The most important new antidiscrimination law in two decades — the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act — will take effect in the nation’s workplaces next weekend, prohibiting employers from requesting genetic testing or considering someone’s genetic background in hiring, firing or promotions. The New York Times explaines the ramifications.

For top analysts from investment banks, including JPMorgan  and Credit Suisse , or some of their minions, the destination is a cardiology conference where on Monday morning medical researchers are expected to present a study with potentially significant implications for multibillion-dollar cholesterol medications from the drug giant Merck.

Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens has made headlines with his clean energy plan for America. But what you haven't heard is the 81-year-old's plan to stay mentally and physically fit.  Neuroscientists who have studied his brain say it appears to function like someone half his age. 

Health care reform has always had two main goals. The first — insuring the uninsured — carries grand overtones of social justice. The second — making the health care system more efficient — can seem abstract, technocratic and a bit nerdy. The New York Times looks at what's missing.

GlaxoSmithKline has won U.S. marketing approval to sell an unadjuvanted H1N1 swine vaccine, allowing it to ship relatively modest amounts of scarce vaccine to the United States next month.

As health care legislation moves to the Senate, there is a growing criticism that the measure doesn't fulfill President Obama’s promise to slow runaway health care costs, the New York Times reports.

When makers of heart defibrillators wanted Medicare to vastly expand the types of patients eligible to receive the devices, which can cost upward of $25,000, agency officials were skeptical. It was not clear how many of those patients would actually need a defibrillator, a device that can deliver a life-saving shock to restore a faltering heart to normal rhythm.

New York City health officials scrambled to explain themselves Thursday following outraged media reports about bankers who got scarce H1N1 flu vaccines through their employers

A race is on to develop the potentially next big thing in heart surgery: a replacement valve that can be implanted through thin tubes known as catheters rather than by traditional open-heart surgery.

The number-one H1N1 flu concern among U.S. businesses is the availability of a vaccine for employees, according to a new survey by the Business Roundtable.

Workers are fighting the flu around the clock at the Alpha Pro Tech factory in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Iin light of evidence that some drug makers have gone to great lengths to turn scientific articles into marketing vehicles for their products, some influential medical editors are cracking down on industry-financed ghostwriting. And they are getting help from some members of Congress.

Tips for cultivating marijuana. Testimonials by patients about its medical benefits. Cannabis cooking lessons. Even citations for award-winning strains of pot. Viewers here can now watch, every week, what amounts to a pro-weed news program.

Virtually every large pharmaceutical company seems to have discovered cancer, and a substantial portion of the smaller biotechnology companies are focused on it as well. Together, the companies are pouring billions of dollars into developing cancer drugs.

Real choice is not part of the bills moving through the Democratic-led Congress; even if the much-debated government-run insurance plan was created, it would not be available to most people who already have coverage.