Health Highlights: Nov. 19, 2009

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Senate Introduces Health Reform Bill

The 10-year, $849-billion Senate health reform bill unveiled Wednesday night would require most Americans to have health insurance, provide subsidies to help low-income earners afford coverage, force insurance companies to accept all applicants, increase payroll taxes for the wealthy, and place a new tax on patients who have elective cosmetic surgery.

The bill -- which the Congressional Budget Office estimates suggest would reduce deficits by $127 over a decade -- would not require employers to offer coverage to workers. However, medium and large companies would have to pay a fee if the government had to subsidize their employees' insurance, the Associated Press reported.

The bill, which also proposes cuts in future Medicare spending, was hailed by Democrats and President Barack Obama.

"From Day One, our goal has been to enact legislation that offers stability and security to those who have insurance and affordable coverage to those who don't, and that lowers costs for families, businesses and governments across the country," said Obama, who added that the Senate bill "meets those principles."

But Republicans oppose the bill and vowed a tough fight.

"Higher premiums, tax increases and Medicare cuts to pay for more government. The American people know that is not reform," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

The bill needs 60 votes to move beyond a must-pass procedural requirement before it can be debated. That vote could take place this weekend, the AP reported.

The House recently passed a more expensive and liberal version of the health-care bill.

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Poll Shows Americans Support Malpractice Award Limits

A new survey finds that many Americans want Congress to put limits on medical malpractice lawsuit awards, which are a major factor in rising medical costs.

The Associated Press poll of 1,502 adults found that 54% support making it more difficult for people to sue doctors and hospitals for making mistakes, 32% are opposed, and the remainder are undecided or don't know.

Support for limits on malpractice lawsuits was expressed by 61% of Republican respondents, 47% of Democrats and 58% of independents.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, limits on malpractice awards could reduce the federal deficit by $54 billion over 10 years. That's because there'd be a decrease in the number of tests ordered by doctors caring for Medicare and Medicaid patients to protect themselves from lawsuits, the AP reported.

The survey found that 59% of respondents said they believe at least half of tests ordered by doctors are unnecessary and are prompted by fear of lawsuits.

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Movie Theater Popcorn High In Calories and Fat: Study

A medium popcorn and soda combo at a Regal movie theater has the same amount of calories as three McDonald's Quarter Pounders with 12 pats of butter, a new study shows.

The nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest found that the movie theater combo has 1,160 calories and three days (60 grams) worth of fat. A small popcorn has 670 calories -- equivalent to a Pizza Hut Personal Pepperoni Pan Pizza, CBS News reported.

Regal is the largest movie chain in the United States. Similar fat and calorie levels were found at AMC, the nation's second largest movie chain. The study appears in the December issue of Nutrition Action Healthletter.

"It's hard enough for Americans to maintain a healthy weight even when limiting their eating to breakfast, lunch and dinner," said CSPI senior nutritionist Jayne Hurley, CBS News reported. "Who realizes that they might be taking in a meal's worth of calories during a movie? Splitting a medium popcorn with two other people sounds like a reasonable thing to do, but who would think they're getting an entire day's worth of saturated fat?"

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Study Suggests Racial Bias in Kidney/Pancreas Transplants

Doctor bias may keep black and Hispanic American patients from receiving kidney/pancreas transplants, suggests a new study.

In an effort to reduce racial and economic disparities, the federal government increased Medicare coverage for people requiring a simultaneous kidney/pancreas transplant. But this study found that blacks were 27% less likely than whites to be recommended for this type of transplant, and Hispanics were 25% less likely to be recommended, United Press International reported.

"So, the situation for African-Americans and Hispanics actually got worse instead of better," study leader Dr. Keith Melancon, of Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, said in a news release. "I don't think the medical community has been aggressive enough about kidney/pancreas transplant, especially in African-Americans who are assumed to have type 2 diabetes."

The study was published in the American Journal of Transplantation.

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Computer Simulation Mimics Cat Brain

Researchers say they've created a computer simulation of a cat's cerebral cortex, which could prove an important step in efforts to develop computers that "think" like brains.

The simulation -- which uses 147,456 processors and 144 terabytes of main memory -- doesn't mean the computer thinks like a cat, but it does provide a model of how thoughts form in the brain and how a cat brain's one billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses work together, the Associated Press reported.

The research, by an IBM team, was presented at a supercomputer conference in Portland, Ore.

Previously, the same scientists simulated the full brain of a rat, 40% of a mouse's brain, and 1% of a human's cerebral cortex, the AP reported.

The ability to make computers think like brains could lead to major advances in various fields, including medicine and economics.

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Hyper-Resistant Bacteria Major Health Threat: Experts

New, hyper-resistant bacteria that are emerging because of continued overuse and misuse of antibiotics pose a serious global health threat, experts warned at a European conference.

"Some bacteria are becoming resistant to all treatments, forcing us to use older, toxic antibiotics or combinations of drugs that we are only familiar with on paper," Dominique Monnet, a European Center for Diseases Prevention and Control specialist on the issue, told Agence France Presse.

The problem is particularly serious in southern and eastern Europe, where antibiotic use is higher than anywhere else.

Monnet and a colleague surveyed about 100 European intensive care doctors and found that in the last six months more than half had treated at least one patient with a bacterial infection that was totally or almost totally resistant to antibiotics.

"Without effective antibiotics, modern medical treatments such as operations, transplants and intensive care will become impossible," warned ECDC director Zsuzsanna Jakab, AFP reported.

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Mini Pump Improves Heart Failure Patients' Survival: Study

A miniature heart pump improved survival among severe heart failure patients, say researchers who conducted the first trial of this kind of new-generation device as a permanent treatment.

The HeartMate II pushes blood continuously instead of simulating a heartbeat, which is what older pumps do, the Associated Press reported. Last year, the HeartMate II was approved for short-term use in patients awaiting a heart transplant.

This study tested the device as a permanent therapy in severe heart failure patients who weren't candidates for a heart transplant. After two years, 46% of patients who received the new pump were alive without having suffered a stroke or a device failure, compared with 11% of patients who received an older pump.

The study, sponsored by California-based device maker Thoratec Corp., was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at an American Heart Association conference.

The HeartMate II costs $80,000 while surgery to implant the device and the related hospital stay is about $45,000, the AP reported.

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