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A version of this post by WSJ’s Jean Spencer also appears on the Washington Wire blog.

A coalition of consumer, public-health and food-safety advocates is trying to jumpstart the food-safety legislation that is stalled in the Senate.

To make its point, the Make Our Food Safe coalition is trumpeting a report by Ohio State University economist and former FDA official Robert Scharff that concludes that health costs associated with foodborne illnesses totals $152 billion annually in the U.S.

A nationwide push is underway to lower radiation exposure from CT scans, amid growing concern about the risks of cancer linked to the high-powered imaging technology, as I write in the Informed Patient column today.

Last we heard of Fablyn, an experimental bone drug for the treatment of postmenopausal women, U.S. regulators were holding off on approval after FDA staff and outside reviewers raised concerns and Pfizer, the pill’s maker, was shopping it around to other companies.

Doctors are narrowing their recommendation on who should take daily aspirin for heart health, based largely on concerns about the drug’s side effects, which can include bleeding ulcers. See here for more about that.

But there’s another type of person who might someday be advised to steer clear of a daily aspirin: those for whom the pain reliever doesn’t work well as a blood clotter.

Pharmacy-benefit manager Medco Health Solutions reported earnings today, and the results didn’t seem to surprise Wall Street too much even though its shares declined. But the company took some time on its call with analysts to highlight its growing push into original research.

After California became the first state to allow medical use of marijuana, legislators decided in 1999 to fund research that was supposed figure out what the drug was good for therapeutically. Now we have an answer: a report issued today says it seems to ease some types of pain, and maybe muscle spasticity from multiple sclerosis.

A new study in JAMA reports that teens who got bariatric surgery lost a substantial amount of weight. But the clinical trial only looked at one type of surgery — gastric banding, which involves wrapping a silicone band around the upper stomach to restrict food intake.

Not surprisingly, food companies and doctors’ groups rushed to back Michelle Obama’s new campaign targeting improved eating habits and more exercise for kids.

But the most bubbly statement we spotted came from the American Beverage Association — a trade group that’s been trying to quell ideas of putting a tax on sugary drinks.

Spending by private insurers tends to be higher when the hospital market is less competitive, a new study finds.

The study, published in the American Journal of Managed Care, compared geographic patterns of Medicare spending, using the Dartmouth Atlas data, with spending by big employers that cover their workers. The upshot was that the two didn’t correlate.

Cell Therapeutics’ experimental lymphoma drug pixantrone faces rough sledding from an FDA advisory committee after an agency staff review raised questions about the drug’s effectiveness and side effects. The news sent the company’s shares sharply lower.