Today's Globe: firefighters' physicians, Vytorin, salmonella, healthcare math

Mayor Thomas M. Menino ordered the Boston Fire Department yesterday to dig through its records in a hunt for doctors who have diagnosed large numbers of city firefighters with work-related injuries, increasing scrutiny on the role physicians play in awarding questionable disability pensions.

The cholesterol drug Vytorin failed in a study to prevent complications from heart-valve disease and was linked to a higher rate of cancer.

A jalapeno pepper, grown on a farm in Mexico and found at a Texas distribution center, was tainted with the salmonella strain that has sickened more than 1,200 people, the Food and Drug Administration said (fifth item).

"There is really only one way to address the costs of [healthcare] legislation in the immediate term: reduce the level of extra payments to Boston Medical Center and Cambridge Health Alliance," Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, writes on the op-ed page. "However important Boston Medical Center and Cambridge Health Alliance are, they must play by the same rules as other hospitals and must not put the entire reform at risk."