By David Morgan and Caroline Humer (Reuters) - New health insurance exchanges being set up by the federal government in more than 30 states under President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare overhaul could miss an October 1 deadline for open enrollment, a government report said on Wednesday. The launch of the exchanges, or marketplaces, which are expected to provide federally subsidized health coverage for 7 million people in 2014 and 22 million by 2016, could determine whether Obama's signature domestic policy achievement succeeds. ...

By Stephanie Simon (Reuters) - Students at all Boston public high schools may soon be able to obtain free condoms at the front office - as long as they sit through a few minutes of counseling about safe sex - under a policy due to be voted on Wednesday by the school board. Condoms are already available in 19 high schools with on-site health centers. The policy, up for a vote by the Boston School Committee, would expand distribution to all 32 high schools in the system. Parents would have the right to exempt their children. Several U.S. ...

The label is supposed to improve awareness and treatments for the condition, but similar proclamations about alcoholism and other addictions haven’t been so successful.

By Jessica Toonkel and Soyoung Kim NEW YORK (Reuters) - Forest Laboratories Inc, the specialty drugmaker that counts investor Carl Icahn as a major shareholder, is among a handful of companies interested in bidding for Irish drugmaker Elan Corp, two people familiar with the situation said. Elan, which has a market capitalization of nearly $7 billion, put itself up for sale last week in an effort to fend off a hostile offer from U.S. investment firm Royalty Pharma. Forest is among several mid-size drugmakers keen to bid on Elan, the people said on Wednesday. ...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — If doctors and patients used prescription drugs more wisely, they could save the U.S. health care system at least $213 billion a year, by reducing medication overuse, underuse and other flaws in care that cause complications and longer, more-expensive treatments, researchers conclude.

By Nick Carey CHICAGO (Reuters) - In order to fight what it described as an "obesity epidemic," the American Medical Association voted on Tuesday to recognize obesity as a disease and recommended a number of measures to fight it. The association voted on the measure at its annual meeting in Chicago. The AMA noted that obesity rates in the United States have "doubled among adults in the last twenty years and tripled among children in a single generation" and that the World Health Organization, the U.S. ...

ATLANTA (AP) — Researchers say a vaccine for a sexually spread virus has cut infections in teen girls by half.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. introduction of a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer in 2006 has reduced infections with the human papillomavirus or HPV - the sexually transmitted virus that causes the disease - by more than half among girls and young women, U.S. health officials said on Wednesday. The results were better than expected and may even suggest that unvaccinated individuals are benefiting because of a drop in the number of infections circulating, the team reported in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. ...

Vaccines against the cancer-causing human papillomavirus appear to be working better than expected in the U.S., given the country’s dismal vaccination rates, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The HPV infection rate among girls between the ages...        

Vaccines against the cancer-causing human papillomavirus appear to be working better than expected in the U.S., given the country’s dismal vaccination rates, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The HPV infection rate among girls between the ages...