Dendreon Inc.’s $93,000 price tag for its Provenge prostate cancer treatment must be covered under the rules of the U.S. Medicare health plan, according to a letter submitted by the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the government agency that determines which treatments will be reimbursed, is required by the Social Security Act to pay for all cancer drugs approved by U.S. regulators, the cancer society said in a public letter submitted to the agency.

The number of 11 and 12-year-old girls prescribed the pill by a family doctor has soared five-fold in the past decade, according to figures.

More than 1,000 girls in the first year of secondary school have been given prescriptions for the pill, according to figures from GPs, while a further 200 have long-term injectable or implanted contraceptive devices.

The disclosure prompted warnings that Britain was “facilitating the sexualisation of young people at an every younger age”.

The world's major pharmaceutical corporations are collectively known as Big Pharma. Like other globalised corporate giants, Big Pharma has in recent years accrued massive power in shaping regulation of business to suit their own interests. They will be sniffing around Gleneagles in July, claiming to support efforts to tackle disease and HIV/AIDS in Africa, but the profit motive comes first. The political influence of Big Pharma has serious implications for populations in both rich and poor countries, for distinct reasons.

At a biotech industry conference in January 1999, a representative from Arthur Anderson, LLP explained how they had helped Monsanto design their strategic plan. First, his team asked Monsanto executives what their ideal future looked like in 15 to 20 years. The executives described a world with 100 percent of all commercial seeds genetically modified and patented. Anderson consultants then worked backwards from that goal, and developed the strategy and tactics to achieve it. They presented Monsanto with the steps and procedures needed to obtain a place of industry dominance in a world in which natural seeds were virtually extinct.

A pilot survey of cardiologists reveals that most know about the life-saving potential of a truly low-fat vegetarian diet for heart patients, but fail to recommend the diet in the mistaken belief that patients will not comply. Published studies actually show that patients transition fairly easily to a low-fat diet that contains no animal products, and most rate this diet as "good" or "extremely good." If cardiologists' knowledge of the acceptability of the vegetarian diet were equal to their familiarity with its efficacy, the result would be improved patient care and fewer deaths.

Eccentrics could be labelled as having mental disorders under planned changes to diagnostic guidelines, experts have warned.
Patients may be more likely to be told they have psychological illnesses after experts proposed to modify classifications in a mental health guide used by doctors around the world, it was claimed.