ALSO NOTED: AMA joins DTC advertising fray; U.K. toughening up on pharma promos; and much more...

> We all expected Democrats to rake DTC ads over the coals during yesterday's hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight arm. What we didn't expect was for the American Medical Association to join the fray. DTC report [1]

> U.S. lawmakers aren't the only ones toughening up on pharma promos. In the U.K., the industry itself is strengthening its code. Report [2]

> Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb may have squashed copycat Plavix in the U.S., but competition is now popping up in Europe. Plavix report [3]

> We've all heard the safety warnings about the Ortho-Evra birth control patch and its link to life-threatening blood clots. Public Citizen is now campaigning to have the patch taken off the market completely. Ortho-Evra report [4]

> Researchers are touting the early results from a study of a new brain cancer vaccine that combines protein antigens extracted from a patient's tumor and matches them with white cells also drawn from the patient. Vaccine report [5]

And Finally... The headlines may have died down in recent months, but bird flu experts say that the threat of a global pandemic has actually been growing. Report [6]