Daily Rounds: Bisexuality Affirmed; Shrimp On Treadmill; Hospital Monopolies; Abortion Access Dwindling

No Surprise for Bisexual Men - Report Indicates They Exist - NYTimes.com "The finding is not likely to surprise bisexuals, who have long asserted that attraction often is not limited to one sex. But for many years the question of bisexuality has bedeviled scientists. A widely publicized study published in 2005, also by researchers at Northwestern, reported that “with respect to sexual arousal and attraction, it remains to be shown that male bisexuality exists.”

'Shrimp On A Treadmill': The Politics Of 'Silly' Studies | WBUR & NPR "They tried to say that about $9.4 million tax dollars was spent to study men's penis size," says Jeffrey Parsons of Hunter College in New York, referring to a study that was recently criticized by a group called the Traditional Values Coalition. Parsons and his colleagues did publish a study on men's penis sizes and its link to the risk of sexually transmitted disease — but Parsons says no tax dollars were used to collect the data. In reality, he says, those millions of dollars went to a government program to train scientists, and that program gave a small educational grant to a researcher who happened to write the paper." (WBUR | 90.9 FM)

Hospital Monopolies: The Biggest Driver of Health Costs That Nobody Talks About - Forbes "The government needs to do more to fight consolidation among hospitals. And there are signs that this is starting to happen. In 2010, the Department of Justice opened an investigation into “anticompetitive behavior” by Partners.  And yesterday, the New York Times’ Robert Pear reported that the Federal Trade Commission is challenging a similar merger in Toledo, Ohio, between ProMedica Health System of Toledo and St. Luke’s Hospital of Maumee, a Toledo suburb." (Forbes)

Proportion Of OB-GYNs Offering Abortions May Be Lower Than Thought : Shots - Health Blog : NPR "Ninety-seven percent of OB-GYNs have encountered patients wanting an abortion, but only 14 percent of the doctors perform them, according to a study published today in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. That finding suggests a smaller percentage of OB-GYNs may be offering abortion services than previous studies have estimated. Access to abortion has become more limited over the past few decades, the researchers write."  (npr.org)

Therapeutic hypothermia as a treatment for medical emergencies - latimes.com "Such emergency cooling, known as therapeutic hypothermia, is growing in popularity as a treatment for cardiac arrest. In fact, "it's the single most important advance in resuscitation science in the last 10 years or so," says Dr. Prediman Shah, director of cardiology at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute. At the same time, doctors are slowly expanding cooling's uses for other crises: Infants who didn't get enough oxygen during birth are now routinely cooled to protect their brains, and studies are underway to test the potential of cooling for treating victims of stroke or heart attack, as well as those who have suffered traumatic injury to the brain or spinal cord." (Los Angeles Times)