MIT biochemist Alexander Rich has won the Welch Award in Chemistry for his fundamental insights into the structure and function of RNA and DNA. He will receive the $300,000 prize in October.

Caritas Christi Health Care's senior vice president and chief information officer is leaving for Vermont. Charles H. Podesta, 50, will become chief information officer of Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, Vt., in June. Last month Roger Deshaies, formerly senior vice president for finance at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, joined Fletcher Allen as its chief financial officer. The hospital is affiliated with the University of Vermont School of Medicine.

Clifford J. Tabin, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, is one of two scientists to win the 2008 March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology. He will share the $250,000 award with Philip A. Beachy of Stanford. They are being honored for their work with "hedgehog" genes and how they affect the way embryos develop and form limbs, the brain, and other organs. Hedgehog genes got their name from the prickly appearance they gave fruit fly embryos.

Dr. Andy Whittemore, chief medical officer at Brigham and Women's Hospital, has been elected president of the American Surgical Association. Whittemore trained as a vascular surgeon, was a division chief at Brigham and Women's, and has been chief medical officer there since 1999.

Dr. Bruce S. Auerbach (left), chief of emergency and ambulatory services at Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro, was elected president of the Massachusetts Medical Society at its annual meeting today in Boston. He succeeds Shrewsbury gynecologist Dr. B. Dale Magee.

Dr. Mario E. Motta, cardiologist at North Shore Cardiovascular Associates in Salem was chosen president-elect. Dr. Alice A. Tolbert Coombs, a critical care specialist at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, was elected vice president. Dr. Richard V. Aghababian, associate dean of continuing medical education at University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, is secretary-treasurer.

Deaths from drugs and alcohol in Boston soared dramatically in 2006, an increase fueled by cheap heroin, the allure of crystal methamphetamine, and the widespread availability of addictive prescription medications.

The authority overseeing the state's healthcare law is exploring ways to cover an additional 30,000 uninsured residents, a step that could increase the annual cost of the program by more than $250 million within a few years.

People with diabetes are twice as likely to have arthritis, putting them in a double bind as the pain in their joints keeps them from getting the exercise they need to keep both diseases at bay, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday.

Two trade groups are asking state leaders to delay the implementation of regulations that severely limit lead in children's jewelry, saying the new rules are impossible to meet and will force retailers to pull millions of pieces of jewelry from shelves.

Dr. Ralph de la Torre, the new chief executive of Caritas Christi Health Care, appointed three key members of his management team (second item).

Health insurers selling Medicare medical and drug plans would have to change marketing practices under proposed government rules after complaints that elderly people were talked into buying coverage that didn't meet their needs.

Drug makers, including Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co., have deceptively marketed their products to the public, showing the need to limit drug advertisements, lawmakers and the American Medical Association said.

A leading cancer expert called on Congress today to renew its commitment to the war on cancer by funding research, fostering collaboration among cancer centers and with industry, and shoring up the ranks of researchers and oncology nurses.

Dr. Edward J. Benz Jr. (left), president of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, told a committee chaired by Senator Edward M. Kennedy that cancer requires a broad focus. Elizabeth Edwards and Lance Armstrong also spoke at the hearing.

"Just as cancer needs to be attacked biologically on a variety of fronts, so does cancer research need to concern itself with all the implications of the disease and its treatment," Benz said. "We will not be able to truly defeat cancer unless we grapple with the entire array of issues associated with the disease."

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute President Edward J. Benz is joining cancer survivors Elizabeth Edwards, Lance Armstrong, and others at a Senate hearing chaired by US Senator Edward M. Kennedy on fighting cancer.

Watch it live, starting at 9 a.m.

People who sleep fewer than six hours a night - or more than nine - are more likely to be obese, according to a new government study that is one of the largest to show a link between irregular sleep and big bellies.

When the British naturalist George Shaw received a weird specimen from Australia in 1799 - one with a mole's fur, a duck's bill, and spurs on its rear legs - he did what any skeptical scientist would do: He looked for the stitching and glue that would reveal it to be a hoax. Now, more than 200 years later, scientists have determined the entire genetic code of the creature he named "platypus." And it turns out the platypus continues to strain credulity, bearing genetic modules that are in turn mammalian, reptilian, and avian.

The state Board of Registration in Medicine has revoked the license of a Western Massachusetts doctor for improper behavior with two patients and three co-workers, the disciplinary agency said today.

Dr. Edouard A. Tavernier inappropriately touched two female patients, two nurses, and one other employee at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, according to the board's decision and other documents.

By Elizabeth Cooney
Globe Correspondent

Many of the people who literally write the book on mental illness collect pay checks from companies whose products treat some of those illnesses.

Sixteen of the 28 members of a task force overseeing revision of the psychiatry profession's diagnostic bible have disclosed financial ties to drug or medical device companies, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, raising concern about possible conflicts of interest.

"To me, this doesn't pass the smell test for conflict of interest,” said Merrill Goozner, a director at the watchdog center. “What they should have done is find psychiatrists without conflicts of interest."

The American Psychiatric Association, which will oversee publication of the fifth Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, defended its choice of panel members, who include Harvard Provost Dr. Steven E. Hyman. The association also noted that all panel members have pledged not to receive more than $10,000 per year from industry sources, aside from unrestricted research grants, until the manual is published in 2012.

"We have made every effort to ensure that [the manual] will be based on the best and latest scientific research, and to eliminate conflicts of interest in its development," Carolyn B. Robinowitz, president of the psychiatric association, said in a statement.

What if doctors had better manners?

Politeness can never replace compassion, but a Beth Israel Deaconess doctor makes the case for what he calls "etiquette-based medicine" in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.

Psychiatrist Dr. Michael W. Kahn has been paying attention to what patients complain about when they're not happy with their doctors. Often what they mind the most is a rushed, impersonal brusqueness, he writes.

He experienced the opposite when he became a hospital patient himself. His European-born surgeon had Old World manners, with impeccable dress, body language, and eye contact that had a remarkably calming effect.

"It helped to confirm my suspicion that patients may care less about whether their doctors are reflective and empathetic than whether they are respectful and attentive," he writes.

Short White Coat is a blog about learning to be a doctor. Posts appear here as part of White Coat Notes. Ishani Ganguli is a third-year Harvard medical student. E-mail her at shortwhitecoat@gmail.com.

It's my first week of third-year, and I'm on my best behavior. Not just because clinical work merits a new level of professionalism (to many of the patients I'll meet, I’m already Dr. Ganguli). But also because our class has entered a Strange New World, known colloquially as a teaching hospital. Learning how to occupy our humble place in its medical hierarchy is critical to our survival.

The etiquette demanded of this role comprised much of the orientation leading up to this week’s clinical debut. For the sake of our patients, we learned, we must be quick to admit our lack of knowledge and authority, and even more careful in phrasing this sentiment. So we went around the room last Thursday and Friday, graciously deferring judgment to a higher-up (chief resident, attending physician) in dozens of clinical hypotheticals.

By Patricia Wen, Globe Staff

A consumer drug hotline in Massachusetts has been getting numerous complaints from patients who have depended on Digitek, a recently recalled generic drug that treats congestive heart failure and abnormal heart rhythms.

Some patients are complaining that their pharmacies do not have substitute drugs available, while others are finding alternatives, according to MassMedLine officials.

"In one part of town, there's no problem, and in another part of town, there's a problem," said Dennis Lyons, vice president of professional affairs at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, which oversees MassMedLine.

Pembroke Hospital, a private psychiatric facility that was the subject of a state investigation a year ago for alleged patient mistreatment and a variety of staff infractions, was the scene last week of an alleged nighttime rape of one patient by another.

Women who stop smoking can enjoy major health benefits within five years, but it can take decades to correct respiratory damage and lower their risk of lung cancer, Harvard School of Public Health researchers reported yesterday.

Local veterans welcomed yesterday the US Department of Veterans Affairs decision to maintain its four Boston-area campuses, saying the centers offer critical and accessible services to people who are often distressed.

The state's highest court is set to consider whether Governor Deval Patrick had grounds to fire Massachusetts' former chief medical examiner. Dr. Mark Flomenbaum (left) was fired last year after his office lost a body that was later found buried in the wrong grave (fifth item).

An EPA official said yesterday there is a distinct possibility the agency will not take action to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has contaminated public water supplies around the country. The toxin interferes with thyroid function and poses developmental health risks, particularly to fetuses.

China's drug safety agency yesterday accused the United States of blocking Beijing's inquiry into the blood thinner linked to 81 deaths by refusing to provide details on victims and specifics about production. Two Chinese experts who attended a conference on heparin in suburban Washington, D.C., last month said the United States determined a contaminant was likely to blame without considering other possible factors.

By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff

Massachusetts health authorities urged consumers this evening not to consume ice distributed by Triumph Foods Inc. of Everett and sold under the brand names Tube Ice and Carlstadt Consumers Ice Co.

After receiving complaints, the state Department of Public Health tested ice from Triumph, discovering fine brown particles and fibrous matter. The health agency is continuing testing to determine the identity of the particles. So far, no illnesses have been attributed to the contaminated ice.

The tainted ice is packaged in five-pound plastic bags and was distributed at several retail outlets across the state. The health agency identified three outlets that had sold the ice: BJ's Wholesale Club, Stone's Retail Market in Abington, and the Massachusetts Avenue Sunoco Station in Boston.

Retailers with the ice still in stock should remove the product immediately, and consumers should discard it or return it to where they bought it, the state said.

By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff

A blue-ribbon panel investigating the safety of a controversial research laboratory being built by Boston University will hold a public meeting next week on Beacon Hill.

The panel, commissioned by the director of the National Institutes of Health, will meet from 9 a.m. till noon May 16 in Gardner Auditorium at the State House. Members of the public will be able to address the scientists. A spokesman for the NIH, which is underwriting much of the cost of the South End lab, said members of the public do not have to register in advance of the meeting and are asked to limit their comments to three minutes. Citizens may also submit written comments.

The blue-ribbon panel was convened after the National Research Council, an independent board of scientists, issued a report in November sharply critical of NIH's earlier safety reviews of the BU project.

Women who took folic acid and B vitamin supplements had the same rate of cardiovascular disease as women who didn't, a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports, adding to the list of substances that showed promise in earlier observational studies but not in more rigorous trials.

Researchers led by Dr. JoAnn E. Manson of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital studied 5,442 women in the health profession who were at least 42 years old and had a history of cardiovascular disease or three or more risk factors for it. For more than seven years, half were given a pill containing folic acid plus two B vitamins and half were given a matching placebo.

The supplements did lower the women's levels of homocysteine, an amino acid previously implicated in the risk of cardiovascular disease. But women randomly assigned to receive the vitamins had about the same number of heart attacks, strokes, coronary artery blockages, or deaths as the women who got dummy pills.

"This randomized trial casts further doubt on the role of folic acid and B vitamins in preventing cardiovascular disease, despite their effect in lowering homocysteine," Manson said in an interview. "It may take substantial lowering or it may be beneficial in people with extremely high levels of homocysteine, but this finding suggests folic acid and B vitamins should not be taken with the express intent of lowering cardiovascular disease."

Not that traffic doesn't already come to a standstill late afternoons in the Longwood Medical Area, but on Thursday a labor rally orchestrated by the union seeking to organize Boston hospital workers will feature a real showstopper.

The Dropkick Murphys, the Boston band made almost mainstream by Red Sox fans, will play a few tunes before a 4 p.m. rally at the corner of Avenue Louis Pasteur and Longwood Avenue, the heart of a neighborhood that includes hospitals, clinics, colleges, and Harvard Medical School.

The Service Employees International Union 1199 said members of the Area Trades Council will also be on hand to lend support to the rally, which will be followed by a march.

A map created by Harvard biologist Marc Vidal and Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, now a physicist at Northeastern University, plots diseases by the genes they have in common — something like the charts linking actors to one another (and ultimately to Kevin Bacon) based on the movies they appeared in together, as a story in today's New York Times describes it. They called it the "diseasome" in a paper they published last year.

Its concepts are changing the field of disease classification, the story says, including different kinds of cancer.

“In the not too distant future, we will think about these diseases based on the molecular pathways that are aberrant, rather than the anatomical origin of the tumor,” Dr. Todd Golub, director of the cancer program at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, told the Times.

A new study provides some of the best evidence to date that breast-feeding can make children smarter, an international team of researchers said yesterday.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs said yesterday that it was dropping plans to consolidate treatment services at its medical centers in Bedford, Brockton, and Boston's West Roxbury and Jamaica Plain sections (sixth item).

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. expanded its drug offerings yesterday with three-month prescriptions for $10, stepping up the fight to attract US consumers seeking cheaper medicines amid economic woes. Kmart, Target Corp., Walgreen Co., and CVS Caremark Corp. are also ramping up efforts to sell to the growing number of Americans who lack insurance to pay for medicines.

Teenagers who lived in towns that banned smoking in restaurants were 40 percent less likely to become established smokers than their peers in towns with weaker restaurant smoking laws, Boston researchers report.

Writing in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, Dr. Michael Siegel of the Boston University School of Public Health presents final results from three waves of telephone surveys in 301 Massachusetts towns that began in 2001. More than 3,800 young people who were 12 to 17 years old at the beginning of the study were asked if they had ever smoked, if they had a cigarette in the past month, and if they had smoked more than 100 cigarettes.

In an earlier paper Siegel and his colleagues found that young people in towns with smoke-free restaurant laws perceived a lower level of smoking and a lower social acceptability of smoking than their peers in towns with weaker smoking laws, where smoking was restricted to designated areas in restaurants or not at all.

The current paper suggests that the anti-smoking laws may work by blocking the transition from experimenting with cigarettes to becoming established smokers. Massachusetts banned smoking in all workplaces, bars, and restaurants in 2004.

"The public health implications of this are that restaurant smoking bans are actually one of the most effective interventions to reduce youth smoking. While these policies are intended to protect workers and the public from secondhand smoke exposure, it turns out that an additional benefit of these laws is to reduce rates of youth smoking, thus making them a particularly powerful public health intervention," Siegel said in an interview. "There are not a lot of interventions out there which can produce a 40 percent reduction in youth smoking."

Sixteen-year-old Yolanda M. Torres (left) of Plymouth was supposed to be a poster child for the proposal currently in the Legislature to improve mental health care for children. But not like this. In late January, in a violent impulse she left no note to explain, Yolanda committed suicide.

In Health/Science:

In 2005, a total of 207 elderly men and women died from falls in Massachusetts. A year later, the number of fatalities attributed to falls rose sharply - to 341. Many of the falls that injure or even kill should never happen in the first place.

Male songbirds mark the arrival of courting season with a series of chirps and peeps strung together in a melody designed to impress potential mates. The serenade is perfectly executed - a far cry from the random babbling noises the birds make as babies. New research from MIT suggests a specialized brain circuit is behind the birds' early ramblings, and may also underlie the nonsensical noises made by their human counterparts.

It's still unclear why a tonsillectomy should cure children of unexplained, recurring fevers. But in the five years since he removed his daughter's tonsils, Greg Licameli, an otolaryngologist, has seen 60 patients suffering from this cyclical fever syndrome, known as PFAFA, and the findings continue to hold up.

Ram Sasisekharan (left), an MIT professor of biological engineering and health sciences and technology who specializes in sugars, was, according to one colleague, the perfect person to bring the global scientific community together to solve the heparin contamination crisis.

Also, what should I do to make sure I'll get good results from LASIK surgery and what makes thunder last longer than a flash of lightning?