Uninsured RX

The selection of students for entry to medical schools in Australia is a high-stakes contest. A recent study reported in the latest issue of the Medical Journal of Australia showed that more than half the applicants trying to gain a place at an Australian medical school had attended coaching, and some had repeated selection tests, in order to boost their chances of admission.

Training courses for the Undergraduate Medical Admissions Test (UMAT) are expensive, inequitable and don't improve students' chances of getting into medicine, according to  the Australian Medical Students' Association (AMSA). The courses, which cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to over $1,700, are purported to improve students' performance in the UMAT and therefore their chances of getting into undergraduate medicine.

Acuson SC2000 is the world's first echocardiography system to acquire instantaneous, nonstitched full-volume images of the heart in a single heartbeat. Siemens Healthcare unveils the Acuson SC2000 volume imaging ultrasound system, the first system in the world to acquire non-stitched real-time full-volume 3D images of the heart in one single heart cycle, during the European Congress of Radiology (ESC), August 30 - September 4, 2008 in Munich, Germany.

American Bio Medica Corporation (NASDAQ:ABMC) announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted CLIA waived status to the Company's Rapid TOX® point of collection drug test product line. The waiver applies to all 14 drugs that the Company currently tests for in addition to two different cut-off levels for its Opiate and Cocaine tests. CLIA waived tests are recognized by FDA to be so simple to use and so accurate that there is little risk of error.

In Spring 2006, when three White Duke University lacrosse players were charged with raping a Black female student from nearby North Carolina Central University, Duke University officials framed the crisis in terms of institutional reputation rather than the rape issue at hand.

The central role of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) in cellular processes, especially in cancer, has made them an important target for several antibody- and small molecule-based inhibitors specific for various RTKs for the treatment of different tumour entities.

In patients with diabetes, the CYPHER® Sirolimus-eluting Coronary Stent outperformed the Taxus® Stent with significantly lower rates of in-segment restenosis (a reblockage within the stented area), target lesion revascularization (TLR; the need for another interventional procedure) and major adverse events (MACE, a composite of death, heart attack and TLR) at nine months according to clinical data appearing recently in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

With Tropical Storm Gustav projected to hit the Gulf Coast as a hurricane next week, Fresenius Medical Care North America, operator of the nation's leading network of dialysis facilities, encourages all dialysis patients in the area to begin preparing now for the storm. Also, with three months left in the hurricane season, Fresenius reminds anyone on dialysis who lives in hurricane-prone areas to be prepared for a storm.

Intercell AG (VSE: ICLL) announced that its collaborator Merck & Co., Inc. has initiated a Phase II clinical trial of V710, an investigational vaccine for the prevention of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) infections. This randomized double blind, placebo controlled study aims to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine candidate in patients with end-stage kidney disease on hemodialysis.

For 19-year-old Karlee Carbert, rugby isn't just a sport, it's a passion. But the rough and tumble game can be physically demanding, as Carbert reveals "some games you can hit your head as many as five times." Carbert has suffered three concussions in her career but after the first two her response was the same, "usually you hit your head, get a headache and once the headache is gone you go back.