Archives: Morning Breakouts

Fiscal Times looks at concerns about conflicts of interest on FDA advisory committees. Also, ProPublica examines a bill that would make results from NIH-financed studies harder to get.

Media outlets from Connecticut, Texas and Iowa report on how a Supreme Court brief, which was filed by the Progressive States Network and signed by hundreds of state officials, is shaking up some state-level policy discussions.

In this Huffington Post opinion piece, Serra Sippel, president of the Center for Health and Gender Equity, writes, "In 2012, there is a presidency at stake -- so what does that mean for women's health and rights in the coming year? How will political posturing and the race for votes affect what really matters?"

T. Jacob John, a former professor of clinical virology an the Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, who has served on several Global and National Committees on Immunization and Polio Eradication, writes in this opinion piece in India's Hindu, "While one year has passed without polio caused by natural poliovirus, we can claim complete eradication only after we ensure the absence of wild and vaccine polioviruses in the population." He provides a brief history of polio eradication efforts, globally and in India, and continues, "For certification of eradication, two more years should pass without any case of wild virus polio. ... We must continue working as if we still have poliovirus lurking somewhere, only to show up when least expected" (1/8).

The Global Post's "Global Pulse" blog reports on a December seminar held by GlobalPost, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, and the Kaiser Family Foundation, at which "journalists discussed the challenges in telling compelling global health stories in the digital age." Participants discussed marketing their products, securing funding, finding an audience, forming partnerships, and covering expenses. The news service includes quotes from several people who spoke at the seminar, including photographers Kristen Ashburn and John Stanmeyer; Penny Duckham, director of the Kaiser Family Foundation Media Fellowship Program; Nathalie Applewhite, managing director of the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting; and Charlie Sennott, executive editor at GlobalPost (Kriel, 1/12).

"The work of the essential medicines department of the World Health Organization (WHO) is under threat because of a serious shortage of funds, says a worrying and important letter published in the Lancet [on Thursday]," Guardian Health Editor Sarah Boseley reports in her "Global Health Blog." "According to the letter from Mohga Kamal-Yanni of Oxfam, the work of updating ... the essential medicines list, which tells every health ministry in every corner of the world, however tiny their budget, which drugs they should be getting for their people ... [and] for children, is now being paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation," the blog writes.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius "administered polio vaccination drops to children in New Delhi on Friday as India marked one year since its last case of the crippling disease," the Associated Press reports (1/13). The Hill's "Healthwatch" reports that "[o]fficials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] say U.S. funding and experience were key to beating back the disease," but "[t]he news comes as federal funding for global health programs now faces sharp cuts from Tea Party lawmakers and others worried about the deficit" (Pecquet, 1/12). "

Al Jazeera reports on the candidate malaria vaccine known as RTS,S, which "has been heralded as one of the Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2011 by Time and Science magazines, Doctors Without Borders and the Lancet." The news service recaps the history of the vaccine's development, outlines a number of existing prevention strategies and details ongoing efforts in the global fight against malaria (Dalal, 1/11).

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah on Thursday appeared on NPR's Talk of the Nation to discuss rebuilding efforts in Haiti two years after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake destroyed much of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Shah said, "[O]ver the last two years, we've seen real signs of hope. A number of things have worked. Partners and the Haitian government and Haitian leaders have done things differently so that today, ... more people have access to clean water and safe sanitation in Port-au-Prince than the day before the earthquake," according to the transcript.

In the National Geographic News blog "Mobile Message," "a series of posts from FrontlineSMS about how mobile phones and appropriate technologies are being used throughout the world to improve, enrich, and empower billions of lives," Laura Stachel, an obstetrician-gynecologist and the co-founder and executive director of WE CARE Solar, writes about the "'Solar Suitcase,' a portable, rugged, complete solar electric kit packed with solar panels, a charge controller, batteries, medical LED lights, phone chargers, headlamps, and a fetal monitor." She says the suitcases improve lighting so surgeries can be performed 24 hours a day; allow nurses to contact on-call physicians in the case of emergency through a mobile phone; and, with alterations, power blood bank refrigerators (Banks, 1/12).

"[O]n the eve of the two-year anniversary of the 7.0 quake in Haiti, three Senators wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Agency for International Development head Rajiv Shah urging them to better facilitate distribution of U.S. aid to the country," CQ HealthBeat reports (Bristol, 1/11). Democratic Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg (N.J.), Jeff Bingaman (N.M.) and Mary Landrieu (La.) on Wednesday "expressed concern about the large portion of aid that has not yet been distributed to earthquake victims," according to a press release from Lautenberg.