BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Donations increased 39% to the MGH Institute of Health Professions Scholarship Gala.

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NYT: Defying the culture of clean, a contingent of renegades deliberately forgoes daily bathing and other gold standards of personal hygiene, like frequent shampooing and deodorant use.

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WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Golden Living, one of the largest providers of healthcare services in the U.S., today praised the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for the report issued yesterday titled “Nursing Homes: Complexity of Private Investment Purchases Demonstrates Need for CMS to Improve the Usability and Completeness of Ownership Data.” “The GAO report thoughtfully examines issues relating to the reporting requirements of the ownership of nursing homes. GAO’s recommendations should

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Scientists have managed to produce a small-scale version of a human liver in the laboratory using stem cells.

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Pleasantville, NY, United States (AHN) – Family, friends and members of the Pace University football team paid tribute to Danroy “D.J.” Henry Jr. on Friday as the investigation into his death continued.

A memorial service was held at Boston Convention and Visitor Center on what was supposed to be the 21st birthday of Henry, who played wide receiver and defensive back for the football team. The event will be followed by the first game of the football team since his death, a home game on Saturday that will have players wearing black wristbands emobroidered with his number, 12.

Henry died on Oct. 17 after being shot by Mount Pleasant police trying to contain an unruly crowd in a bar in Thornwood. The business management junior allegedly two struck officers with his car.

Police say an officer had knocked on the window of a car parked in the fire lane outside the bar during the brawl. The car, driven by Henry, accelerated and struck the officer, who ended up on the hood of the vehicle. A second officer attempted to pull the first officer from the hood but was also mowed down by the vehicle. The first officer then shot at the car and another officer fired into the car before it crashed into a police cruiser.

Henry’s family and students who witnessed the incident have raised doubts about the police’s reconstruction of events that led to his death. This week, the family requested the Justice Department to take charge of the investigation, citing the leak of a blood alcohol test as proof the probe is compromised. The family has also criticized police for failing to protect gunpowder evidence on the car.

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The costs of nursing homes and other assisted living facilities continues to rise significantly, according to the Market Survey of Long-Term Care Costs conducted by insurance provider MetLife.

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Beijing, China (AHN) – A Chinese supercomputer that ranked seventh in the world’s top 10 list of fastest supercomputers in June has taken the lead and unofficially dislodged the U.S. from the No. 1 spot.

The Tianhe-1′s 2.5 petaflop per second calculation speed announced Thursday was better than the Jaguar’s 1.75 PFlop/s. One petaflop is equivalent to 1,000 trillion calculations.

Jack Dongarra, a supercomputer expert at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which operates the Jaguar, confirmed the performance of the Tianhe-1 upon inspection of the machine at the National Center for Supercomputing in Tianjin last week.

Designed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, the Tianhe-1 uses Nvidia graphic chips and standard Intel microprocessors. Both components are made in the U.S. but the communications chips and a microchip, the FeiTeng-1000 CPU, are made in China.

The use of graphic chips ordinarily meant to enhance video games graphics represent a major design shift in supercomputing, according to experts.

The world’s third fastest supercomputer, the Nebulae, is also China-made. Housed in Shenzen, it runa at a speed of 1.27 PFlop/s.

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The annual “Trends in College Pricing” survey has found that U.S. students and families faced an average 7.9 percent jump in in-state tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities in 2010-11.

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PHILADELPHIA–(BUSINESS WIRE)–ACE USA, the U.S.-based retail operating division of the ACE Group, today announced that Senior Vice President William P. Hazelton will participate in a panel session addressing the critical aspects of environmental insurance, and its role as a risk management tool at a New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) event on October 29, 2010, in New York City. As a leading provider of global environmental liability insurance, ACE has published several related Progress Repo

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Drug Company Must Pay $3.3 Million to States and Support Future Claims with Competent Scientific Evidence

WASHINGTON-Bayer will be barred from claiming that its One A Day multivitamins may cure, treat, or prevent any disease, including cancer, unless the company can back up such claims with competent and reliable scientific evidence. As part of a settlement agreement reached yesterday with Attorneys General from Oregon, California, and Illinois, Bayer must also make a $3.3 million payment to those states. A complaint, filed by Oregon Attorney General John Kroger, accused Bayer of “deceptively leveraging fear of prostate cancer” in order to market One A Day multivitamins for men.

Bayer claimed that “emerging research” suggested that the mineral selenium in One A Day might reduce the risk of prostate cancer. But according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, “emerging research” did no such thing. In fact, a seven-year, $118-million study funded by the National Institutes of Health found that selenium does not prevent prostate cancer in healthy men. That massive trial, which involved 35,000 men, was abruptly halted when it became clear to researchers that selenium was not protecting the men from prostate cancer and may have been causing unexplained cases of diabetes. Yet Bayer continued to claim a protective benefit from selenium.

In October of 2009, CSPI sued Bayer in federal court in California over the selenium claims on One A Day, which a judge dismissed on technical grounds. CSPI was planning on filing suit on behalf of a California consumer in another court. But in the wake of the settlement agreement reached with the Attorneys General, CSPI is announcing that it will not move forward with the second suit.

“We are very glad that the Attorneys General have obtained a binding settlement prohibiting Bayer from exploiting men’s fear of prostate cancer in order to sell more vitamin pills,” said CSPI litigation director Steve Gardner. “And we’re also pleased that Bayer seems to have had a change of heart, since after CSPI publicly questioned the company’s unsupportable claims on One A Day, its response then was to threaten us with a libel lawsuit.” Bayer has since backed off that threat, Gardner said.

The agreement reached yesterday is the latest in a long rap sheet of settlement agreements, fines, guilty pleas, and other enforcement actions involving the German pharmaceutical giant.

In 2001, Bayer paid $14 million to U.S. and state governments to settle allegations that the company’s actions helped health care providers submit inflated Medicaid claims for drugs. In 2003, Bayer pleaded guilty to a criminal charge and paid $257 million in fines and penalties after a whistleblower exposed a scheme by the company to overcharge for the antibiotic Cipro. In 2004, Bayer pleaded guilty to a criminal charge and paid a $66 million fine after a Justice Department investigation into Bayer’s role in a price-fixing conspiracy involving a chemical used to make rubber products. And in 2007, Bayer paid $8 million to resolve allegations by state attorneys general that the company failed to warn physicians and consumers about safety issues surrounding its now-withdrawn cholesterol-lowering drug Baycol.

Prior marketing for One A Day has also posed legal problems for Bayer. In 2007, it paid a $3.2 million civil fine as part of a consent decree reached with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. The case centered on weight-loss claims that the FTC said violated an earlier order requiring that all health claims for One A Day be supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence. And in 2009, Bayer was required to run a $20-million corrective advertising campaign about its birth control pill Yaz and to submit its ads for FDA approval, as part of a legal settlement secured by a number of state attorneys general and the FDA.

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