Archives: Morning Breakouts

Daniel Wolfe, director of the International Harm Reduction Development Program, part of the Open Society Public Health Program, writes in the Open Society Foundations' blog about "a recent joint U.N. statement calling for the immediate closure of the hundreds of centers in which drug users are detained in the name of treatment," saying the statement "came not a moment too soon." He continues, "This call for closure of drug detention camps comes after years of horrifying reports of abuses in these facilities." According to Wolfe, "The message, endorsed by agencies such as UNAIDS, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, and the International Labor Organization, is unequivocal. Locking people up and abusing them in the name of drug rehabilitation is ineffective. It violates human rights. And countries shouldn't do it" (3/13).

In this "Health Affairs Blog" post, Sachin Jain, a physician and former HHS adviser, explores the use of the term "strategy" in global health, writing "the term remains variably used and ill-defined." He "offer[s] a definition enumerated for use by for-profit firms: Strategy is the unique set of activities and operating structures that an organization puts in place to deliver value to its customers," and offers explanation about each segment of the definition. He concludes, "Strategy requires that organizations puzzle through different sets of 'conflicting virtues' -- funders, activities, customers -- and establish a priority order among them. None of these decisions are without their challenges; deciding to clearly define and grapple with them, however, will be an important step towards greater organizational effectiveness and results" (3/12).

The Democratic National Committee will do targeted mailings to improve the law's image. In addition, the Obama campaign posted an interactive website to spell out the measure's benefits.

Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) Communications Officer Kim Lufkin discusses USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah's second annual letter in this GHTC "Breakthroughs" blog post, writing, "Shah rightly emphasizes the role of science, technology, and innovation in meeting USAID's international health goals." She adds, "It's exciting to see that Shah continues, time and again, to recognize how science and innovation can overcome some of the world's long-standing global health problems," concluding, "It's heartening to have a leader at USAID who is so committed to the power of research, and who continues to provide such critical leadership" (3/12).

HHS Secretary Sebelius warned the state that funds would be cut off if officials carry out the threat of excluding Planned Parenthood.

In this Globe and Mail opinion piece, columnist Andre Picard examines the efforts of a new group, the Global Congenital Syphilis Partnership -- which includes the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Save The Children, the CDC, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and the WHO -- to "make screening for syphilis a routine part of pregnancy care with the goal of eliminating congenital syphilis." Picard writes, "According to the World Health Organization, some 2.1 million women with syphilis give birth every year," and notes, "Almost 70 percent of their babies are stillborn, and many of the rest suffer from low birth weight (putting them at great risk for a host of illnesses), hearing loss, vision loss and facial deformities."

Michael Clemens, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD), addresses a recent New York Times article on "medical brain drain" in this CGD "Global Development: Views From The Center" blog post, saying the article's approval of "a horrific proposal to put recruiters of health workers on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity ... is breathtakingly misguided." He continues, "Recruiters do not 'steal' people. They give information to people about jobs those people are qualified for. The professional ambitions of those people have equal value to yours and mine, and those ambitions cannot be realized without information." Clemens says "coercively blocking the unconditional right of a health worker to emigrate -- such as by declaring her to be owned by a government and prosecuting her recruiter at The Hague -- is a crime against humanity," and cites several other articles he has written on the subject (3/12).

"A long-planned project to find out whether vaccination is feasible in the midst of an ongoing cholera outbreak in Haiti has been stymied -- temporarily, its proponents insist --" after "a Port-au-Prince radio station reported that the impending vaccination effort was actually a 'medical experiment on the Haitian people' -- a potentially incendiary charge," NPR's health blog "Shots" reports.