ST. CHARLES, Mo. - President Barack Obama denounced waste, inefficiency and downright fraud in the government's health care system on Wednesday as he sought to rally public support for his revamped overhaul plan. Obama pressed Congress to act on the health care overhaul measure without further delay."I believe that Congress owes the American people a final up or down vote on health care reform.

Read more: Obama decries waste, fraud in gov't health system

RICHMOND, Va. - Virginia's General Assembly is the first in the nation to approve legislation that bucks federal health care reforms by banning mandatory health insurance coverage.Without debate, the House of Delegates voted 80-17 Wednesday to accept Senate amendments to a bill that supporters say preserves Virginia's prerogatives as a state.Thirty-four other legislatures have filed or proposed similar measures rejecting health insurance mandates.

Read more: Va OKs 1st bill banning mandated health coverage

WASHINGTON - The pharmaceutical industry's main trade group spent $6.3 million in the fourth quarter lobbying Congress, the White House and multiple government agencies on health care provisions and related issues, according to a quarterly disclosure report.The group's members include drug giants Pfizer Inc., Merck & Co., Johnson & Johnson and more than two dozen other U.S. and foreign companies.The group also lobbied on several health care-related parts of the 2010 federal budget, including funding for pandemic preparedness and for both the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.

Read more: Pharmaceutical group spent $6.3M lobbying in Q4

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is sending in the bounty hunters to help root out health care fraud.Keeping up the pressure in his final push to pass health care overhaul, Obama signed an executive order Tuesday that encourages private auditors to search out improper Medicare and Medicaid payments, from billing errors to outright thievery.Equipped with special computer programs, the auditors would get a cut of whatever they recover for the government.

Read more: Obama using 'bounty hunters' to root out fraud

51 Percent of Women Live in a Medically Underserved AreaNEW YORK, March 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In releasing a new report on maternal health nationwide, Amnesty International today revealed that flaws and shocking disparities in maternal health care that the government is ignoring lead to two to three women dying daily in the United States from pregnancy-related complications, with half of these deaths believed preventable, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The new Amnesty International report, Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA, also reveals that severe pregnancy-related complications that nearly cause death -- known as "near misses" -- are rising at an alarming rate, increasing by 25 percent since 1998; currently nearly 34,000 women annually experience a "near miss" during delivery.

Read more: New, National Amnesty International Report Finds Appalling U.S. Death Rate for Women Having Babies, Systemic Failures and Shocking Disparities in Maternal Health Care System; Louisiana is 46th Among All States in Maternal Mortality

Mar. 11--A bill giving Washington consumers an opportunity to buy health insurance from other states died in the Legislature this year under pressure from advocates for mental health equality, massage therapists and others. The proposal had been a priority for the Association of Washington Business and many Republicans, including state Rep. Doug Ericksen of Ferndale. It would have let the state insurance commissioner enter a compact with other states for the two-way sale of insurance plans for small groups registered in at least one of the states.

Read more: Providers aid in killing interstate insurance bill: Politics: Parity for mental health treatment questioned out of state

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20091027/PH99766LOGO )"As we've witnessed over the past two days, there are many challenges in designing and executing a relevant, feasible and ethical post-marketing safety study that answers FDA's question regarding LABA-containing products," said Howard Hutchinson, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of AstraZeneca. "AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) is confident in the positive benefit-risk profile of SYMBICORT in asthma as demonstrated by extensive clinical data and patient experience, and supports ongoing scientific discussion to address any outstanding questions regarding the use of combination LABA and inhaled corticosteroid products for the treatment of asthma.

Read more: AstraZeneca Comments on FDA Joint Advisory Committee Meeting on Post- Marketing Safety Studies for the Use of LABAs in Asthma

THE MOST basic failure of governance in one of the State's premier teaching hospitals raises serious doubts yet again about the quality of our public health system. There had been a sense that the various breast cancer scandals of 2007 and 2008 represented a nadir in the litany of failures involving healthcare; the revelation that some 58,000 x-rays remained unreported within Tallaght hospital's adult x-ray department for a prolonged period means that public confidence in the health service has been dented even more severely.Over the last 10 years, many health system reports, including the National Health Strategy, have alluded to the need for strong governance structures within our hospitals.

Read more: A basic failure of governance

CHICAGO, March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Advanced Life Sciences Holdings, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: ADLS), a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery, development and commercialization of novel drugs in the therapeutic areas of infection, oncology and respiratory diseases, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has provided guidance on the clinical program required to assess the approvability of Restanza(TM) (cethromycin), a novel oral once-a-day antibiotic, in the treatment of outpatient community acquired bacterial pneumonia (CABP) as well as biodefense indications including anthrax, plague and tularemia.Advanced Life Sciences met with officials from the FDA's Anti- Infectives Division earlier this week to gain clarity on the registration pathway for Restanza. In the meeting, the FDA guided that, to assess the approvability for Restanza to treat CABP, the Company should establish a special protocol assessment (SPA) using a superiority clinical trial design comparing Restanza to a marketed macrolide antibiotic in two clinical trials.

Read more: Advanced Life Sciences Receives FDA Guidance on Approval Pathway for Restanza in Community Acquired Bacterial Pneumonia and Biodefense Indications ; Completion of Special Protocol Assessment Targeted for Third Quarter 2010

Covidien (NYSE: COV), a leading global provider of healthcare products, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada have approved the use of the Maria Research Reactor (Maria) in Poland as a site to irradiate highly-enriched uranium targets for Molybdenum 99 (Mo 99) production. Covidien will use the Mo 99 obtained from Maria in the manufacture of its Technetium 99m (Tc 99m) generators. Patients should begin to benefit from Maria-produced Mo 99 in the United States and Canada later this month.

Read more: U.S. FDA and Health Canada Approve Use of Molybdenum 99 From Maria Reactor