New Illinois coalition supports cigarette tax increase
...l the number one public health crises in Illinois, costing the state more than $3.8 billion in direct health-care costs and $1.5 billion in Medicaid," said Diana Hackbarth, PhD, RN, Chair, Illinois Coalition Against Tobacco. "Using just $.25 of the tax increase would generate $114 million, which represents ...Antibiotics appear to have little benefit for uncomplicated lower respiratory tract infections
...itis, amounting to 55 percent of prescriptions and costing $726 million per year. A consensus has been made for limiting antibiotic use in acute lower respiratory tract infection. However, recent reviews have come to diverse conclusions about the likely effectiveness of antibiotics and a recent review confir...Are some medicines so good they should be free? In diabetes, the answer may be yes
...10 percent of the time they were cost-effective -- costing less than $20,000 per QALY gained. The authors also looked at costs and savings on a societal, rather than Medicare, level -- including patients' productivity and the cost of caregiving for people with health-related disability. The savings were even...Detecting Alzheimer's in the eye, lifting fingerprints without touching the surface
...aboratoryenvironment with a 3-foot by 4-foot laser costing about $100,000.With continued development and advances in laser technology, theresearchers believe that a handheld or portable system, using onelaser for both fragmentation and ionization, can be made for between$25,000 and $50,000. (Paper FThX6, Rea...Jefferson scientists design method to fight artificial implant infections with antibiotics
...astating, painful, and cause prolonged disability, costing tens of thousands of dollars. Now, researchers at Jefferson Medical College have found a way to create a permanent chemical bond between antibiotics and titanium, a material used in orthopedic implants. The proof-of-principle study showed that an an...New insights into cost-effectiveness of implanted heart device
...s $50,000 to $100,000 per QALY, with interventions costing under $50,000/QALY generally being deemed good value for the money, and anything over $100,000/QALY is normally not seen as economically favorable. "Our analysis demonstrated that as long as the benefit of the devices lasted for more than seven years...EBCT scans trump angiography at detecting killer heart defect
...phy. "Liberal use of coronary catheterizations are costing taxpayers millions of dollars, driving the cost of medical insurance and creating a burden on the economy," he says. He predicts non-invasive scans such as EBCT, MSCT and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) will one day replace catheter angiography en......ting hundreds of thousands of American workers and costing more than $20 billion a year in worker's compensation, so employers have long been interested in the connection between the two conditions. The purpose of the study was to observe early changes in nerves caused by repetitive strain that lead to chro...US health care cuts are costing lives
Health care cuts in the US are costing lives, argues one American citizen in this week's BMJ. Lori Smith, a representative of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign in Tennessee, believes that plans to dismantle national social programmes for sick and poor people throughout the ...The burden of food related ill health in the UK
The UK's poor dietary habits are costing its health service an annual 6 billion - three tim...round a third, accounting for 10% of all DALYS and costing an annual 6 billion. This is double the cost to the health service of road traffic accidents, over...Hidden cost of teen pain in the UK almost 4 billion per year
Teenagers living with chronic pain could be costing the UK more than 3.8 billion each year, according to a new study published in the journal Pain today. Almost one in ten adolescents experience severe headaches, stomach cramps or musculoskeletal pains that keep them away from school regularly. As par...Urgent action required to tackle escalating road-traffic crashes worldwide
...injured in road-traffic crashes worldwide in 2002, costing the global community about US$518 billion. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has described the situation as "a worsening global disaster destroying lives and livelihoods, hampering development and leaving millions i...Europe wide study to examine causes of asthma
...e is the major chronic childhood illness in Europe costing the European Community more than Euro three billion each year. Although effective therapies for mild asthma exist, the 10 percent of children with severe disease account for 60 percent of this expense, and even when treatment is effective it is not a...Millions squandered in unnecessary tests ordered in routine doctor visits
Washington, DC -- Unnecessary medical tests are costing the U.S. health care system millions--and potentially billions-- of dollars per year, and add unnecessary patient stress, say researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center and Johns Hopkins University in the June issue of the American Journal...New osteoporosis medication not cost-effective compared with older, cheaper drug
...unt quality of life as well as survival. Therapies costing $50,000 or less per quality-adjusted life year are generally considered cost-effective. Alendronate-alone therapy cost $11,600 per quality-adjusted life-year gained in comparison with usual care, making it solidly cost-effective, according to the res...Is expensive new heart rhythm treatment 'worth it'?
...the model showed LACA would not be cost effective, costing an extra $98,900 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY), or year of life adjusted for quality of life during that year. The standard threshold for considering a therapy cost-effective is $50,000 per QALY. In 55-year-old patients with one or two risk f...Much needed new antibiotic in fight against 'superbugs'
...tening infections are a growing problem in the UK, costing the NHS an estimated additional 1 billion annually," says Dr Robert Masterton, Executive Medical Director and Consultant Microbiologist, NHS Ayrshire & Arran, "Even more worrying has been the emergence of the organisms commonly called 'superbugs' th...Tamoxifen for breast cancer prevention does not benefit most women
...raordinarily expensive cancer-prevention strategy, costing as much as $1.3 million per year of life saved. The study will be published in the Sept. 1 issue of the American Cancer Society's journal Cancer, and appear online on Monday. "We found that for women at the lower end of the high-risk range for devel...Johns Hopkins Children's Center to lead largest-ever study on kidney disease in children
...cans will develop end-stage renal disease by 2010, costing the health care system $28 billion a year. ...... support the purchase of sophisticated instruments costing more than $750,000 to advance biomedical research and increase knowledge of the underlying causes of human disease. Led by Douglas L. Rothman, professor of diagnostic radiology and biomedical engineering, the MR system will be a shared resource for...