Latest KFF Health News Stories
Viewpoints: The Potential Impact Of Medical Device Tax; ‘Unsustainable’ Health And Pension Benefits
A selection of editorials and opinions on health care policy from around the country.
Longer Looks: Toobin’s Tips On SCOTUS Decision
This week’s selections include articles from ABC News, The New Yorker, American Medical News, the Atlantic and The New York Times.
UNAIDS Governing Body Meets In Geneva
The “UNAIDS governing body, the Programme Coordinating Board (PCB), is holding its 30th Board meeting from 5-7 June in Geneva,” the agency reports on its website. “This year’s thematic segment will take place on the second day of the meeting and will focus on combination prevention or the urgent need to reinvigorate HIV prevention responses globally by scaling up and achieving synergies to halt and begin to reverse the spread of the AIDS epidemic” the agency writes (6/5).
“Delivering a speech at [Wednesday’s] opening session of the 16th Conference of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe congratulated leaders across the region for their personal commitment to the HIV response, specifically with regard to upholding human rights and protecting human capital,” UNAIDS reports in an article on its website. “Addressing eight Heads of State and other high-level participants in Lome, Togo, he called on African leaders to reduce their ‘triple dependency’ on external sources for HIV drugs, commodities, and technologies,” the agency writes, adding, “To ensure the health and security of their populations, African leaders should focus greater attention and resources on the local production of medicines, said the UNAIDS executive director” (6/6).
June Issue Of ‘Global Fund News Flash’ Email Newsletter Available
The June issue of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria’s email newsletter, the “Global Fund News Flash,” was released on Thursday. The issue highlights the Global Fund’s “Better Grants for Increased Impact” project, discusses malaria in Madagascar, notes the launch of the (RED) RUSH TO ZERO campaign, profiles Indonesia Fund Portfolio Manager Gail Steckley, and features a new cell phone application from Charity Miles, which “enables people to earn money for charity simply by walking, running or biking” (6/7).
CSIS Publishes Report On Advancing Health In Ethiopia
The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) on Wednesday released a report called “Advancing Health in Ethiopia.” The report examines what the U.S. can “realistically expect to achieve in its ongoing engagement in health in Ethiopia” and what the core considerations to guide future U.S. efforts should be, CSIS writes on its website (6/6). In a post in the center’s “Smart Global Health” blog, report authors J. Stephen Morrison and Suzanne Brundage, director and assistant director of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, respectively, reflect on the report findings. They write, “It focuses on the complexity of the U.S.-Ethiopian bilateral relationship just prior to the June 14-15 Call to Action on Child Survival, to be held in Washington, D.C.,” adding, “[I]t examines the Global Health Initiative (GHI) experience in Ethiopia at a moment when the Obama administration is critically engaging with Congress over what modifications in the GHI approach make sense for the future” (6/6).
WHO Identifies Best Target Areas For Seasonal Malaria Treatment
“Pre-emptive treatment of children living in regions where [malaria] is prevalent only during the rainy season could avert 11 million cases and 50,000 deaths a year,” the journal Nature reports, adding, “The estimates are based on the world’s first guidance on seasonal malaria chemoprevention, issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March.” “‘One-size-fits-all policies, like bed nets, are great,’ explains Rob Newman, director of the WHO’s Global Malaria Programme in Geneva,” Nature writes. “But for policies with a number of requirements, we need these sorts of analyses to help policymakers chart the path forward,” he added, according to the journal. “Researchers think that parts of Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger will emerge [as] the most promising candidates for seasonal chemoprevention according to three factors: malaria burden, predicted malaria seasonality and the efficacy of the drug combination sulphadoxine, pyrimethamine and amodiaquine (SP-AQ),” Nature adds (Maxmen, 6/6).
UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said Wednesday “that a more transparent and competitive market will lead to savings of more than $20 million over the next 12 months through a price reduction of 20 percent for bednets that protect people from malaria,” a UNICEF press release reports, noting, “The price of an insecticide-treated, long-lasting bednet has dropped to under $3” (6/6). “‘Never before have bednets been as accessible and affordable for children and families in developing countries,’ said the Director of UNICEF’s Supply Division in Copenhagen, Shanelle Hall, adding that the price reduction is the result of a long-term strategy to create a healthy global market for bednets,” the U.N. News Centre writes (6/6).
Independent Evaluation Of PMI Presented To U.S. Congress
The Center for Global Health and Development (CGHD) at Boston University on Thursday delivered its report (.pdf) on the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), released in February, to the U.S. Congress, IIP Digital reports, noting the “independent evaluation team finds that the [PMI] has been ‘very successful’ in reducing children’s deaths from the mosquito-borne parasitic disease, but also warns that the program must gear up if those gains are to be sustained.” The news service adds, “The CGHD report recommends a re-evaluation of malaria prevention methods, including insecticide use, which, the researchers find, covers a fraction of the at-risk population at a high cost” (6/6).
In this post in the Guardian’s “Poverty Matters” blog, Prue Clarke, an Africa correspondent, media development specialist and the co-founder and executive director of New Narratives — Africans Reporting Africa, writes, “By not supporting journalists, aid agencies are severely limiting their access to the truth about what is happening in developing countries and, therefore, their ability to make a difference.” She continues, “In our efforts to promote our reporters’ work and fund our operations, we repeatedly meet fantastic aid groups that are driven to improve the lives of poor people in Africa, particularly women,” adding, “They fund every manner of effort to, for example, end violence against women, improve maternal health, increase the number of girls in education and prevent exploitation by foreign resources companies.”
Experimental Drug Tested Against Multi-Drug Resistant TB
“Researchers who tested a novel type of antibiotic against multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis [MDR-TB] are reporting that nearly half of patients who got the new drug cleared the bacteria from their lung fluid in two months,” according to a study published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, Reuters reports. Japanese pharmaceutical company Otsuka developed the experimental drug, delamanid, and “also designed and financed the clinical trial, which took place in 17 medical centers across nine countries,” the news service writes (Emery, 6/6).
Politico Examines Implications Of Senate’s Draft Farm Bill On Maritime Industry, Food Aid
Politico examines the implications of the Senate’s draft farm bill on the maritime industry, noting the industry “makes much of its money on foreign-aid shipments, courtesy of the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development,” and writing, “The Senate’s farm bill extends [Food for Peace, the largest international food-aid program] for the next five years but pulls $40 million a year from shipments to go toward cash grants and the purchase of food in local markets.” The news service adds, “The success of the industry lies in the continued authorization of these programs with the farm bill looming before the Senate this week.”
Political Will, Health Concerns, Increased Funding Driving Family Planning In Africa, Report Says
The Nairobi-based African Institute for Development Policy on Tuesday presented a report called “Africa on the Move!” at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, VOA News reports, noting the report “says that in some African countries, political will, maternal and child health concerns as well as more and more funding are helping to develop effective family planning.” According to VOA, “Steve McDonald, the host of the event and Africa director at the Wilson Center, said partnerships between governments and religious organizations, which sometimes provide the bulk of health services in remote areas, are also crucial.”
Survey Finds 1 In 10 New Cases Of TB In China Are Drug-Resistant
“One in 10 cases of tuberculosis in China cannot be treated by the most commonly-used drugs, driven by a lack of testing and misuse of medicine, according to a national survey that showed for the first time the size of the drug-resistant epidemic,” the Associated Press reports (Wong, 6/7). “‘In 2007, one third of the patients with new cases of tuberculosis and one half of the patients with previously treated tuberculosis had drug-resistant disease,’ said the study in the New England Journal of Medicine,” Agence France-Presse reports, adding, “Even more, the prevalence of multi-drug resistant [tuberculosis (MDR-TB)] in new cases (5.7 percent) was nearly twice the global average, said the study” (6/6).
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including a report that some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are meeting to attempt to find ways to deal with an upcoming deadline — Jan. 1 — which is also known as the “fiscal cliff.”
Wallack On Vermont’s Goal: ‘Universal, Affordable Coverage’
Anya Rader Wallack, tapped to move Vermont toward a single payer system, is confident the state would enact its own individual mandate if the Supreme Court strikes down the federal mandate.
Migrant Health Clinics Caught In Crossfire Of Immigration Debate
The hunt for illegal immigrants interferes with federally funded care for farmworkers.
Medicaid Association Director: Uncertainty, Legislative Politics Have Slowed State Implementation
Andy Allison, Arkansas Medicaid director and president of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, is adamant that cash-strapped states won’t be able to do much to expand coverage to the uninsured if the Supreme Court strikes down the law.
Table: Caring for Migrant Farmworkers
Details about the 156 health centers that get federal funds to provide primary care to migrant and seasonal farmworkers regardless of immigration status.
Lots of ‘C’s As Hospitals Get Graded For Patient Safety
The cities of New York and Los Angeles grade their restaurants on cleanliness and the precautions they take to avoid making customers sick. Now hospitals are getting similar assessments for their patient safety records from the Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit devoted to patient safety. For 2,651 hospitals, Leapfrog created a single letter grade out of […]