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It might surprise you to learn that we at Health Blog HQ were genuinely bummed to learn the drug-industry blog Pharmalot is no more.
This blog and Pharmalot, the brainchild of veteran pharma reporter Ed Silverman, have been friendly rivals since we both entered the blogosphere two years ago. (He was ahead of us by […]

Getty Images
Boys may soon get Gardasil, too, if FDA approves an expansion of use for the Merck vaccine.

Merck is asking federal regulators to expand the use of its human papillomavirus vaccine to boys and young men.
The company has asked the FDA to approve the Gardasil vaccine’s use in males ages 9 to 26 years to […]

Associated Press
In this photo combo, Steve Jobs is seen on Sept. 17, 2007 in Berlin, Germany, left, and on Sept. 9, 2008 in San Francisco, right.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s statement about his health is pretty vague, and could indicate any of several different medical conditions, a couple of experts told the Health Blog today. But […]

In a statement this morning, Steve Jobs finally addressed a subject that’s been cause for much speculation about him and Apple: How’s he feeling?
After noting that he has “been losing weight since 2008,” Jobs writes:

…my doctors think they have found the cause — a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my […]

If Barack Obama makes good on his promise to increase access to health care for America’s 45 million or so uninsured, a lot more people are going to be trying to squeeze in appointments with busy primary care doctors.
That’s what happened in Massachusetts, where it became a lot harder to see a primary care […]

In recent years, new call centers to help consumers around the globe have opened in India. But for all the modernization that brisk new business implies, reproductive issues such as birth control remain stigmatized in much of the country.
Those two factors have combined to create a New Delhi call center to answer Indians’ questions about […]

If you’re a CEO about to lose your single biggest source of sales, and you’re sitting on billions in cash and short-term investments, it might be time to go shopping.
If you’re the CEO of Pfizer — which will face generic competition for Lipitor in 2011, and which holds cash and short term investments worth more […]

The simple model of mosquito-borne illness: A mosquito eats a blood meal from an infected person, then passes on the disease when it bites someone else.
But the simple model omits a key piece in some disease stories. The bug causing the illness has to incubate inside the mosquito for a while — about two […]

Even after a drug’s been on the market for years and taken by millions of people, regulators often have to rely on data from clinical trials — which involve only a few thousand people — to gauge whether a drug presents serious safety risks. That can be a big problem for hazards that are relatively […]

In a new year filled with news of war and economic decline, something to lift the spirits is a welcome tonic.
To that end, we bring you the story of Trevor Banka, a 12-year-old cancer patient who has grown into an orthopedics resident who’s working alongside the doc who’s been treating him all along. The Associated […]