Archives: Morning Breakouts

The federal report documents an "epidemic" of tobacco use among teens, which it says can stunt lung growth and accelerate development of health problems.

In a plenary presentation at the 19th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Seattle on Wednesday, Dorothy Mbori-Ngacha of UNICEF examined the challenges to reaching the goal of an AIDS-free generation, by "eliminat[ing] 90 percent of HIV infections among children by 2015," and "outlined the four pillars of achieving that goal," including preventing HIV among women, preventing unintended pregnancies, preventing mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), and supporting HIV-positive women and their families, the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" reports. She called for strengthening family planning programs in the context of PMTCT, prioritizing "pregnant women for access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) or microbicides," implementing strategies to initiate and care for women in treatment programs, and intervening early in pregnancy, according to the blog (Lubinski, 3/7).

"While only a small part of the Farm Bill, food assistance is a critical component of our nation's global development and national security strategies, reaching 50 million people a year," Ellen Levinson, executive director of Alliance for Global Food Security and president of Levinson & Associates, writes in the Hill's "Congress Blog," adding, "Improvements made to international food aid programs in the 2008 Farm Bill have borne fruit." She notes, "By 2050, world population is expected to reach nine billion and food production will have to increase by 50-70 percent to keep pace."

Speaking at an event at U.N. Headquarters to commemorate International Women's Day, which is observed annually on March 8, "Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [on Wednesday] joined other senior United Nations officials ... in highlighting the potential of rural women to improve the well-being of entire societies if given equal access to resources and set free from the discrimination and exploitation that hold them back," the U.N. News Centre writes, noting this year's theme is "Empower Rural Women -- End Hunger and Poverty." "He acknowledged that women are increasingly exercising greater influence in business, government, politics, public administration and other professions" and that "more girls are going to school and are growing up healthier and better equipped to realize their potential," the news service writes (3/7).

"Women who are at risk of unplanned pregnancy are also at risk of HIV, and vice-versa so separation of these services no longer makes sense. The global health community must work to bring family planning and HIV services together -- and quickly -- to save women's lives," by Dana Hovig, chief executive of Marie Stopes International, and Alvaro Bermejo, executive director of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, write in this RH Reality Check blog post marking International Women's Day. The authors conclude, "We call on the public to urge leaders to support integration of services in the developing world. We encourage organizations working with us to support the integration of family planning and HIV services" (3/7).

Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, on Thursday said talks with North Korean officials over food aid had "resolved the administrative issues we were concerned with," although "[h]e declined to disclose details before reporting back to Washington," the Associated Press reports. "The talks follow a deal announced last week in which the U.S. offered 240,000 tons of food aid in return for North Korea freezing long-range missile and nuclear tests and for halting a uranium enrichment program that would be monitored by U.N. inspectors," the news agency writes. "The U.S. ... wanted to ensure that the assistance reaches North Koreans who need it, rather than being diverted to the military or other groups as was suspected with some previous international aid shipments," and while King "said that those concerns about the shipments had been resolved, ... he did not discuss how deliveries would be monitored," according to the AP (3/8).

Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including a report about the "new front" in the battle surrounding the Obama administration's birth control coverage rule -- it's the courts

GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum used election night speech to again assail the former governor's support of a Massachusetts health overhaul that some say was a template for the federal law.

"Investigators gave more details about the positive results of the Partners PrEP Study Tuesday at the 19th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle," the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog reports. "The study of 4,700 HIV discordant couples (where one partner is HIV-infected and the other is not) looked at the potential of two different antiretrovirals for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV-1 prevention versus a placebo among heterosexual men and women in rural and urban Kenya and Uganda," the blog notes. So far, results show 75 percent protection in the arm using two antiretrovirals and 67 percent protection in the one-antiretroviral arm, when compared with the placebo, the blog notes, adding that the "drug arms of the study are ongoing and will wrap up at the end of this year" (Mazzotta, 3/6).

The Ugandan government is creating a "wide-ranging response plan" to "nodding disease, a mysterious ailment characterized by seizures, nodding of the head, mental retardation and stunting, which affects thousands of children in [northern Uganda]," IRIN reports. The WHO has recorded 3,097 cases of the disease and at least 170 deaths, often caused by starvation "because the condition makes it impossible to eat," the news service writes.

"Data presented from the FEM-PrEP trial by Dr. Lut Van Damme Tuesday [at the 19th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle] highlighted the challenge that adherence plays in successfully deploying effective Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) interventions," HIV Medicine Association Executive Director Andrea Weddle writes in this guest post in the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog. "The FEM-PrEP study was conducted to evaluate the protective effect of a daily oral dose of emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumerate (FTC/TDF) among African women, but was halted early, in April 2011," because of "interim data analysis showing similar rates of new HIV infections among women taking daily FTC/TDF and the placebo arm," Weddle notes. Van Damme said blood monitoring did not show levels of the drug consistent with self-reported adherence rates, according to Weddle (3/6).

"New research supported by Sightsavers and the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC) shows that yes, onchocerciasis really can be eliminated when treatment is distributed in an area for a sustained period" and "found that the disease may already be eliminated in one Nigerian state, marking a significant milestone for onchocerciasis control programs," the Global Network for Neglected Diseases' "End the Neglect" blog writes (Alabaster, 3/6). "I think ... the lesson here [is that] results don't happen over night, but when the programs are given time to achieve them and the right systems are in place to monitor and measure them, great things can happen," Karen Grepin writes of the study in her "Global Health Blog" (3/6).

The speaker of the Massachusetts House said Tuesday that the commonwealth should try to cut the growth of health care costs to 3.7 percent a year from the current 6.7 percent to 8 percent, but he offered few details on how to do it.