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Daily Rounds: Aspirin For Treating Cancer Too, Messaging Wars On Health Law, And More

Studies Find An Aspirin A Day Can Keep Cancer At Bay (Reuters) — "Three new studies published on Wednesday added to growing scientific evidence suggesting that taking a daily dose of aspirin can help prevent, and possibly treat, cancer. Previous studies have found that daily aspirin reduces the long-term risk of death due to cancer, but until now the shorter-term effects have been less certain - as has the medicine's potential in patients already diagnosed with cancer. The new studies, led by Peter Rothwell of Britain's Oxford University, found that aspirin also has a short-term benefit in preventing cancer, and that it reduces the likelihood that cancers will spread to other organs by about 40 to 50 percent."

How Obama Lost The Messaging War On Health Care Law (NPR) — "Probably 95 percent of the voting public either meet the individual requirement or are exempt from it," says Chris Jennings, a former health aide to President Bill Clinton and a supporter of the new law. "Why aren't these messages coming through better than they obviously are?" It probably doesn't help that the Obama administration has been spending more effort trying to put the law into effect than working to dispel some of the myths about it. "I don't think that was our primary job," says Nancy-Ann DeParle, White House deputy chief of staff and one of the key administration architects of the health law. "I really think our primary job was making sure that the changes that are happening to our insurance system were implemented in a careful, deliberate, transparent fashion." DeParle blames the misperceptions — particularly about the pivotal individual mandate — on the law's many political opponents. She says, "The fact is for the vast majority of Americans they'll just check a box that says, 'Yes, I have insurance.' "

A Cheap Drug Is Found To Save Bleeding Victims (The New York Times) — "For months, a simple generic drug has been saving lives on America’s battlefields by slowing the bleeding of even gravely wounded soldiers. Even better, it is cheap. But its very inexpensiveness has slowed its entry into American emergency rooms, where it might save the lives of bleeding victims of car crashes, shootings and stabbings — up to 4,000 Americans a year, according to a recent study. Because there is so little profit in it, the companies that make it do not champion it."

This program aired on March 22, 2012. The audio for this program is not available.

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