Archives: Morning Breakouts

A new Washington Post/ABC poll uncovered skepticism among Americans about whether the health law decision expected from the Supreme Court justices in June will be rooted "on the basis of the law." The poll also found that public support for the overhaul hit an all-time low, with the mandate being a bigger sticking point than ever. Meanwhile, according to The Associated Press, some of these views may be the result of "misconceptions" that resulted from the oral arguments.

A Financial Times analysis examines how the international community is working "to ensure scientific work can proceed without falling prey to accidental leaks or malevolent intent," following controversy surrounding two studies on the H5N1 bird flu virus. The article states that "while much discussion has focused on the 'virtual' leakage of such studies through the very fact of publication, allowing the unscrupulous to read and replicate the work, another important risk has received far less attention: the accidental 'physical' leakage from the growing number of laboratories en

This PATH Blog post examines PATH's work in malaria through OneWorld Health, a non-profit drug development program. Since 2004, "when OneWorld Health formed a partnership to develop an alternative source of the malaria drug artemisinin, ... OneWorld Health, which became an affiliate of PATH late last year, [has] quietly forged relationships with public and private partners, creating the Artemisinin Project to take the work from research to commercialization," the blog writes. "Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the partners worked toward providing an affordable and reliable source of high-quality artemisinin -- one not dependent on planting schedules, the weather, or the fluctuating market," the blog adds (Donnelly, 4/10).

The number of people living with dementia is expected to double to 65.7 million by 2030 and more than triple by 2050, with "the [current estimated] cost of treating and caring for those with the condition at $604 billion a year," according to a report released Wednesday by the WHO and Alzheimer's Disease International, Agence France-Presse reports (4/11). "Dementia affects people in all countries, with more than half (58 percent) living in low- and middle-income countries," and "[b]y 2050, this is likely to rise to more than 70 percent," according to a WHO press release.

Medical aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has expressed concern over proposed cuts to PEPFAR under the White House FY 2013 budget proposal, "saying it will undermine the president's own goals" of "treat[ing] six million people infected with HIV around the world by the end of 2013," VOA News reports. While President Obama "has pledged to expand PEPFAR to include more people, his budget proposal for the fiscal year 2013 cuts more than a half-billion dollars from" bilateral HIV/AIDS programs, VOA writes.

"As we have seen in our work in Haiti and around the world, shoes are a first level of defense when it comes to good health, and are a great complement to the Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) Control program IMA World Health implements in Haiti," Rick Santos, president and CEO of IMA World Health, writes in the Huffington Post Blog, commemorating One Day Without Shoes, observed on Tuesday. "In addition to preventing cuts and injuries that can become infected, shoes can help prevent the spread of hookworm -- which affects an estimated 740 million people globally according to a World Health Organization estimate -- and other soil-transmitted diseases that can enter through the feet," he notes, adding, "Shoes are especially helpful when combined with other programs designed to keep children and families healthy."

"U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday announced the appointment of 27 world leaders to address the issue of maternal and child nutrition in order to secure a future for nations around the world," Xinhua/Shanghai Daily reports (4/11). UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake chaired the first meeting of the Lead Group for the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, which brought together the "leaders of countries, organizations and sectors working to improve nutrition," the U.N. News Centre reports. "The SUN Movement focuses on the critical 1,000-day window between pregnancy and a child's second birthday, when proper nutrition can mean the difference between health and sickness, life and death," according to the news service. "We must invest now in programs to prevent stunting or risk diminishing the impact of other investments in education, health and child protection," Lake said, the news service notes (4/10).

"From the rural villages in northern Uganda to the bustling city of Kampala, the poverty-fighting programs I visited last week have something notable in common: they demonstrate how integrated programming can help achieve sustainable changes in the lives [of] women, men and their families," Helene Gayle, president and CEO of CARE USA, writes in the Huffington Post Blog. "Issues such as health care, education and economic empowerment cannot be addressed in a vacuum. Thus, effective programs need to tackle the multiple root causes of poverty," she writes, adding, "There is no doubt that a woman's economic empowerment is very much interconnected to her health and the well-being of her children."

"Senior United Nations officials [on Tuesday] made impassioned appeals to the international community to make more resources available to assist millions of people affected by the severe food and nutrition crisis in the Sahel region of West Africa, cautioning that global inaction could lead to a humanitarian disaster," the U.N. News Centre reports (4/10). "UNICEF's Executive Director Anthony Lake said at least one million -- and possibly up to 1.5 million -- children in the region face acute, severe malnutrition, putting them at risk of death from starvation or disease," the Associated Press/Washington Post writes, adding, "Unless donor countries provide more funds, 'the result will be many children will die and many families will suffer,' he said" (4/10).

This post on RH Reality Check examines a Ugandan court case "alleging that the Ugandan government failed to protect the ... constitutional rights to life and health [of several women] by allowing them to die in ill-equipped and poorly managed public hospitals, or failing to provide them with basic maternal care." According to the post, one in 35 Ugandan women die during pregnancy or childbirth, and "[o]ne of the key complaints in the petition is the government spends just one-quarter on maternal health of what it pledged to spend, per capita." The post goes on to describe efforts to improve maternal health in Uganda (Mack, 4/10).

The Associated Press/Huffington Post reports on how communications engineers are joining the fight against AIDS in Africa, highlighting a project in Mozambique that brings wireless printers equipped with cell phone technology to remote villages. "Getting AIDS test results from labs to remote villages once took weeks in Mozambique, with the information sent by courier along the impoverished country's terrible roads. The delay could mean death," the news agency writes, adding, "Now, communications engineers have adapted office printers and cell-phone technology to wirelessly and immediately relay test results."

The Families USA report tallied the state-by-state costs of the GOP budget plan. However, the analysis did not include the controversial Medicare overhaul that is included in the Republican fiscal blueprint.