A study of nearly 500 individuals who helped craft treatment guidelines for heart conditions found that more than half reported financial conflicts of interest involving drug companies and medical technology firms.

The most common conflict involved doctors serving as paid consultants to drug or medical device companies, such as Fridley-based Medtronic Inc., according to a report this week in an American Medical Association journal.

The study in the Archives of Internal Medicine also found doctors and researchers receiving research grants from companies or speaking on their behalf, as well as owning stock in firms selling or developing drugs or devices.

‘Imagine if the Twins were playing the Yankees, and the umpires are stockholders for the Yankees,’ said Dr. Eric Campbell, one of the study’s authors, who is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

A total of 277 of the 498 individuals involved in crafting 17 clinical practice guidelines for the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology reported a conflict.

The panels that create these guidelines include experts who evaluate scientific evidence and then recommend how to treat heart conditions. The guidelines may ultimately influence how patients are treated, including what drugs or devices are deployed and whether insurance will pay for […]

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One week after an international military coalition intervened in Libya, the cost to U.S. taxpayers has reached at least $600 million, according figures provided by the Pentagon.

U.S. ships and submarines in the Mediterranean have unleashed at least 191 Tomahawk cruise missiles from their arsenals to the tune of $268.8 million, the Pentagon said.

U.S. warplanes have dropped 455 precision guided bombs, costing tens of thousands of dollars each.

A downed Air Force F-15E fighter jet will cost more than $60 million to replace.

And operation of the war craft, guzzling ever-expensive fuel to maintain their positions off the Libyan coast and in the skies above, could reach millions of dollars a week, experts say.

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Opec, the oil producers’ cartel, will reap $1,000bn in export revenues this year for the first time if crude prices remain above $100 a barrel, according to the International Energy Agency.

The cartel has been one of the main beneficiaries of high oil prices, which have soared in recent weeks amid the civil uprisings in the Middle East and north Africa.

Brent crude was trading at $115 a barrel on Tuesday.

Fatih Birol, chief economist at the IEA, said a new assessment by the rich nations’ oil watchdog showed that the total number of barrels exported by Opec in 2011 would be slightly lower than in 2008, when cartel oil revenues reached $990bn. But if average prices remain around $100 a barrel, Opec’s oil revenues will still reach a record of $1,000bn this year.

‘It would be the first time in the history of Opec that oil revenues have reached a trillion dollars. It’s mainly because of higher prices and higher production,

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High residential vacancies are killing many housing markets, as foreclosed homes sit on the market and depress sale prices and property values.

And it’s only getting worse: The national vacancy rate crept up to just over 13% according to last week’s decennial census report. That’s up from 12.1% in 2007.

‘More vacant homes equal more downward pressure on home prices,’ said Brad Hunter, chief economist for Metrostudy, a real estate information provider.

Maine had the highest proportion of empty housing stock, at 22.8%. Other states with gluts of empty houses included Vermont (20.5%), Florida (17.5%), Arizona (16.3%) and Alaska (15.9%).

The way the census calculates the vacancy rates, however, is problematic. It includes properties such as ski lodges, beach houses and pied-à-terres that many real estate statisticians would not.

These are often summer homes or second homes, but census lumps them together with homes that have been sold but not occupied, empty homes for sale or rent, and homes used by migrant workers. Basically, anything other than a primary residence is considered vacant.

‘You can only live in one home,’ said William Chapin of the Census Bureau’s Housing Statistics Branch. ‘If you own five homes that you occasionally live in, four of them will be counted […]

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Up until now, we’ve never been able to say that a person infected with HIV/AIDS has been cured. As I said, up until now.

You see, in 2006, something incredible happened in a hospital in Berlin. It was there, thanks to a unique and risky stem cell transplant, that a man may have become the very first person ever to be fully cured of HIV/AIDS.

This man’s name has not been released; he’s only known as the Berlin patient. But we know he’s an HIV-positive American in his 40s who has been working in Berlin. In 2006, he was diagnosed with acute leukemia. In an attempt to treat his leukemia AND his HIV, the man’s doctor — Dr. Gero Hütter — arranged for him to receive a stem cell transplant from a very special donor.

Ever since that transplant, the Berlin patient has had an undetectable viral load even though he hasn’t been on HIV/AIDS treatment since before the transplant. The man has generously allowed scientists to take almost every possible biopsy and test, including the most ultrasensitive HIV tests available, but HIV has not been detected anywhere in his body. It’s now almost three years since this operation and HIV still seems […]

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