Archives: Morning Breakouts

State officials in Minnesota, California and Washington are among those moving ahead regardless of the Supreme Court's ruling.

New York City mayor seeks to limit the size of sugary beverages, but the plan draws scorn from the soft drink industry and heightens the debate about how involved government should be in efforts to "steer individual behavior in the name of health."

Several outlets offer opinions on obesity issues and on the New York City mayor's proposal to curb the sale of sugary drinks.

But the fact the two companies have dropped these claims does not mean they are nearing a new deal.

So far, Leavitt has acted as a "low-profile advisor" to GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. Meanwhile, advisors to President Barack Obama and Romney spar over issues of job creation and the health law. News outlets also report on how some religious leaders and scholars who backed Obama in 2008 are now skeptical.

Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler is weighing in on the fate of the Affordable Care Act with a report released this week about what's at stake for Washingtonians if the law is overturned by the Supreme Court.

"Proposals for new mechanisms to improve the funding and coordination of health research for the developing world, potentially including a binding international convention, will be formally discussed over the next year, the World Health Assembly concluded last week (21

In this post in the Management Sciences for Health's (MSH) "Global Health Impact" blog, Scott Kellerman, global technical lead for HIV/AIDS at MSH, discusses USAID's "Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday" campaign and recent attention to the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV. He notes that U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby and UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe "have called for the elimination of pediatric HIV by 2015," and writes, "We can move closer to the goal of eliminating pediatric HIV by 2015 by treating the mother, treating the baby, and continuing to treat the mother" (5/31).

"By the end of the 21st century, more than one billion people are expected to die from illnesses related to tobacco use primarily in low to middle income countries," Amie Newman, communications officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and editor of the foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, writes in this blog post in recognition of World No Tobacco Day. "We'll continue to support efforts which reduce the number of deaths and diseases due to tobacco use -- especially in developing countries," she adds (5/31). An AIDS.gov blog post addresses tobacco use by people living with HIV, writing, "Smoking rates of people living with HIV are estimated to be two to three times higher than the national average, and smoking weakens the immune system, making it harder to fight off HIV-related infections" (5/31).

The communications, which were gathered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, offer an inside look at how the White House struck a deal with the pharmaceutical industry to win support for the health care law.

"Every year, somewhere between $200 billion and $1 trillion are spent in 'mandatory' alms [zakat] and voluntary charity [sadaqa] across the Muslim world, Islamic financial analysts estimate," IRIN reports, noting, "At the low end of the estimate, this is 15 times more than global humanitarian aid contributions in 2011." The news service writes, "With aid from traditional Western donors decreasing in the wake of a global recession, and with about a quarter of the Muslim world living on less than $1.25 a day, this represents a huge pool of potential in the world of aid funding."

The Lancet on Friday published "a themed issue devoted to China to coincide with the third anniversary of the country's 2009 health reform plan, and a conference -- Preventing Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in China: national agenda and local commitments -- organized by the Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine." According to the journal, "China's health-reform process, solutions, and lessons will provide evidence to inform debate and, ultimately, enhance global health-care outcomes" (6/2).

"Impressed with India's successful effort in polio eradication," a nine-member Pakistani delegation on Thursday met India's health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and senior officials of the Ministry to discuss the country's polio eradication program, the Press Trust of India/Business Standard reports, noting that India achieved a polio-free status as of January (5/31). "'The focus of our visit here was for us to learn firsthand from the government officials and partners exactly what it took for India to become polio free,' leader of the Pakistan delegation, Shahnaz Wazir Ali, said," the PTI/Times of India writes (5/31).

In this post in the Huffington Post's "World" blog, Cecilia Attias, former first lady of France and president and founder of the Cecilia Attias Foundation for Women, responds to a recent paper, published by the World Bank, which discusses significant declines in infant and under-five mortality in Kenya and across sub-Saharan Africa. She writes, "Africa's swift economic growth has become a familiar story; but the fact that fewer children are dying than before -- that people's lives are getting better on the ground -- is arguably more heartening than accounts of improvements in African industry or infrastructure or business (though the trends are probably connected)."

HIV drugs have not only "transformed a fatal disease into a chronic one," but "[t]hey have also made HIV a big business," this Economist editorial states. The editorial examines the market for HIV drugs, writing, "The market is as unusual as it is large, both buoyed by government support and worryingly dependent on it. The past decade has brought fancier medicine in rich countries and copious aid for poor ones. But the war is far from won." The editorial writes, "In total, public and private investment has yielded more than two dozen HIV drugs," adding, "Sales of antiretroviral drugs in America and the five biggest European markets reached $13.3 billion in 2011, according to Datamonitor, a research outfit."

"Researchers are warning that the little-known Chagas disease could pose a threat similar to other global pandemics," Fox News reports, noting Chagas disease "is a parasitic illness that is most commonly transmitted by the so-called 'kissing bugs,' a subfamily of blood-sucking insects, through the parasite called Trypanosoma cruzi" (5/31). In an editorial published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases on Tuesday, a team of experts in tropical diseases from Baylor College of Medicine in Texas "likens some aspects of the disease to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and warns of a possible pandemic," GlobalPost writes (Wolfe, 5/31).

"The number of people with cancer is set to surge by more than 75 percent across the world by 2030, with particularly sharp rises in poor countries as they adopt unhealthy 'Westernized' lifestyles," according to a study published Friday in the Lancet, Reuters reports (Kelland, 5/31). "If current population trends continue, the number of people with cancer worldwide will go up to 22.2 million by 2030, up from 12.7 million in 2008," CNN's "The Chart" notes, adding, "Cases are expected to surge in poorer parts of the world, which are ill-equipped to handle the burden" (5/31).