Latest KFF Health News Stories
A selection of health opinions and editorials from around the United States.
Congress Wrestles With Medical Research Funding, FDA Approval Processes
Medical research advocates warn Congress about the dire impact that automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect in January would have on efforts to control disease and develop life-saving treatments. Also in the news, how the concept of “fast-track” Food and Drug Administration approvals is playing on Capitol Hill.
NIAID Director Fauci Discusses Truvada On PBS NewsHour
The PBS NewsHour on Friday featured an interview of Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), by Senior Correspondent Ray Suarez, in which they discussed an FDA panel’s recommendation that the antiretroviral Truvada be approved for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV among healthy people at risk of contracting the virus. If approved, Truvada “can be potentially very effective” as a prevention modality among specific populations at high risk of contracting HIV, Fauci said, according to the interview. Fauci also discussed the medication’s cost and concerns about adherence to the drug regimen, PBS notes (Suarez, 5/11).
Global Fund Board To Announce Funding Decisions For Additional Grants By April 2013
After announcing it plans to spend an additional $1.67 million over the next two years, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Board on Friday at the end of its 26th meeting in Geneva said (.pdf) its “secretariat will present at an upcoming board meeting in September new funding models drafted in consultation with recipient countries and other stakeholders,” and the board will “announce funding decisions no later than April 2013,” Devex reports.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including a report about how the Ryan budget plan — specifically, its Medicare changes — is playing in congressional races.
Obama Administration’s Rule On Health Insurance Rebates Has Eye On Election
The final medical loss ratio (MLR) rule mandates that insurers tell policyholders that the rebates are connected to the 2010 federal health law.
House Subcommittee Approves FY13 U.S. International Affairs Spending Bill Without Amendment
The House Appropriations State and Foreign Operations subcommittee on Wednesday approved, without changes, its version of the FY 2013 U.S. international affairs appropriations bill, Devex reports (Mungcal, 5/10). The bill provides $40.1 billion in regular discretionary funding and an additional $8.2 billion in funding for ongoing efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, and if enacted would represent a 12 percent cut from the President’s request and a five percent cut from 2012, according to a House Committee on Appropriations press release (5/8). “Despite the cuts, the legislation won bipartisan backing from the Appropriations foreign aid panel, though it’s sure to draw a White House veto threat because it’s in line with a broader GOP spending plan that breaks faith with last summer’s budget and debt pact with President Barack Obama,” the Associated Press/Washington Post writes (5/9). “The bill now goes to the full House Appropriations Committee, which is expected to vote on it next week,” Devex notes (5/10).
Most Deaths In Children Under 5 From Preventable Infectious Causes, Study Suggests
“Most deaths of young children around the world are from mainly preventable infectious causes,” according to a study published in the Lancet on Friday, BBC News reports. A team led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health looked at mortality figures from 2010 and “found two-thirds of the 7.6 million children who died before their fifth birthday did so due to infectious causes — and pneumonia was found to be the leading cause of death,” the news service writes. “They found child deaths had fallen by two million (26 percent) since 2000, and there have been significant reductions in leading causes of death including diarrhea and measles — as well as pneumonia,” BBC notes (5/11). However, the authors “caution the decline is not sufficient enough” to achieve the fourth Millennium Development Goal, “which seeks to reduce child mortality by two-thirds in 2015,” a Johns Hopkins press release writes (5/10).
“For many years, in large parts of West Africa, the percentage of women who use contraception has stalled at less than 10 percent, leading many to declare that there is very little or no demand for family planning (FP) in the region. This couldn’t be farther from the truth,” Catharine McKaig, project director of family planning at the Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP), the USAID Bureau for Global Health’s flagship maternal, neonatal and child health program, writes in a post in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists” blog. “Among women — young and old, those who have had many children and those who have had few or none — there is a sea-change happening. These women are expressing their desire for family planning methods, and our approach towards integrating maternal and child health care services with FP is producing results,” she writes, concluding, “It is an optimal moment to unite as a community supporting women’s health worldwide to ensure adequate supply and minimal cost for family planning services to the hundreds of thousands of women in West Africa who are seeking care” (5/10).
U.S. Investment In Global Health Has Been Successful, Deserves Continued Congressional Support
“Over the next few weeks, appropriators will be engaged in the challenging task of evaluating U.S. foreign assistance funding, including how effectively Congress’ global health investments are being used,” Charles Lyons, president and CEO of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation; Molly Joel Coye, interim president and CEO of PATH; Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save the Children; and Richard Stearns, president of World Vision, write in this Roll Call opinion piece. They continue, “As organizations funded in part by the U.S. government to implement global health programs in the field,” we “see firsthand how U.S. global health programs are working, and why now is not the time to cut multilateral and bilateral funding for these efforts.”
House Approves $310B In Cuts; Medicaid And Children’s Health Care Targeted
These trims, proposed by House GOP budgeteers, are designed to shield the Pentagon from automatic cuts that were laid out in last year’s debt accord. The measure has little chance of being passed by the Senate, but uncerscores that politics behind the budget debate.
With Health Issues In Flux, Lawmakers And Lobbyists Struggle With Strategies
Politico Pro interviewed six health care lobbyists and found that, in their view, much of their strategic planning has to do with the Supreme Court’s upcoming health law decision and the outcome of the November elections. But some lawmakers are signaling hope that 2012 could be the year to address Medicare’s “doc fix” problem.
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.
“Buruli ulcer could spread as agriculture intensifies in Africa, making prevention research vital,” Rousseau Djouaka, a researcher at the Benin branch of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), argues in this SciDev.Net opinion piece. “The intensification of lowland agriculture has been linked with the increased incidence of human diseases such as malaria, schistosomiasis and Buruli ulcer (BU),” he writes, noting, “Of these, BU remains the least well documented and most neglected in the wet agro-ecosystems of west and central Africa.” He provides statistics regarding infection rates in Africa and notes, “People affected by the skin infection, caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium ulcerans, develop large ulcers which often result in scarring, deformities, amputations, and disabilities, especially when the diagnosis is delayed.”
Study Looking At Impact Of HIV Funding On Rwanda’s Health System Has ‘Serious Limitations’
In this post on the Center for Global Development’s (CGD) “Global Health Policy” blog, Research Fellow Victoria Fan, Director of Global Health Policy Amanda Glassman, and Research Assistant Rachel Silverman of CGD examine what they call the “serious limitations” of a study published recently in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene that looked at the impact of HIV/AIDS funding on Rwanda’s health system. After describing several “shortcomings,” they write, “We understand that the authors likely suffered from significant data constraints; likewise, we recognize the enormous empirical challenges in demonstrating system-wide effects at the national level. Still, it remains important to carefully state results and recognize the limitations of one’s research.” They conclude, “The jury is still out on whether HIV/AIDS funding has displaced or improved efforts on other disease control priorities” (5/10).
Improving Rural Health Care Systems Would Help Progress In Child Survival
In a post on USAID’s “IMPACTblog,” Jonathan Quick, president and CEO of Management Sciences for Health (MSH), discusses USAID’s “Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday” campaign and several MSH programs working to improve child survival. He writes, “Expanding access to quality health care closer to the home will improve child survival in low-income countries. Training and certifying rural medicine dispensers at a national scale, and providing community-based care by community health workers, will help empower rural communities and improve the health of children in these resource-poor areas. Through these cost-effective, high-impact interventions closer to the home, we can accelerate the reduction in child mortality and save millions of lives” (5/10).
“Scientists from 15 countries are calling for a better political response to the provision of water and energy to meet the challenge of feeding a world of nine billion people within 30 years,” Reuters reports. The leaders of “some of the world’s leading science academies” issued several statements on Thursday “ahead of the G8 summit in the United States” as “part of the annual lobbying effort aimed at focusing the attention of world leaders on issues the scientific community regards as crucial,” the news agency writes (Wickham, 5/11).
FDA Panel Recommends Approval Of Truvada As HIV Prevention Tool
“In a move that could lead to a new milestone for treatment in the evolution of the worldwide AIDS epidemic,” a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel on Thursday recommended Gilead Sciences’ antiretroviral drug Truvada be approved for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV among healthy people at risk of contracting the virus, Reuters reports, noting the drug is already approved to treat HIV infection (Morgan, 5/10). “The panel voted 19-3 to approve the drug for use in gay men and 19-2, with one member abstaining, for heterosexual couples in which one person is HIV-negative,” according to the Wall Street Journal (Dooren, 5/10). “The recommendation is the first time that government advisers have advocated giving antiviral medicine to healthy people who might be exposed through sexual activity to the virus that causes AIDS,” the New York Times writes (Grady, 5/10). Though the FDA is not required to follow the panel’s advice, it usually does, and “[a] final decision is expected by June 15,” the Associated Press/Fox News reports (5/11).
Algeria, UNAIDS To Build First HIV/AIDS Research Center In MENA Region
“Algeria will partner with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to build the first HIV/AIDS research center in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA),” Nature Middle East reports. “The center, which should be operational by 2013, will be based in the city of Tamanrasset in southern Algeria” and “will bring together researchers from Africa, Europe and the United States working on treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS,” the magazine writes.
FAO Head Warns Of Funding Gap For Food Security Activities In Sahel, Horn Of Africa
Speaking at an economic forum in Madrid, Spain, “[t]he head of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO], Jose Graziano da Silva, warned Thursday of a major funding gap for activities in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa,” Agence France-Presse reports. “He added that boosting food security entailed combining emergency action with support for family farming and smallholder production, as well as promoting long term development and reducing vulnerability to extreme events, like drought,” the news agency writes (5/10). According to the U.N. News Centre, Graziano da Silva also called for the involvement of “civil society, private enterprise, international agencies, and the governments of developing and developed countries” to help fight chronic hunger and malnutrition — which affects one of every seven people in the world — because it “is a challenge too great for FAO or any government to overcome alone” (5/10).
