Today's Globe: life sciences chief, iron-lung death, superbug infection, drug warnings for women, primary-care crisis

Susan Windham-Bannister (left) has been hired as president and chief executive of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, the quasipublic agency created by the Legislature in 2006 to promote the state's life sciences industries. She was managing vice president at Abt Bio-Pharma Solutions Inc., which provides research and other services to biotechnology, diagnostic, drug, and medical device companies (third item).

A woman who defied medical odds and spent nearly 60 years in an iron lung after being diagnosed with polio as a child died yesterday after a power failure shut down the machine that had kept her breathing, her family said. Dianne Odell (left), 61, had been confined to the 7-foot-long metal tube since she was stricken by polio at the age of 3.

The number of Americans hospitalized with the drug-resistant intestinal superbug Clostridium difficile doubled over five years, to about 300,000 in 2005, according to a report (second item).

Prescription drugs would carry new warnings about risks for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding under a proposal from the Food and Drug Administration (last item).

"Our payment system values invasive treatments and procedures over time spent talking with your doctor," Dr. Annie Brewster, an urgent care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and former primary care doctor, writes on the op-ed page. "We need to reset these compensation levels to favor communication, care coordination, disease prevention, and chronic disease management."