Science

The Food and Drug Administration is about to ask the nation’s medical community a question: How influential is pharmaceutical marketing from physicians’ standpoints?  

Pharmaceutical companies spend billions a year to promote their products.

But the FDA wants to know if marketing is getting in the way of physicians’ work.

“Pharma has every right to market their products to doctors," says Todd Williamson, M.D.

A new survey shows big increases in national averages for costs of assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and to a lesser degree, in-home care.

But the picture in Atlanta is a bit different.

While the national average for a semi-private room for one year at a nursing home has increased about four percent annually, and now approaches $84,000, that same room here is about $66,000 a year.

This past December, an invention out of Georgia Tech was named by Physics World Magazine as one of the top ten physical science breakthroughs of the year.

The invention, a power cell that directly converts mechanical energy into chemical energy, was developed by a team led by Dr. Z.L. Wang. Dr. Wang is the Regents Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech.

January is cervical cancer awareness month.

Each year more than 13,000 women are diagnosed.

4,000 will die.

While studies indicate a decline in new diagnoses, reports indicate there’s still a disparity among women following up on treatment.

In Georgia, cervical cancer screenings have increased among minority and low-income women.

That’s good news says Dr. Lisa Flowers.