Today's Globe: hospital error costs, skin cancer immunotherapy, gastric bypass and cancer, doctors disciplined, psoriasis drug, healthcare reform, June Bradlaw

Hospitals and doctors who operate on the wrong limb or give a dangerous dose of medication will no longer be able to bill the state of Massachusetts or its largest private health insurer for costs related to fixing the error, health authorities announced yesterday.

An Oregon man, given less than a year to live, had a complete remission of advanced deadly skin cancer after an experimental treatment that revved up his immune system to fight the tumors.

Gastric bypass surgery, a treatment for obesity that is already known to reduce heart disease and diabetes, decreases the incidence of cancer by 80 percent over the five years following the procedure, Canadian researchers reported yesterday.

The state's Board of Registration in Medicine took disciplinary action against three medical doctors yesterday, the board announced: Dr. Michael R. Brown, Dr. Howard R. Spivak, and Dr. William S. Friedman (second item).

A Food and Drug Administration panel said Amgen Inc.'s drug Enbrel should be approved to treat children with psoriasis, a serious skin disease (seventh item).

US Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt needs to quickly extend special Medicaid funding so that the state's landmark healthcare initiative can continue, a Globe editorial says.

June Bradlaw, a research biologist with the US Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition whose work led to test-tube alternatives to using animals in laboratory testing, died of a stroke May 30 at William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich, Conn. She was 71