander Payne

"Venus in Fur" by Roman Polanski

"Behind the Candelabra" by Steven Soderbergh

"The Great Beauty" by Paolo Sorrentino

"Borgman" by Alex van Warmerdam

"Only God Forgives" by Nicolas Winding Refn

But for modest Muslim women, it's an unthinkable indignity.

"I have witnessed their misery and how bad they feel about it. They don't like it. They feel ashamed. It's very embarrassing," said Asha Abdulleh, a native of Kenya and a medical interpreter.

When officials at Maine Medical Center discovered many Muslim women were so ashamed they were canceling doctor visits, the hospital took action, redesigning the standard gown to provide extra coverage for patients who want it. The new hospital gowns have been available for several weeks.

"This is a great example of a challenge raised by a specific community that can ultimately benefit all patients," said Dana Farris Gaya, the hospital's manager of interpreter and cross-cultural services.

The problem was acute for Maine Medical because 2,000 Somali refugees have come to Portland over the past few years and most of them are treated at the hospital's international clinic. As many as three out of 10 women were skipping their appointments, said Osman Hersi, a medical interpreter at the hospital.

Tracked down at home, the women whose religion and culture require them to be covered, described to interpreters the horror 광명출장안마 - https://www.softanma.com/13-light of being asked to wear the revealing gowns during outpatient procedures.

Furthermore, they were publicly humiliated when they had to wait in a hallway in the radiology department.

On a recent morning after the new patient gowns were provided, Shamso Abdi appeared for her first hospital visit since arriving in Portland.

She and her husband, Aden Ali, came to the United States from Mogadishu, Somalia - http://bordersalertandready.com/?s=Somalia&search=Search . They lived in a small town in Kentucky, and then Columbus, Ohio, before coming to Portland.

Abdi, who was clothed in a dress, a sarong and a hijab, a scarf wrapped around her head, said she had canceled appointments in Columbus when she had to see male doctors and wear the standard drafty gown.

The gown created by the Portland hospital is long enough to provide more coverage of a patient's legs and has extra material to ensure that a patient's backside remains covered. Underneath, there's a wraparound sarong for even more coverage.

Abdi said she was grateful to see that Maine Medical had created a patient gown with her principles in mind.

"I'm so happy they made the change. I'm so happy that they considered us," she said, speaking through an interpreter.

Other hospitals are responding to the needs of Muslims. In southeastern Michigan, home to 300,000 Arab-Americans, the University of Michigan Medical Center is also addressing the issue of modesty.

The hospital is thinking of posting signs on the rooms of Muslim women warning male visitors and staff to check with a nurse's station before entering, said spokeswoman Krista Hopson in Ann Arbor, Mich.

As for the gown itself, Maine Medical isn't the only hospital to try to create a more acceptable version.

Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey introduced vibrant colors and funky patterns five years ago. Other hospitals and garment producers have tweaked the traditional design with snaps, Velcro and other changes.

Still, the standard-issue gown will never go away entirely. In some situations, in emergency rooms for example, it's more important to put the interests of doctors and nurses ahead of the interests of patients.

But for many situations, it makes sense to keep patients happy.

Asks Dr. Nat James of the hospital's international clinic: "Why didn't we think of this so long ago?"

The idea of changing the gown isn't completely new.

In 1999, designer Cynthia Rowley unveiled new gowns that offered a mid-calf length with a mock turtleneck and three-quarter length sleeves with snaps for women and drawstring pants, a short sleeve shirt and a matching robe for men.

That same year, Missouri state Rep. Sam Gaskill pushed a bill that would have required hospitals to provide patients with "dignity gowns," covering the body from neck to knee. The bill, prompted by Gaskill's own hospital experience, never made it out of committee.

Just eight federal employees monitor widely varying state efforts to fight Medicaid fraud, the Government Accountability Office said. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services - https://www.b2bmarketing.net/search/gss/Medicaid%20Services has been reviewing state programs since 2000 at a pace that will take it until late 2006 to cover all 50 states and the District of Columbia, said GAO, Congress' investigative arm.

The oversight "may be disproportionately small relative to the risk of serious financial loss," GAO said.

CMS administrator Mark McClellan said his agency is beefing up its financial management staff to review Medicaid spending.

Medicaid is the government health care program for the poor. It is run by the states, and its costs are shared by the federal and state governments.

Medicaid reimbursements are expected to top $300 billion this year, more than half of that in federal money.

While the report said it could not put a dollar figure on the extent of Medicaid fraud, it detailed several schemes uncovered by state and federal prosecutors. In California, for example, 15 laboratories billed more than $20 million for tests that were never ordered by physicians.

Also in California, an eyeglasses store fraudulently billed Medicaid for 59,574 pairs of glasses between 1995 and 2001, GAO said.

In addition, there are indications that Medicaid fraud involving drug pricing practices is increasing, said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who requested the GAO study.

Federal and state prosecutors are investigating several allegations of improper drug pricing, following settlements - http://www.melodyhome.com/category-0/?u=0&q=settlements in seven cases of alleged pricing and marketing fraud since 2001, said Grassley, 아산출장마사지 - https://www.anmapop.com/%ec%95%84%ec%82%b0%ec%b6%9c%ec%9e%a5%ec%83%b5%cf... chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Grassley said the government needs to do more. "CMS has a problem with Medicaid fraud and its limited oversight is insufficient to protect the integrity of the program."

By contrast, he said, the government's Medicare health care program for older and disabled Americans, is more successful in rooting out abuse.

Other studies have found that the federal government recovers 20 times more money from prosecuting fraud in Medicare than in Medicaid - $1 billion compared with $43 million in 2001, according to the Washington-based Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund.

McClellan said the government is taking steps to look at both programs together since schemes to defraud one also often target the other.

A pilot program in California in one year produced a reported $58 million in savings and more than 80 cases against health care providers suspected of fraud, GAO said.

By Mark Sherman

Just eight federal employees monitor widely varying state efforts to fight Medicaid fraud, the Government Accountability Office said. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has been reviewing state programs since 2000 at a pace that will take it until late 2006 to cover all 50 states and the District of Columbia, said GAO, Congress' investigative arm.

The oversight "may be disproportionately small relative to the risk of serious financial loss," GAO said.

CMS administrator Mark McClellan said his agency is beefing up its financial management staff to review Medicaid spending.

Medicaid is the government health care program for the poor. It is run by the states, and its costs are shared by the federal and state governments.

Medicaid reimbursements are expected to top $300 billion this year, more than half of that in federal money.

While the report said it could not put a dollar figure on the extent of Medicaid fraud, it detailed several schemes uncovered by state and federal prosecutors. In California, for example, 15 laboratories billed more than $20 million for tests that were never ordered by physicians.

Also in California, an eyeglasses store fraudulently billed Medicaid for 59,574 pairs of glasses between 1995 and 2001, GAO said.

In addition, there are indications - http://www.caringbridge.org/search?q=indications that Medicaid fraud involving drug pricing practices is increasing, said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who requested the GAO study.

Federal and state prosecutors are investigating several allegations of improper drug pricing, 구리출장마사지 - https://www.anmapop.com/%ea%b5%ac%eb%a6%ac%ec%b6%9c%ec%9e%a5%ec%83%b5%cf... following settlements in seven cases of alleged pricing and marketing fraud since 2001, said Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Grassley said the government needs to do more. "CMS has a problem with Medicaid fraud and its limited oversight is insufficient to protect the integrity of the program."

By contrast, he said, the government's Medicare health care program for older and disabled Americans, is more successful in rooting out abuse.

Other studies have found that the federal government recovers 20 times more money from prosecuting fraud in Medicare than in Medicaid - $1 billion compared with $43 million in 2001, according to the Washington-based Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund.

McClellan said the government is taking steps to look at both programs together since schemes to defraud one also often target the other.

A pilot program in California in one year produced a reported $58 million in savings and more than 80 cases against health care providers suspected of fraud, GAO said.

By Mark Sherman

The Missouri tot is among the youngest of just a few dozen children to try an experiment in which doctors are adapting a new technology for adults' failing hearts to the special needs of their smallest patients.

It's too early to know how well the therapy, called cardiac resynchronization, will work. But so far, a handful of youngsters are doing so well they've been taken off the heart transplant waiting list, and the hope is that others improve enough to postpone that operation.

"At least in the short term, we can improve their symptoms and quality of life," predicts Rhee, the electrophysiology chief at St. Louis Children's Hospital.

Cardiac resynchronizers, which hit the market three years ago, can dramatically help many adults with heart failure. Their hearts are weakened by age, a survived heart attack or some other disease, and get flabbier as they struggle to pump blood through the body.

Pacemakers are best known for speeding up a sluggish heartbeat. The resynchronizers are souped-up pacemakers that work differently - because in heart failure, the struggling heart beats too fast. Instead, three wires that deliver electricity are threaded deep into various parts of the heart to make the pumping chambers, called ventricles, move together in rhythm, thus increasing their power.

Children's heart failure has very different causes. Some are born with an enlarged heart or suffer a heart-damaging viral infection. Others are born with structurally abnormal hearts, and surgeries to correct those birth defects can hurt the heart's electrical system in ways that, years later, show up as weakened pumping action.

Implanting the pacemaker can be very different, too. Very young children's blood vessels are too small to thread the wires through, requiring open surgery to put the pacemaker "leads" on the outside of the heart instead of the inside. Some hearts are so small they can handle only one wire.

"We have to bend the rules a little bit and come up with new ways to use this very powerful technique," says Dr. Anne M. Dubin, a pediatric electrophysiologist at Stanford University Medical Center.

Dubin tracked about 60 cases of cardiac resynchronization performed in U.S. children at 16 hospitals, the first attempt to count. Rhee's hospital has performed 12 more.

On average, resynchronization substantially improved the heart's pumping ability, called the ejection fraction, Dubin reported at a major heart - https://www.b2bmarketing.net/search/gss/major%20heart meeting in May. Rhee reports a doubling of that crucial measure.

But about 15 percent of the child patients suffer complications at the time of the pacemaker implant, Dubin found, ranging from wires slipping out of place to infection, a stroke and a death.

"We really don't know who to do this in yet," she cautions. Still, "it's very exciting because there are so many possibilities."

Patients like Damaris Ochoa are fueling supporters' drive to improve study of the experimental option.

Her sponge-like newborn heart never properly hardened into smooth muscle, and by age 4 months Damaris had only 10 percent heart function. On a ventilator awaiting a transplant, Rhee says the baby likely had weeks to live, and infant donor hearts are rare.

Transplant candidates require a laboratory heart test that lets Rhee take the extra step of mapping spots where electrical conduction seems abnormal. The test itself can be somewhat risky - a catheter poked a hole in Damaris' soft heart and she had to be resuscitated.

But Rhee found what he thought was the right spot, and implanted a resynchronizer lead through a small cut under her left arm. Another cut near the navel holds the device's battery.

Damaris was home in Kansas City a week later, and now at age 10 months has doubled her weight to 18 pounds and 청주출장마사지 - https://www.anmapop.com/%ec%b2%ad%ec%a3%bc%ec%b6%9c%ec%9e%a5%ec%83%b5%cf... crawls around the house chasing her four siblings. "It's like nothing was ever wrong," says her father, Oscar Ochoa.

"To reverse somebody who is that far gone is pretty much unheard of," says Rhee. "It's pretty gratifying."

By Lauran Neergaard