Daily Briefing: Medicaid Benefits, Hunting v. Sitting and Thalidomide

Medicaid: A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that Medicaid was associated with a 6.1 percent decline in deaths where states expanded the program, reports Pam Belluck for the New York Times.

Obesity: Researchers have found that people working at desks burn just as many calories as those hunting animals, which may suggest that the rise in obesity is more related to dietary changes than a shift to sedentary lifestyles, reports Susanne Rust for the Bay Citizen.

Thalidomide: An investigation by Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker at the Australian newspaper The Age, reveals that the maker of thalidomide had begun receiving evidence that the drug was damaging fetuses two years before it withdrew the drug from the market.

AIDS: HIV experts are laying out different strategies to pay for treatment of everyone infected with the virus, reports Richard Knox for NPR.

Preventive Medicine: Two papers delve into the role of prevention. In Health Affairs, David Lee and Frank Levy chart the causes and consequences of the sudden slowdown in medical imaging growth in 2006 and 2007. And in a New England Journal of Medicine perspective, Dave Chokshi and Thomas Farley argue that environmental approaches to prevention (like banning trans fats) are more cost-effective than clinical or non-clinical individualized approaches.

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Image by CharlesFred via Flickr