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Researchers Urge HIV Vaccine

Scientists will have to take "enormous intellectual leaps" to develop an AIDS vaccine in the coming years, say researchers clearly frustrated by the failure of a once-promising shot.

Fentanyl Deaths Hit 1,000 in 2 Years

More than 1,000 people died over two years from an illegal version of the painkiller fentanyl, the government reported in its first national tally of those deaths.

Billionaires Back Antismoking Effort

Gates and Bloomberg are pouring $500 million into a global effort to cut smoking. The effort gives Bloomberg a powerful ally in his tobacco fight, which started in 2002 in New York City.

• Earlier: Global Fight Against Tobacco Intensifies

• Health Blog: Update on Smoking-Cessation Drug Chantix

Statin Study Could Lead to Gene Test

Scientists may have found a way to test for and possibly avoid the most serious side effect of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, one of the top-selling medicines in the world.

Strong Sales Boost Drug Makers

Eli Lilly and Bristol-Myers reported improved second-quarter profits, helped by increased sales of drugs that treat cancer, mental illness and cardiovascular disease.

• Health Blog: Bristol-Myers Cutting Deeper

Pfizer's Net Rises on Global Sales

Pfizer's profit more than doubled as international sales offset generic competition in the U.S. Glaxo posted a 3% drop in net and will cut costs.

Membership Decline Hurts WellPoint

WellPoint's net fell 10%, and the health insurer cut its outlook. Shares rose on the better-than-expected results.

THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE By BENJAMIN BREWER, M.D.
Tough Times Prompt Patients to Skip Care

Increasing prices for just about everything are forcing some hard choices about health. Care that doesn't strike patients as critical is getting delayed. As the economy squeezes Dr. Brewer's patients, they are showing up sicker.

• Discuss: Have you postponed trips to the doctor?

Viagra May Help Women

A study found that Pfizer's erectile-dysfunction drug Viagra can reduce adverse sexual effects in women caused by antidepressant use.

Salmonella Outbreak Exposes Safety Flaws

Federal investigators encountered hurdles that stymied their probe into the salmonella outbreak, including poor record-keeping, overwhelmed state health departments and the fact that jalapeños had never before been implicated.

Ranbaxy House Probe Questions FDA's Role

Leaders of a House committee said an investigation into whether Ranbaxy Laboratories fraudulently imported unsafe drugs into the country raises questions about the FDA's role in the allegations.

Drug Sales Boost Biogen's Net

Biogen Idec posted an 11% rise in second-quarter net income Tuesday on strong sales of multiple-sclerosis drugs Avonex and Tysabri and the company also boosted its 2008 outlook.

UnitedHealth's Results Spur Hope

UnitedHealth posted a 73% drop in net on charges tied to settling options-backdating cases. Its shares rose 10%.

Health Blog

Jul 24, 3:25 pm

Is Keeping Patients Waiting in the ER a Good Business Move?

Those long emergency room waits that we are all familiar with may be good for a hospital's bottom line, a couple of academic emergency medicine docs write today in Slate. How's that? Patients who show up at the emergency room are less likely than patients admitted to the hospital by a staff physician to need lucrative, [...]

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Jul 24, 12:39 pm

Scrap Medicare Fee-For-Service System, Doctor Says

They way Medicare pays doctors encourages excessive testing and discourages spending time with patients, a doctor argues today on the New York Times op-ed page. The fee-for-service system reimburses doctors not only for their time, but also for overhead — which includes the costs of expensive machines used to run tests such as CT scans. This [...]

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Jul 24, 10:07 am

Bristol-Myers Could Cut More Jobs

Last year, Bristol-Myers Squibb said it was cutting some 4,000 jobs as part of a plan to save $1.5 billion. This morning, the company said it's planning “an additional $1 billion of cost savings by 2012” — suggesting more jobs could get the ax. The company said details about the plan — which in the upside-down [...]

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Jul 24, 9:28 am

Retail Clinics Aren't Gold Mines

The retail clinic, one of the pretty young things beloved of the market-driven health-care crowd, is hitting a rough patch. After a few years of rapid growth, the number of retail clinics nationwide actually fell last month, to 969 from 981, according to a tally cited in this morning's Chicago Tribune. It was the first time [...]

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Jul 24, 8:52 am

Cancer Doc Tells Colleagues to Lay Off Cellphones

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Jul 24, 8:20 am

Health Blog Obit: Victor McKusick, Father of Medical Genetics

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Jul 23, 5:04 pm

Nexavar Works for Liver Cancer, But It Isn't Cheap

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Jul 23, 3:20 pm

Three Big Moves for Glaxo