The Ohio Third Frontier program plans to award $17 million next year to companies developing biomedical and medical imaging technologies, according to a request for proposal posted at its Web site.

It’s not just Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh who are spreading fear about the safety of the H1N1 vaccine; some doctors are advising their patients to avoid the vaccine.

Dr. Devi Shetty, who gained renown as Mother Theresa’s heart surgeon in the early 1990s, founded a cardiology hospital in India that charges $2,000, on average, for open-heart surgery, compared with hospitals in the U.S. that are paid between $20,000 and $100,000, depending on the complexity of the surgery.

One key provision of the bill would allow a state agency to force a state worker who exhibits signs of whatever illness caused the emergency to immediately leave the workplace.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that the H1N1 flu has killed nearly 4,000 Americans, including 540 children, and sickened about 22 million, the Associated Press reported. The numbers – from April through mid-October – are “a long-awaited better attempt to quantify the new flu’s true toll,” the AP said.

President Barack Obama on Saturday declared the H1N1 flu outbreak that has claimed 1,000 lives in the United States – and nearly 5,000 worldwide – a national emergency, The New York Times reported. That declaration “allows health care systems to quickly implement disaster plans should they become overwhelmed,” according to The White House.

The United States depends too much on other countries to manufacture vaccines, and delays in the production of H1N1 flu shots prove it, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress yesterday, The Los Angeles Times reported.

GOJO Industries Inc., the leading maker of consumer hand sanitizing gel products that makes Purell, says it cannot keep pace with orders for the hand sanitizer, even with its factories working 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Demand for the H1N1 flu vaccine is currently outstripping supply, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday. At this point, there is “only some vaccine and not everyone can receive that vaccine,” he said. However, he didn’t seem to think that trend would continue.

During an H1N1 flu briefing Thursday, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released some startling facts about the virus’ toll on pregnant women. As of late August, 28 pregnant women in the United States had died of H1N1 flu and 100 had been hospitalized in intensive care, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC.