Medicine: New Therapy Strengthens Fight Against Osteoporosis Neurology: Studies Find Caffeine May Counter Parkinson's Pathology: Programmed Death by Mitochondria Health Care Policy 1: Medicare May Restrict Good Care for Dying Patients Health Care Policy 2: In First Seidman Lecture, Keynote Predicts No Drug Benefit as Part of Medicare Workplace Exposure May Be Similar for Smokers, Nonsmokers Breast-feeding May Limit Teenage Obesity Some Medical Errors More Common With Children Than Adults Rod Cells Pay for Light Sensitivity With Reaction Time Faculty Council Proceedings Two from HMS Added to the National Academy of Sciences Roster A Preview of Alumni Week Center for Neurodegeneration and Repair Invites Applications for Grants, Fellowships NAS and AAAS Address Nationwide Postdoc Issues Call for Writers Front Page

HEALTH CARE POLICY In First Seidman Lecture, Keynote Predicts No Drug Benefit as Part of Medicare The inaugural Marshall J. Seidman Lecture in Health Policy, held on April 26 in the TMEC, featured Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute and, from 1989 to '95, director of the Congressional Budget Office. In his keynote, Reischauer discussed the forces at play in expanding Medicare to include a prescription drug benefit. Barbara McNeil, Joseph Martin, Marshall Seidman, and Robert Reischauer (l to r) inaugurated the Department of Health Care Policy's Seidman Lecture. Photo by Steve Gilbert Reischauer called the current lack of coverage the "most glaring deficiency in the Medicare benefit package." In 1965, when the program was signed into law, this gap was the norm. Yet since then, more and more employers have begun covering prescription drugs. "Medicare has become the laggard, the outlier," Reischauer said. The current system of supplemental insurance programs is unstable and inequitable, he said, but he believes cost and other barriers will prevent a drug benefit from being integrated into Medicare. "I think Congress will adopt a program that is not that dissimilar to what the President suggests,"Reischauer said, that is, a system of grants to help states pay for seniors' prescription drugs. He conceded, though, that inside the Beltway, the going wisdom is that a drug benefit will become a part of Medicare. The lecture program began with opening remarks from Barbara McNeil, chair of the Department of Health Care Policy, and an introduction from HMS dean Joseph Martin. Martin thanked Marshall Seidman for his support of the department, presenting him with a silver bowl in appreciation. Last year Seidman established the Marshall J. Seidman Program for Medical Economics in the department and the Marshall J. Seidman Teaching and Research Fund in Health Care Policy to finance an annual visiting professor and lecture on cost and quality of health care.