Latest KFF Health News Stories
Survey: Health Insurance Cost Growth Outpaces Everything Else
But the rate of increase is projected to be less than 10 percent for the first time since 2001.
The Practice Of Medicine: What Does The Future Hold?
Reuters reports on a survey of physician attitudes about how the health law might change their profession. Meanwhile, in California, family physicians are targeting young people in efforts to recruit future doctors.
J&J Fined $1.2B For Hiding Anti-Psychotic Drug Dangers, Deceptive Marketing
An Arkansas judge fined the drug maker and a subsidiary for misleading doctors and the public on the risks involved with taking an anti-psychotic drug, Risperdal, and for marketing the drug for an off-label use to the state’s Medicaid system.
State Roundup: No New Policies From Cross-Border Insurance Law
News outlets across the country report on a variety of health policy issues.
Planned Parenthood Sues Texas After Exclusion From Women’s Health Program
Eight Planned Parenthood branches are suing Texas over their exclusion from the Texas Women’s Health Program, saying denying them a place denies them their right to free speech. In March, Texas dropped its state Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood because Planned Parenthood provides abortion services.
ACOs, IRS Roles In Health Reform Implementation Grab Headlines
Subscription websites report on recent developments related to the health law.
A selection of editorials and opinions on health care policy from around the country.
Longer Looks: Diagnosing Autism In Minutes; Finding New Uses For Old Drugs
This week’s selections of interesting magazine articles comes from Time, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, American Medical News and AARP Magazine.
IPS Examines How HIV/AIDS Affects Women In Western Nepal
Inter Press Service examines how HIV/AIDS is affecting women in western Nepal, where life in the poor region “is getting worse thanks to HIV infection brought back by men who go to neighboring India for seasonal work.” According to IPS, “Worst hit are the region’s women, many of whom have had to sell off their land and livestock to get HIV treatment for their husbands and, in many cases, for themselves.” Some women who are widowed by HIV may find work as laborers, but the “social stigma attached to HIV and fears of contracting the virus among villagers” makes life difficult for women affected by HIV/AIDS, the news service notes. The article includes quotes from several women and community health workers involved in prevention, counseling and care of women affected by the disease. “According to the government’s National Centre for AIDS and STD Control (NCASC), women in the 15-49 age group form over 28 percent of the estimated 55,000 people living with HIV in the country,” IPS writes (Newar, 4/11).
Researchers, Industry Leaders Meet In New York To Discuss Global Health R&D
“New York global health researchers and industry leaders gathered Monday in Manhattan to discuss how global health research and development is fueling innovation and saving lives, not to mention funding jobs and companies in the state,” the Center for Global Health Policy’s “Science Speaks” blog reports. At the event, organized by Research!America, “Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) made introductory remarks in which she highlighted some of the impressive milestones that investments in global health by the U.S. and other global partners have achieved over the past few decades,” the blog notes (Mazzotta, 4/11). “Lawmakers and global health advocates called on researchers, pharmaceutical companies and funding partnerships to actively expand congressional lobbying for their global health initiatives, or risk severe federal budget cuts for such projects in coming years,” Nature’s “Spoonful of Medicine” blog notes (Hersher, 4/11).
Guardian Examines Swaziland’s HIV Epidemic
The Guardian examines the HIV epidemic in Swaziland, writing, “While neighboring countries have made inroads against the disease, the mountain kingdom of one million people continues to suffer setbacks, partly due to cultural norms around sexuality being exacerbated by a financial crisis.” According to the news service, Swaziland has “the highest HIV rate in the world, with more than one in four adults estimated to be carrying the virus.”
USAID-Supported ‘MAMA’ Program Brings Health Information, Services To Mothers Through Mobile Phones
In this post in USAID’s “IMPACTblog,” Kirsten Gagnaire, global partnership director of the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA), discusses the program’s operations in Bangladesh. The program, “[o]ne of the most prominent mHealth initiatives, launched by Secretary Hillary Clinton on Mother’s Day last year,” is supported by IDEA/Mobile Solutions, “an office at USAID that champions the use of mobile technology for development issues,” the blog notes. Gagnaire writes, “In March, MAMA board representatives visited Bangladesh to meet with MAMA country partners and conduct field visits to meet pregnant women, new mothers and family members who have subscribed to the MAMA mobile phone service, which is called ‘Aponjon’ in Bangladesh” (4/11).
“Abruptly discontinuing co-trimoxazole — an antibiotic used to prevent opportunistic infections in HIV-positive people — can lead to a higher incidence of malaria and diarrhea compared with patients who keep on taking the drug,” according to a study conducted by the CDC in eastern Uganda and published by the Oxford Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases in March, PlusNews reports. “The researchers found that 72 percent of the 315 cases of fever reported by study participants occurred among those who had stopped taking co-trimoxazole prophylaxis, and they were also nearly twice more likely to report diarrhea,” the news service notes.
Sri Lankan health authorities “have reported a three-fold increase in the number of recorded dengue fever cases in the first quarter of this year,” IRIN reports. According to the national Epidemiology Unit, “9,317 dengue cases and 38 deaths were reported in the first three months of 2012, [compared with] 3,103 in the first quarter of 2011,” the news service writes, noting that more than half of the cases were recorded “in the country’s Western Province, where most of the island’s 20 million inhabitants live.” Intermittent rain, which allows stagnant water to collect and create mosquito breeding grounds, are expected to continue through April, and “[h]ealth officials agree that removing mosquito breeding sites is the most important step in mitigating risk,” according to IRIN. “In May 2010 the government launched a campaign to curb the spread of the disease,” and last year the number of cases dropped when compared to 2010, the news service notes (4/11).
Jim Kim’s ‘Experience And Humility’ Make Him A Good Nominee For World Bank President
In this Washington Post opinion piece, Paul Farmer, a Harvard professor and co-founder of Partners In Health, and John Gershman, a professor at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, discuss the nomination of Jim Yong Kim, a global health expert and Dartmouth College president, to be president of the World Bank. “Recent claims from some economists that Kim is ‘anti-growth’ are based on a willful misreading and selective reporting of passages from Kim’s co-edited volume ‘Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor,’ to which we both contributed,” they write, adding, “The book’s objective was to ask questions about what types of growth and what kinds of policies were beneficial for those struggling to lift themselves out of poverty.”
U.N. Secretary-General Taps U.K. PM Cameron To Chair Committee To Develop New Set Of MDGs
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has been asked by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to chair a “U.N. committee tasked with establishing a new set of U.N. millennium development goals [MDGs] to follow the present goals, which expire in 2015,” the Guardian reports. “The invitation, accepted by the prime minister, represents a political coup for Cameron, who has stuck to the government’s commitment to increase overseas aid to 0.7 percent of U.K. GDP, despite the recession,” the newspaper writes. The MDGs — which “range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015” — “decide the international targets of global aid channeled bilaterally and multilaterally through organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF,” the Guardian notes.
VOA Health Report Examines Health Needs In Burma Amid Recent Political Changes
This VOA Special English Health Report examines health needs in Burma, where “[h]ealth workers are warning about the spread of a form of drug-resistant malaria.” The report discusses recent political changes in the country, stating, “In the past year, Burma has opened its political system and reached cease-fire agreements with some ethnic militias,” but “many aid groups say their jobs have not gotten any easier.” The report states, “Until 2009, just three international non-governmental aid organizations had the required approvals to operate inside Burma,” but “[m]any were able to get a memorandum of understanding that allowed them to work without an official registration.”
Regulatory Streamlining Can Improve Access To Treatments
Loren Becker, manager of the Global Health Technologies Coalition’s (GHTC) Global Health Regulatory Team, discusses the new East African Community’s (EAC) Medicines Regulatory Harmonization initiative, launched at the end of March in Arusha, Tanzania, in this post in GHTC’s “Breakthroughs” blog. The program aims “to streamline and harmonize regulatory processes to reduce the time and cost of delivering new products” to improve patient access to necessary therapies, and includes “regulators from six agencies in five East African countries — Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda — as well as Zanzibar,” she writes. Becker adds, “Over the next several years, support for these efforts — in the form of technical assistance, training opportunities, and political backing — from the FDA and other experienced regulatory authorities will be crucial” (Lufkin, 4/11).
Dubai Cares Makes $1M Donation For Deworming Program In Angola
The philanthropic organization Dubai Cares has announced a $1 million donation to partner with The END Fund in the establishment “of a school-based deworming program that will treat children in Angola,” according to the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases’ (NTD) “End the Neglect” blog. “The END Fund’s chairman William Campbell stated that, ‘This pioneering investment in partnership with The END Fund adds further momentum behind our goal of eradicating Africa’s seven most prevalent NTDs by 2020,'” the blog notes (Patel, 4/11).
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about Massachusetts’ health reform’s sixth birthday.
