TV News LIES

The Senate has passed a $15 billion bill that would block the impending 25% cut in the Medicare payment rate to physicians and instead keep rates steady through 2011. The cut was scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2011. If the House passes the bill -- which is likely -- it would be the fifth and longest extension of Medicare physician payment rates enacted this year. And it essentially puts doctors back in the yearly "last-minute-extension" cycle Congress has followed for most of the past decade.

What the bill does not do is fix the sustainable growth rate (SGR) problem, and doctors would be subject to a cut of more than 25% for treating Medicare patients in 2012 unless Congress figures out a long-term solution in the meantime.

The first new weight-loss pill in a decade moved closer to U.S. approval on Tuesday, when a panel of expert advisers backed Orexigen Therapeutics's Contrave despite heart risk concerns. It was the third new weight-loss drug to come before U.S. regulators this year, the Food and Drug Administration having rejected two rival medicines in October.

Orexigen's stock more than doubled to $12.20 from Monday's close of $4.76 when it reopened in after-hours trade Tuesday. Shares of competitors Vivus Inc and Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc also rose, as investors bet Contrave's approval could revive their fortunes.

A smokeless tobacco company has agreed to pay $5 million to the family of a man who died of mouth cancer in what the family's attorney and an expert called the first wrongful death settlement from chewing tobacco. Attorney Antonio Ponvert III told The Associated Press on Tuesday that U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. agreed to pay $5 million to the family of Bobby Hill of Canton, N.C.

"This company manufactures and sells a dangerous and defective product that it knows causes addiction, disease and death in consumers who use it as intended," Ponvert said. The company, which makes Copenhagen and Skoal brands and was headquartered in Greenwich, Conn. before it was acquired by Altria last year, confirmed the settlement in a regulatory filing, but declined further comment.

Scientists have discovered a way to repair damaged nerves with stem cells which could give hope to tens of thousands of multiple sclerosis sufferers. The British researchers say their findings could lead to the development of drugs that repair nerves in the brain and spinal cord and potentially reverse some of the symptoms of MS. Almost 100,000 Britons suffer from MS, an incurable disease that causes loss of mobility, sight problems, tiredness and excruciating pain.

It becomes progressively worse and many sufferers are left confined to wheelchairs or mobility scooters. It is caused by damage to myelin, the substance that surrounds all nerves in the brain and spinal cord. This impairs the way messages are transmitted from the brain to the rest of the body.

California regulators approved a pesticide Wednesday for use by fruit and vegetable growers despite heavy opposition from environmental and farmworker groups that cited its links to cancer.

The state Department of Pesticide Regulation will register methyl iodide as a substitute for the pesticide methyl bromide, which is being phased out by international treaty because it depletes the Earth's protective ozone layer.

The length of a man's fingers can provide clues to his risk of prostate cancer, according to new research. A British Journal of Cancer study found men whose index finger was longer than their ring finger were significantly less likely to develop the disease.

Researchers made the discovery after comparing the hands of 1,500 prostate cancer patients with 3,000 healthy men. The length of the fingers is fixed before birth and is thought to relate to sex hormone levels in the womb.