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Osama Bin Laden didn’t have kidney disease, dialysis (Morning Read)

Current medical news from today including: Osama Bin Laden's health, time to break up Pfizer, happy times for late-stage investors and Medtronic feels the heat from Congress.

Current medical news and unique business news for anyone who cares about the healthcare industry.

Osama Bin Laden’s health: One of the enduring questions about Osama Bin Laden over the years revolved around his health: How could he survive in hiding while needing access to complex medical technology for dialysis, a filtering of the blood necessitated by kidney failure? NBC News now has the answer — Bin Laden never needed dialysis and didn’t have kidney failure, despite earlier claims by Pakistan’s ex-president. He had low blood pressure and an enlarged heart.

It’s great to be late: Venture capital firms investing in late-stage companies enjoyed average returns of more than 35 percent in 2010, according to data from Thomson Reuters.

The month in biotech stocks: April was a very kind month to shareholders of Amarin Pharmaceutical, which saw its shares appreciate 115 percent in the month. Shareholders of K-V Pharmaceutical are less pleased.

America’s greatest national security threat: It wasn’t Osama Bin Laden, it’s Medicare, says a conservative physician-blogger. Please join me in greeting this revelation with a collective, “Huh?”