Archives: Morning Breakouts

In campaign appearances and on "Face the Nation," Santorum criticized the health law's requirement that insurers provide free prenatal testing.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum and other Republicans are continuing their attack on the Obama administration's birth control policies.

With the obesity crisis, many patients are eager for medication help, but the FDA is wary.

"A stakeholder consultation convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva has reviewed recent epidemiological studies related to HIV transmission and acquisition by women using hormonal contraceptives," a UNAIDS press statement reports (2/16). In a technical statement (.pdf), "[t]he Geneva-based United Nations health agency confirmed its existing recommendations [Thursday] after a study published last year found using contraceptive injections doubles the chance women will catch HIV and transmit it to a male partner," Bloomberg Businessweek reports (Hallam, 2/16). The WHO "concluded that hormonal contraception -- whether the pill or injection -- was safe for women at risk of HIV to use if they wanted to prevent pregnancy," the Guardian notes (Boseley, 2/16).

"On Tuesday the U.S. Positive Women's Network (PWN) hosted a webinar to discuss HIV-positive women's sexual rights and to commemorate Valentine's Day as a day to uphold the rights of HIV-positive women to have safe and satisfying sexual lives," the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog reports. According to the blog, "Presenters discussed various ways in which HIV-positive women can gain sexual and reproductive rights, from using a human rights-based approach, to implementing new biomedical prevention technologies through U.S. health care reform, to how to advocate for women-centered care" (Aziz, 2/16).

In this post in the Global Health Technologies Coalition's (GHTC) "Breakthroughs" blog, Ashley Bennett, senior policy associate at GHTC, responds to the release of President Obama's FY 2013 budget request, writing, "In his introduction to the overall budget request, Obama emphasized that research and development (R&D) programs are essential to the U.S. economy and the country's future. ... When looking at the budget numbers for global health, Obama's emphasis on R&D in his introduction played out in various ways, with some good and bad news." She notes that while "Congress has the authority to change the funding levels as it sees fit, ... it could be difficult to justify spending above what the Administration views as appropriate, especially given the current fiscal crisis and the shortened election-year appropriations process" (2/16).

"A feeble international response to Pakistan's second major flooding crisis in two years has left millions of people at serious risk of malnutrition and disease, aid groups warned Thursday," Agence France-Presse reports. "The Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF), a network of the 41 largest international charities in the country, called on the international community and Pakistan to take urgent steps with the next monsoon season months away," the news service adds. "At least 2.5 million people are still without food, water, shelter, sanitation and health care, putting them at serious risk of malnutrition, disease and deepening poverty, said the coalition of international charities," AFP writes, adding, "Around 43 percent of affected people are severely short of food and malnutrition levels were already well above the emergency threshold in the southern provinces of Sindh and Baluchistan before the floods struck" (Gilani, 2/15).

In this SciDev.Net opinion piece, journalist Priya Shetty writes that the Sustainable Development Goals -- a successor to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) proposed to begin in 2015 -- "need more focus on health to continue the progress achieved with MDGs." She continues, "[A]lthough early drafts of the SDGs address issues that the MDGs neglected, such as food security, they are light on health and many social issues (education, for example, or gender equity). This should be of major concern to public health experts."

"At least 16 people have been killed this week when a category four cyclone lashed Madagascar's eastern shores, rescue authorities said on Wednesday," Reuters reports, adding, "Some 65 people were injured and about 11,000 people left homeless after Cyclone Giovanna pummeled the country's eastern seaboard causing power shutdowns in parts of the island's port city of Tamatave, rescue officials said" (Iloniaina, 2/16). UNICEF "will start distributing medicines and mosquito nets [Thursday] to the parts of eastern Madagascar hardest hit" by the cyclone, the U.N. News Centre writes.