STAT offers "5 health and medicine topics to watch at the GOP convention" and be sure to follow coverage from Joyce Frieden and Shannon Firth who are reporting from Cleveland as part of MedPage Today's Election 2016 coverage.
Canadian women are "the rock stars of surrogacy" with hundreds of them agreeing to "pregnancy without motherhood" for couples around the world, and in all cases the motive is altruism since Canadian law prohibits any payment beyond covering the cost of prenatal care. (Toronto Star)
Skeptical Scalpel (via KevinMD) writes that the Joint Commission deserves a share of the blame for the opioid crisis.
Kaiser Health News reports that Medicare spending on compounded drugs rose by 56% last year, which has some worried about the potential for fraud.
This just in: Not talking about sexually transmitted disease or pregnancy prevention doesn't prevent either. The American Academy of Pediatricians is trying to drive that message home in its latest statement assailing abstinence only sex education programs. (The Guardian)
Zika is not the only mosquito-driven health concern this summer: Indiana health officials issued a warning about West Nile virus in the state.
Spoiler alert: Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is not the discoverer of Ebola, despite what Google says. (STAT)
Roche said its drug obinutuzumab (Gazyva) failed to show benefit in a pivotal trial of patients with previously untreated diffuse B-cell lymphoma. (Reuters)
Almost half of adults age 70-74 have hearing loss and the rate is even higher among octogenarians, which would seem to guarantee a big demand for hearing aids, but there is a catch: each device costs about $2,500 (and most people need two) but Medicare doesn't cover the cost. The answer may be a personal sound amplification product or P.S.A.P., writes Paula Span in The New York Times.
NPR reports on a problem that has vexed cardiologists for decades: cardiac rehab saves lives, so why do patients resist doing it?
Health insurers in several states are seeking whopping premium increases beginning this fall, so the pressure is on the Obama administration to make good on its promise to provide affordable care. (The New York Times)
"Time for a quick reality check," wrote Donald Trump's vice president nomination, Mike Pence, years ago. "Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn't kill." (BuzzFeed News)
No one is broken: William Kenower says that simple lesson from his autistic son has transformed his life. (The New York Times)
Columbia University was fined $9.5 million for overbilling the National Institutes of Health for 423 grants -- research the university claimed to have done at its facilities when the work was actually done at state-owned labs. (BuzzFeed News)
The constant barrage of news about violent events -- terror attacks, police shootings, political rallies-turned-riots -- can have an adverse effect on health. (The New York Times)
Carl Zimmer offers a tutorial on fecal transplants: how and why they work. (The New York Times)
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