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GlaxoSmithKline finally got some good news from a study of its diabetes drug Avandia, but some top leading cardiologists remain unconvinced, saying the company’s new research has serious flaws.
The results, unveiled late this afternoon at the American Diabetes Association conference in New Orleans, found Avandia doesn’t increase patients’ risk for heart attacks, according [...]

MedPAC, the obscure commission that advises Congress on the inner workings of the vast Medicare system, could be headed for the health-reform spotlight.
Talking yesterday with Senate Democrats about how to pay for his envisioned health overhaul, President Obama argued specifically in favor of expanding the powers of MedPAC, formally known as the Medicare Payment Advisory [...]

A few highlights out of ASCO, the big cancer conference on in Orlando this weekend:
Roche’s breast-cancer drug Herceptin extended the lives of some patients with stomach cancer. The drug is used in people whose tumors produce excessive amounts of a protein called her-2. That occurs in about 20%-25% of breast cancer and stomach cancer cases. [...]

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
An Eton courtyard with a statue of King Henry VI, who founded the school

A few flu news items from around the world:
Eton, the British boys’ school founded in 1410, will be closed until June 7 because a 13-year-old student was diagnosed with the H1N1 swine flu. The boy has mild symptoms and [...]

It’s been one thing after the next since Daiichi Sankyo’s deal last year for control of Indian generics maker Ranbaxy, including the FDA’s banning imports from certain Ranbaxy plants and accusing the company of falsifying data.
The news over the weekend that Ranbaxy CEO Malvinder Mohan Singh (pictured) was resigning has spurred optimism that Daiichi might [...]

A few noteworthy developments today on the flu outbreak:
Researchers called for stepped up surveillance of flu in the world’s pigs. An analysis of the genes of the H1N1 flu, published today in the journal Science, suggested that the strain may have been circulating undetected for some time. It’s “likely” that other new strains are also [...]

The loudest fight in the health-reform debate so far has been over whether to create a government-backed health plan to compete against private insurers.
One option that’s emerging in the search for a compromise: Give health insurers a few years to cut costs and increase access, and leave a government-backed health plan as a fallback [...]

In the latest sign that drug marketers continue to struggle with advertising rules in the online world, the FDA sent this warning letter to J&J, advising the company that an online video for its pain drug Ultram ER “omits and minimzed the serious risks of the drug.”
The letter also says the video claims benefits for [...]

For now, companies should keep cranking out vaccine against seasonal flu, while research continues into the best way to make a vaccine against the new strain of H1N1 flu.
That was the conclusion of a group of WHO advisers, who wrote that it would be “premature to recommend that commercial-scale production of influenza A (H1N1) [...]

Some 400 U.S. schools with sick students have closed in the past week or so, largely following government guidelines intended to slow the spread of the H1N1 flu.
But today, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (pictured with acting CDC Director Richard Besser) said the government was dropping that recommendation. Instead, U.S. students and [...]