"Health & Medical News"

Washington — The push to prevent impending Medicare physician pay cuts is being advanced by a new bill that would block such reductions for 18 months.

The legislation, called the Save Medicare Act of 2008, would continue a 0.5% physician pay update for the last six months of 2008 and would institute a 1.8% update for 2009. Physicians are slated to receive a 10.6% cut starting July 1 and an additional cut of about 5% in 2009.

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U.S. drug czar John Walters recently warned that Canadian suppliers are shipping ecstasy pills laced with methamphetamine across the border to the U.S., the Windsor Star reported Jan. 4.

“Historic progress against ecstasy availability and use is in jeopardy of being rolled back by Canadian criminal organizations,” said Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). “Desperate to develop their client base, they are dangerously altering a product for which demand by youth and young adults had plummeted and are exploiting vulnerabilities along our shared border. This is alarming for the youth of both Canada and the United States.”

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Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California say that women who have more than two alcoholic drinks daily face twice the risk of endometrial cancer as those who drink moderately or not at all, the New York Times reported Sept. 18.

Endometrial cancer affects the tissue linking the uterus. It kills about 7,400 women in the U.S. annually.

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