Month: September 2011

A Madison woman was cited for theft by fraud after she allegedly set up a table at the Willy Street Fair on Saturday to raise money for cancer research but was pocketing the money. Madison police reported that they stopped the efforts of Tina Osuocha, 56, at about 8 p.m. Saturday. Her display featured two large water jugs with donated cash inside. Public Health Madison and Dane County also reported that Osuocha was allegedly raising money for the Wisconsin Well Woman Program, a free cancer screening program. (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 9/22)

A second company that makes and distributes alcohol prep wipes to prevent infection has issued a large recall because of potential bacterial contamination. The firm shares a common supplier with a Wisconsin wipe-maker whose products have been blamed for illnesses and death, a spokeswoman said. Professional Disposables International Inc., or PDI, of Orangeburg, N.Y., has voluntarily recalled all lots of five different kinds of packages of non-sterile alcohol prep pads because of what a company spokeswoman called "very low levels" of detection of Bacillus cereus bacteria. (MSNBC.COM, 9/21)

A health insurance company affiliated with the state's largest teachers union today demanded conservative talk-show host Mark Belling stop accusing the company of "racketeering" and apologize for making that charge in the past. Officials with WEA Trust said Belling has repeatedly said the insurer transfers its "profits" to the Wisconsin Education Association Council, something that would be illegal under state and federal law. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 9/20)

Verona’s population will double this week as health care executives from across the U.S. and overseas gather Tuesday through Thursday for Epic Systems Corp.’s annual users’ group meeting. More than 6,500 people are expected to attend, in addition to Epic’s 5,000 employees. That’s up from last year, when the event drew 5,600 customers plus Epic’s 4,000 employees. (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 9/20)

Federal regulators have found no firm link between contaminated alcohol wipes made by a Wisconsin company and hundreds of reported ailments, from rashes to at least eight deaths, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said this week. There may be a connection between the wipes made by Triad Group and the incidents, the agency said, but investigators lacked key evidence to establish such a link in the cases they examined. Those reported incidents were prompted by the January recall of the wipes, which the agency found were contaminated with the Bacillus cereus bacterium. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 9/19)

Madison-area emergency rooms, facing a rise in prescription drug abuse seen around the country, are refusing to give narcotics to patients who frequently go to ERs for painkillers. In a related effort to stop "doctor shopping" by drug abusers, Wisconsin is poised to join the vast majority of states with prescription drug monitoring programs, databases that track the dispensing of drugs most likely to be abused. (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 9/19)

The Lakes Community Health Center has recently partnered with two private dental clinics in Iron County as a way to creatively increase access for their patients on Medicaid, BadgerCare or who are uninsured. This partnership is the first of its kind in the state. (ASHLAND CURRENT, 9/19)

About one-fourth of all residents in Minnesota and Wisconsin are considered obese. Although the obesity rate in both states is several points lower than the national average of 33.8 percent, it has forced hospitals like Gundersen Lutheran to remodel their facilities to accommodate larger patients. (MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO, 9/16)

Supporters of the fight against Alzheimer's disease have an unusual choice in Madison this weekend: fundraising walks for two competing organizations. The Alzheimer's and Dementia Alliance of Wisconsin, which split from the national Alzheimer's Association two years ago over how money should be spent, has a walk Saturday at Warner Park. The new local office of the Alzheimer's Association has a walk Sunday at Monona Terrace. (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 9/16)

GE Healthcare announced Thursday that it plans to dedicate $1 billion of its total research and development budget over the next five years to expand its advanced cancer diagnostic and molecular imaging capabilities, as well as its technologies for the production of biopharmaceuticals and for cancer research. United Kingdom-based GE Healthcare has operations throughout southeastern Wisconsin, including its U.S. headquarters in Waukesha. A unit of Fairfield, Conn.-based General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE), GE Healthcare produces diagnostic medical imaging equipment at its Milwaukee-area plants. (MILWAUKEE BUSINESS JOURNAL, 9/16)