Latest KFF Health News Stories
To Ensure Its Leading Role, WHO Must Address Challenges Of Governance, Financing
“The World Health Organization (WHO) is facing an unprecedented crisis that threatens its position as the premier international health agency. To ensure its leading role, it must rethink its internal governance and revamp its financing mechanisms,” Tikki Pang, a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore and former director of research policy and cooperation at the WHO, and Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, write in this Nature Medicine opinion piece. They note that the WHO “was born in the bifurcated Cold War world in 1948, and every aspect of its charter, mission and organizational structure was molded by diplomatic tensions between NATO and the USSR,” but “with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of the new emerging market superpowers, the WHO finds itself trying to straddle a global dynamic for which it was not designed.”
Option For Couples To Test Together, Access ART For Prevention Can Reduce HIV Risk
“If we don’t leverage the power of innovation to transform how health services are provided and utilized, efforts to stop new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths can reach a stalemate,” UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe writes in this opinion piece in the Huffington Post’s “Healthy Living” blog. “Many of the advances in HIV prevention and treatment have come through innovation and applying knowledge in new ways,” he continues, highlighting the protective benefits of male circumcision and the introduction of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for people living with HIV.
Public-Private Partnership Pilot Program Could Facilitate Drug Development For Neglected Diseases
The National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a pilot program under which “three pharmaceutical companies have agreed to make dozens of their failed compounds available to researchers, who will investigate if the compounds can be re-purposed into successful treatments for other diseases,” Ashley Bennett, senior policy associate at the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), writes in the group’s “Breakthroughs” blog. “With this new therapeutics program, NIH and NCATS have created an exciting, innovative model for collaboration between the public and private sectors. … Now NCATS must ensure that research for neglected diseases is encouraged and supported through this initiative,” Bennett says (5/7).
USAID Committed To Improving Lives Of Children Affected By HIV/AIDS
“Despite many gains in the fight against AIDS, children still lag far behind adults in access to important medical services, including HIV prevention, care, and treatment,” Jen Pollakusky, communications analyst at USAID’s Bureau of Global Health Office of HIV/AIDS, writes in USAID’s “IMPACTblog,” noting that Monday marked the 10th anniversary of World AIDS Orphan Day. “By partnering with national governments, communities, and other organizations, USAID is committed to improving the lives of children orphaned and made vulnerable by AIDS — a critical step in the path to achieving an AIDS-free generation,” she writes, adding “we need to step-up our early intervention efforts for children under five years old” and “work with families to help them become more economically stable so they can access essential services and better provide for their children” (5/7).
AllAfrica.com Interviews International President Of MSF
In a “wide-ranging,” two-part interview with AllAfrica.com, Unni Karunakara, the international president of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), “spoke about the values that underpin the work of MSF, the organization’s culture and its passion for principled humanitarian action,” the news service writes. “Humanitarian aid has come a long way in the last 40 years, says … Karunakara, but he warns that important health care gains made in the last decade may be reversed if funding is not maintained,” the news service notes. In part one of the interview, Karunakara discusses “gains made in reducing medicine costs and providing treatment for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria,” as well as “the challenges MSF faces in remaining independent and principled in conflict situations.” In part two of the interview, “he looks at the future of MSF in a changing world” (Valentine, 5/7).
Huffington Post’s ‘Global Motherhood’ Section Features Opinion Pieces Leading Up To Mother’s Day
Leading up to Mother’s Day on May 13, the Huffington Post’s “Global Motherhood” section, in partnership with Mothers Day Every Day, an initiative of the White Ribbon Alliance and CARE, is publishing opinion pieces from a diverse group of people. The following are summaries of two of those opinion pieces.
Report Notes Rise In Obesity Slowing, But Still Huge Health, Cost Problem
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and Institute of Medicine are focusing on the country’s high rate of obesity – which is projected to rise to 42% of the U.S. over the next 10 years
Voters had more confidence in how GOP challenger Mitt Romney would handle the economy. Meanwhile, Rick Santorum, who previously had been a candidate in the Republican presidential primary, offered a late-night e-mail endorsement to Romney.
New York Times Examines Cuba’s Sanitarium Network For People Living With HIV
The New York Times examines the Cuban network of sanitariums created to house and treat people living with HIV, “to keep the infected from having sex with anyone uninfected and to help them die comfortably.” Inside the facilities, patients received food, their former salaries, and care, but they could only leave with escorts, the newspaper notes. According to the New York Times, the sanitariums “were harshly criticized — Dr. Jonathan Mann, the first AIDS director at the World Health Organization, called them ‘pretty prisons’ — but they had a huge damping effect on the early epidemic. Fewer than 150 new cases were detected in the country each year through 1990.”
Bloomberg Markets magazine in its June issue examines microbes that incorporate the New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1, or NDM-1, gene, making them resistant to nearly all available antibiotics. The article focuses on India, where the gene is thought to have developed due to the widespread and uncontrolled use of antibiotics, but notes that cases of NDM-1 antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been documented in Canada, France, Italy, Kosovo, and South Africa, without patients having traveled to India. Bloomberg describes how the gene was discovered and named; how NDM-1 is affecting India’s medical tourism industry; what the Indian government and health officials in the country and elsewhere are doing to fight multidrug-resistant bacteria; and how NDM-1 is spreading through the water and possibly food supply in India. “The number of countries reporting NDM-1 will continue to grow as more bacteria pick up the gene and people transport it around the globe,” Bloomberg writes (Gale/Narayan, 5/7).
Save The Children Releases Annual Motherhood Index, Ranking Niger ‘Worst Place To Be A Mother’
Save the Children’s 13th annual “State of the World’s Mothers” report, released Tuesday, “shows Niger as the worst place to be a mother in the world — replacing Afghanistan for the first time in two years,” and ranks Norway as the best place to be a mother, according to a Save the Children press release. “The ranking, which compares 165 countries around the globe, looks at factors such as mothers’ health, education and economic status, as well as critical child indicators such as health and nutrition,” the press release notes (5/8). “In addition to its annual ranking, the charity’s report emphasized the issue of children’s nutrition,” Global News Desk writes, adding that the report “noted that one in four of the world’s children are chronically malnourished or stunted — with little access to proper nutrients” (Diao, 5/8).
Federal Appeals Court Reverses Ruling On VA Mental Health Care
The court dismissed a lawsuit brought by veterans’ groups on the basis that courts do not have authority to order such changes in how the Department of Veterans Affairs system delivers care.
Home Health And Long-Term Care Issues And Trends
USA Today reports on the profitability of home health care businesses while NPR examines long-term care insurance.
State Roundup: Calif. Prison Health Care Reverts To State; Fla. To Redo IT System
Media outlets report on a variety of health policy issues in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, D.C., Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri and Texas.
States Push Feds To Include 3 Million ‘Dual Eligibles’ In Pilot Program
Though only designed for 2 million beneficiaries, states want the federal government to open a pilot program on dual eligibles — those who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid — to 3 million. In the meantime, California is shifting its dual eligibles to managed care.
Abbott Agrees To $1.6B Settlement With States, Feds
Abbott Laboratories will pay the federal government and 45 states $1.6 billion after admitting to marketing its anti-seizure drug Depakote for off-label uses over 10 years.
Health Affairs: Access To Care Declining, Study Says
The May issue of Health Affairs examines access to care issues, high-deductible health plans, the relationship between hospitals’ size and health care costs, and a number of other important topics.
A selection of editorials and opinions on health care policy from around the country.
Legislatures Twist And Turn On Health Budgets, Autism Coverage And Abortion
States confront a bevy of health issues including finding funds for health services, taking control of Medicare and Medicaid programs, mandating coverage for autism and limiting abortions.
Goosby Calls For ‘Extraordinary Resources’ To Be Put Into Male Circumcision To Prevent HIV Infection
Male circumcision is “a highly significant, lifetime intervention” to prevent HIV infection that deserves “extraordinary resources,” U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby on Monday told a meeting of 400 army officials from 80 countries in Africa, Eastern Europe and central Asia, Agence France-Presse reports. Studies have shown that male circumcision can significantly reduce the risk of HIV infection, the news agency notes, adding that the U.S. “is sponsoring programs in several African countries with a goal of circumcising four million men by 2013.”