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Also: AARP reports on brand-name drug prices; Medtronic gives grim view of medical device demand; report says millions of older Americans may need to switch Medicare drug plans in 2011.

View original here:  A.M. Vitals: NIH to Freeze Grants for Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Also: former head of WellPoint unit speaks out; cognitive decline in Parkinson’s disease; diagnosing Alzheimer’s early.

See the rest here:  A.M. Vitals: FDA Warns On Inferior Vena Cava Filters

Also: bad nurses traveling; Boston Scientific’s founders sell shares; research on a universal flu vaccine.

Read the original here: A.M. Vitals: J&J’s Plan to Fix Plant Includes 300 Layoffs

Also: a new head for PhRMA; Maine wants out, temporarily, of one health-overhaul requirement; a union’s suit against Pfizer.

View original here:  A.M. Vitals: Avandia Meeting, Day One: ‘Garbage’ Data and Court Settlements

Starting this fall, FDA recall data will be posted online in tabular and XML form.

Originally posted here: Follow Those SpaghettiOs! FDA Food, Drug, Device Recall Data Coming

Also: the FDA approves a new treatment for prostate cancer, and one of the agency’s advisory committees recommends a post-sex contraceptive pill.

Read the original: A.M. Vitals: Medtronic’s New Heart Device; Medicare ‘Doc Fix’

The company held its annual meeting at the Bank of America Auditorium in Boston, but told a Dow Jones Newswires reporter that media weren’t allowed to attend.

Here is the original post:  Boston Scientific to News Media: No Annual Meeting for You!

Bill Clinton was admitted to the hospital for chest pain today and had two stents placed in one of the arteries around his heart.

Here’s what that means:

A stent is a wire mesh tube that’s used to prop open an artery. That’s a stent in the picture.

Stents are often used for patients with unstable angina — sudden chest pain that can be a prelude to a heart attack.

Here’s the Health Blog’s little corner of the Greek debt saga: The nation’s government-run hospitals owe about $9.5 billion to drug and device manufacturers, the Financial Times reports.

Senior European pharma execs are flying to Athens for talks, and the industry wants the European Commission to find that Greece has broken EU late-payment rules. A deal may be worked out to restructure the debt; a similar deal in 2004 included a significant discount, the FT says.

Venture capital funding was way down last year, but health care fell less than other sectors. A few different sets of figures are out today — one from Dow Jones VentureSource, another from the National Venture Capital Association.

The figures from the groups differ a bit, but the broad outlines are similar.