A growing body of evidence suggests that doctors at some of the nation’s top medical schools have been attaching their names and lending their reputations to scientific papers that were drafted by ghostwriters working for drug companies - articles that were carefully calibrated to help the manufacturers sell more products.

It sounds like a simple idea for improving health care: draw up guidelines on how best to treat a particular illness and then pay doctors to follow them. That strategy, which some insurers and health plans already employ, has been embraced during the health care debate by some lawmakers in Congress who want to extend it more broadly.

Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion.

The biggest barrier to improved cancer treatments is that almost no adult cancer patients — just 3 percent — participate in studies of cancer treatments, mostly new drugs or drug regimens.

Government-run insurance could not be worse than what small businesses already face.

A bitter Congressional fight over the cost of superexpensive biotechnology drugs has come down to a single, hotly debated number: How many years should makers of those drugs be exempt from generic competition?

GlaxoSmithKline, the world's second largest drug maker byrevenues, has posted an 11 percent rise in second quarter earnings.

Pfizer is discontinuing a late-stage study of its cancer drug Sutent (SOO-tent) as an initial treatment for colon cancer because the drug is not proving effective enough.

It has become the trillion-dollar question: can President Obama find that much in spending cuts and tax increases to keep his campaign promise to overhaul the health care system, without adding to already huge deficits? Mr. Obama and the Democrats running Congress are deeply split over the possibilities.

The r-word has become a rejoinder to anyone who says that this country must reduce its runaway health spending, especially anyone who favors cutting back on treatments that don’t have scientific evidence behind them. You can expect to hear a lot more about rationing as health care becomes the dominant issue in Washington this summer.

Often called the “disease of kings” because of its association with the rich foods and copious alcohol once available only to aristocrats, gout is staging a middle-class comeback as American society grows older and heavier. The NY Times reports.

A year or so ago, when customers buttonholed the pharmacists at Almand’s Drug Store here the questions were invariably about dosing or side effects. These days, they are almost always about cost.

Cracking down on medical industry payments to doctors, the Vermont legislature has passed a law requiring drug and device makers to publicly disclose all money given to physicians and other health care providers, naming names and listing dollar amounts, the New York Times reports.

As walk-in clinics at stores like CVS and Wal-Mart offer convenient alternatives to doctors’ offices and hospital emergency rooms, some hospitals are fighting back - with walk-in clinics at some of those same retailers.