Health Highlights: April 25, 2007

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating whether Eli Lilly & Company provided accurate data about the safety of the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa,The New York Timesreported.

Concerns about the drug's link to diabetes and weight gain have contributed to a 50 percent decline in the number of Zyprexa prescriptions written in the United States since 2003.

The FDA wants to find out more about a Feb. 2000 Lilly document that noted that patients taking Zyprexa in clinical trials had a 3.5 times greater risk of developing high blood sugar than people who didn't take the drug. That document was not given to the FDA,The Timesreported.

A few months later, Lilly submitted data to the FDA showing similar blood sugar levels in patients who took Zyprexa and in those who didn't take the drug.

The FDA toldThe Timesthat it's still looking into the matter and has not yet decided whether to take any action against Lilly.

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Improve Disabled People's Access to Health Coverage: Report

Outdated regulations often hinder disabled Americans' access to health care coverage and assistive devices, concludes a new report by the Institute of Medicine.

Congress and the appropriate federal agencies need to improve decision making about what and who Medicare and Medicaid will cover in order to eliminate waiting periods for qualified disabled people to receive Medicare coverage, the report said.

In addition, the federal government needs to ease restrictions that prevent disabled people from getting assistive services and technologies that help promote independence and participation in work and other activities outside the home.

Currrently, at least one in seven Americans (40 million) have physical mobility, sensory or other impairments or limitations, the report said.

"The number of Americans who have disabilities will grow significantly in the next 30 years as the baby boom generation enters late life. If one considers people who now are disabled, those likely to develop a future disability, and people who are or will be affected by the disabilities of family members or others close to them, it becomes clear that disability will eventually affect the lives of most Americans," Alan M. Jette, director of the Health and Disability Research Institute, Boston University School of Public Health, and chair of the committee that wrote the report, said in a prepared statement.