American Medical Association

The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research. The nation's largest physicians organization, with about 250,000 member doctors, the AMA has maintained since 1997 that marijuana should remain a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD. In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.

The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research. The nation's largest physicians organization, with about 250,000 member doctors, the AMA has maintained since 1997 that marijuana should remain a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD. In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.

The American Medical Assn., after 60 years of opposing any government overhaul of healthcare, is now lobbying and advertising to win public support for President Obama's sweeping plan -- a proposal that promises hundreds of billions of dollars for America's doctors. Of all the interest groups that have won favorable terms in closed-door negotiations this year, the association representing the nation's physicians may have taken home the biggest prizes, including an agreement to stop planned cuts in Medicare payments that are worth $228 billion to doctors over 10 years.

The American Medical Assn., after 60 years of opposing any government overhaul of healthcare, is now lobbying and advertising to win public support for President Obama's sweeping plan -- a proposal that promises hundreds of billions of dollars for America's doctors. Of all the interest groups that have won favorable terms in closed-door negotiations this year, the association representing the nation's physicians may have taken home the biggest prizes, including an agreement to stop planned cuts in Medicare payments that are worth $228 billion to doctors over 10 years.

Anencephalic babies, born with most of their brain missing, should be available for use as organ donors before they are dead, a policy-setting committee of the American Medical Assn. says. The proposal to change state laws to allow such transplants has created dissent within the AMA and renewed a debate among ethicists. Critics charge that the practice would amount to killing one patient to save another. "It is," acknowledged Dr.

In a key case involving the rights of the homeless, the Supreme Court Monday let stand New York City's ban on begging by panhandlers in its subway system. Without comment or dissent, the high court refused to reconsider an appeals court ruling in May which said that beggars are a "menace to the common good" who do not have a free-speech right to ask others for money. The court's action does not set a binding national rule of law because the appeal was dismissed without a formal opinion.

Three decades ago, when the animal rights movement was just reaching into public consciousness, its adherents airlifted wild burros marked for death from the Grand Canyon, stopped the clubbing of baby seals and took to the high seas to fend off whalers. Now they do that and much more, from staging anti-fur parades to operating a frog dissection hot line to burglarizing laboratories and torching a multimillion-dollar research facility.

Video-game buffs might feel hooked on their favorite titles, but they won't be officially addicted anytime soon. Saying the issue needed more study, the American Medical Assn. on Wednesday scaled back a controversial proposal that sought to declare excessive video-game playing a mental disorder akin to pathological gambling. The association also decided against urging parents to limit to two hours a day the amount of time their kids play video games, watch television and surf the Internet.

An American Medical Assn. committee meeting in Chicago to consider its future public health agenda asked its policymaking body Sunday to determine whether to support adding video game addiction to a key handbook on mental illness. Testimony at the AMA annual meeting seemed to favor deferring to the American Psychiatric Assn., which will make the final call as it writes a new edition of a diagnostic manual for mental health professionals.

The American Medical Assn., saying that doctors are frustrated in their efforts to deliver high-quality care, took an extraordinary step Wednesday toward forming a labor union to give more power to physicians in their dealings with managed care companies. For the AMA, with a long history as one of America's most conservative institutions, the vote signaled an angry outcry by doctors who believe that they are losing autonomy in today's health care system.

President Obama on Monday made his most detailed pitch yet for a $1-trillion overhaul of the nation's burdened healthcare system, calling it a "ticking time bomb" that threatens the nation's prosperity. Throughout his speech to the nation's largest doctors group, Obama sought to inoculate himself against opponents who have suggested his proposal would amount to a government takeover of healthcare.

The American Medical Assn. is joining several state medical associations in suing health insurers Aetna Inc. and Cigna Corp. over a database they say was rigged to underpay doctors on out-of-network claims for more than a decade. But Cigna said doctors' rates were part of the problem. The lawsuits heap more criticism on Ingenix Inc. data that already have cost UnitedHealth Group Inc. of Minnetonka, Minn., $350 million to settle a separate lawsuit involving the AMA.

Insurance companies often fail to properly reimburse doctors, needlessly adding more than $200 billion a year to the nation's healthcare tab, the American Medical Assn. said Monday. An analysis of 3 million medical claims over a six-month period beginning in October also found that doctors in the U.S. spend 14% of the fees they receive from insurers and Medicare on the process of collecting those fees, the AMA said in a report issued at its annual meeting in Chicago.

The American Medical Assn., seeking to influence the healthcare debate in the 2008 election, kicked off a three-year, multimillion-dollar ad campaign at a news conference Thursday to promote its plan to provide health coverage for the estimated 45 million people in America who lack insurance. "There's a misconception about who the uninsured are," said Dr. Nancy H. Nielsen, the AMA's president-elect. "One in seven people are uninsured . . .

Video-game buffs might feel hooked on their favorite titles, but they won't be officially addicted anytime soon. Saying the issue needed more study, the American Medical Assn. on Wednesday scaled back a controversial proposal that sought to declare excessive video-game playing a mental disorder akin to pathological gambling. The association also decided against urging parents to limit to two hours a day the amount of time their kids play video games, watch television and surf the Internet.

An American Medical Assn. committee meeting in Chicago to consider its future public health agenda asked its policymaking body Sunday to determine whether to support adding video game addiction to a key handbook on mental illness. Testimony at the AMA annual meeting seemed to favor deferring to the American Psychiatric Assn., which will make the final call as it writes a new edition of a diagnostic manual for mental health professionals.

The American Medical Assn. will pay Sunbeam Corp. $9.9 million after pulling out of a five-year deal in which the doctors' group was to endorse the company's products in exchange for royalties. Widely regarded as unethical, the controversy led to the dismissal of five AMA staff members. The settlement averts a trial, which had been set for Nov. 2 in federal court in Chicago. The AMA backed out of the deal after many criticized it because the group did not plan to test the products.

The American Medical Assn., holding its annual meeting in Atlanta, is weighing whether to support importing prescription drugs from outside the U.S. "We owe it to our patients to advocate for safe importation of drugs," Stephanie Stanton, a voting AMA delegate and medical student from the University of Minnesota, said at a meeting of the House of Delegates. "This is all because of our patients, and it is driven by our patients."

The American Medical Assn., holding its annual meeting in Atlanta, is weighing whether to support importing prescription drugs from outside the U.S. "We owe it to our patients to advocate for safe importation of drugs," Stephanie Stanton, a voting AMA delegate and medical student from the University of Minnesota, said at a meeting of the House of Delegates. "This is all because of our patients, and it is driven by our patients."

CHICAGO --The American Medical Assn. board has rejected a $1.6-million loan request from its pioneering doctors union, touching off a battle for its survival. Dr. Mark Fox, president of the union, Physicians for Responsible Negotiation, said Thursday that the board's move was unexpected and "has really cut the legs off the organization." "Since the AMA has been our sole source of funding, at this point it puts us in a bind," Fox said. He said the union's money probably will run out this summer.