By Hyeongsu Park and Kathy Wang
- Uruguay’s Senate approved a bill that allows women to have abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy for any reason. Read the NY Times article about the topic here.
- Another NY Times article reported on October 27 that the nationwide health insurance plans sponsored by the federal government, included as part of the Affordable Care Act, will be available to consumers in every state soon. The article can be found here.
- On November 1, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 28 people have now died and 386 have been sickened in the ongoing fungal meningitis outbreak linked to contaminated steroid injections from a Massachusetts specialty pharmacy. Read the US News article about the outbreak here. Current case count for the multistate fungal meningitis outbreak, updated daily by the CDC, can be found here.
- The British Medical Journal has announced that, beginning in January, it will no longer publish the results of clinical trials unless drug companies and researchers agree to provide detailed study data on request.
- Researchers at the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City are worried that cells, tissues, mice, and rats used for medical research may have been lost as the Medical Center has been without power since Monday after superstorm Sandy struck. Read an NPR article about the story here.
- The annual growth in spending on Medicaid slowed sharply last year as the economy began to improve, a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found. The slowdown is due not only to more measured enrollment growth but also to continued cost-cutting by states.
- In response to the recent meningitis outbreak, Massachusetts adopted new regulations on Thursday to keep a closer eye on compounding pharmacies, a class of drug supplier linked to the outbreak.
