American Medical Association Annual Meeting

After discussing nearly 250 issues, delegates to the AMA's annual meeting left the organization with a towering to-do list. Here's a wrap-up of MD Magazine's on-site coverage of the June 6-10 meeting in Chicago.

The American Medical Association is calling for full disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, citing a need for further study about potential public health impacts of the practice.

As the market for Hepatitis C treatments continues to grow, the American Medical Association is calling for the government and payers to do more to ensure new therapies are affordable.

A flying lacrosse ball weighs more than 5 lbs and goes about 60 mph in the girls' version of the sport. Despite objections that there have been no definitive studies showing wearing headgear protects players, the AMA wants sports authorities to require girls teams to wear helmets.

The American Medical Association's House of Delegates discussed the collision of physicians' free speech rights with patients' rights to privacy Monday. They also weighed whether to support universal background checks for gun purchases and distributing NRA gun safety literature to patients.

The new president of the American Medical Association is the group's youngest president in 160 years. He plans to focus on public health, revamping medical education, and reducing burnout during his term.

The violent death of Boston, MA cardiac surgeon Michael Davidson Jan. 20 was much on the minds of physicians at the AMA's meeting in Chicago. Davidson was honored in a memorial and the delegates resolved to lobby for ways to protect physicians from such assaults.

On Tuesday, the American Medical Association's House of Delegates debated the wisdom of forming a so-called Super PAC to help influence elections. However, the idea raised a number of concerns.

The American Medical Association on Monday called the military's policy of excluding transgender service members "out of date."

Despite assurances from the Obama administration that physicians who provide marijuana to patients for therapeutic use in states where that is legal will not face federal prosecution, the AMA is calling for a law. They want an ironclad guarantee these doctors will have legal immunity.

The mobile health application industry continues to grow in the US, even though most of the apps aren't clinically proven. Now, the American Medical Association says it will work to come up with best practices for medical app developers.

In what could be a tough political fight, members of the American Medical Association's House of Delegates today passed a resolution authorizing a campaign to get all states to ban philosophical and religious beliefs as grounds for opting out of routine vaccinations. Only medical exemptions should be allowed, the delgates agreed.

The FDA rightfully cracked down on compounding pharmacies under a 2013 law brought on by 64 deaths traced to contaminated drugs at a dirty compounding facility. But physicians are concerned the FDA's new powers could end in-office compounding for individual patients, a common practice in many medical specialities.

The Congressional repeal of the Medicare sustained growth rate formula for calculating doctors' payments has the American Medical Association energized and ready to push for more reform. First up is trying to delay or stop the implementation of a new billing code system the group says will be costly for its members. It's known as ICD-10.

Generic drugs used to be the cheaper alternative to name brand drugs. Now they are sometimes more expensive. The blame could go to Wall Street, the Obama administration, or even pharma collusion, but someone better put a stop to the increases, AMA delegates agreed today.

The American Medical Association's 538 delegates will convene in Chicago, Il June 6-10. Vaccination policy, the ethics of doctors promoting unproven remedies, transgender military medical care, and are sunglasses sufficiently regulated are just of few of the 250 topics due to come up for discussion.