Pharmaceutical companies have increased prices on 85 brands of medicines listed on the PBS. The brands of medicines, most of which were reduced in price in April following the Government's reforms to the PBS, have had their cost to consumers increase by up to $7.04 due to the pharmaceutical companies increasing a brand surcharge from August 1st. The PBS has published information which lists the brands that have increased in price and a corresponding list of less expensive brands.

Drew Berry is a world renowned biomedical animator who works for the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. He is head of WEHI.TV which explains the discoveries of scientists at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute through 3D animation.

Watch the animations that have been created.

He has received many awards and commendations for his work, the latest one being a MacArthur fellowship in 2010.

Australia's health 2012 is the 13th biennial health report of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Australia's health is the AIHW's report card on the health of Australians and the functioning of their health system.

Some of the highlights from the current report

• Among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, Australia compares well on indicators such as daily smoking, life expectancy and all-cause mortality (page 37).

The Telehealth Centre at the PA Hospital is close to being opened. Staff at the PACE/PAH Health Sciences Libraries had a visit from Associate Professor Anthony Smith, Centre for Online Health in April this year. He gave us a presentation on the Online Health Centre which is now located in a third of the existing PA Hospital Library space.

The publisher is withdrawing online access to John Murtagh's general practice resource from 12th June 2012.

Access to the hard copy books is available via this link for the 5th edition and this link for the 4th edition.

Access to various chapters have been made available via the Library course reserve for MEDI3005.

From July this year, GPs will be able to access a patient's entire prescription history during a consultation. Real time reporting software called DORA, is being piloted in Tasmania. The software has the capacity to be integrated with existing medical software programs and has been licensed to the Commonwealth who will fund the rollout to all prescribers.

Read more here.

Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder PMDD is mooted to be included as a as a genuine psychiatric condition in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM - 5). For more information about this and the other controversial proposals, read about it here.

Publication bias is a very big problem particularly in the area of drug trials. This is a link to an interview with Dr Ben Goldacre who wants to highlight the issues associated with clinical trials with negative outcomes remaining unpublished.