Top stories in health and medicine, October 1, 2012

This series is brought to you by MedPage Today.

1. Longer Office Hours, Lower Healthcare Costs. After primary care doctors close their doors on weekends and evenings, patients turn to urgent care facilities, pharmacy “minute clinics,” and emergency rooms to get the care they need. In doing so, they may also be contributing to the nation’s skyrocketing health system costs.

2. CDC on Obesity: Public Health or Politics?. The CDC has operated generally with bipartisan support for several decades regardless of who was in the White House or which party controlled Congress.

3. Unlike SARS, New Virus Doesn’t Transmit Easily, WHO Says. A novel coronavirus — a member of the same family as the pathogen that caused SARS — does not appear to pass easily among people.