Latest KFF Health News Stories
Micronutrient Powder Helps Prevent Malnutrition In Children Up To Two Years Old, Study Review Shows
In a systematic review published by the Cochrane Collaboration last week, researchers found that the micronutrient powder used in recent years to combat malnutrition, anemia and iron deficiency in children was very helpful in preventing malnutrition in children six to 24 months old, VOA News reports. World Health Organization epidemiologist Luz Maria De Regil “and other researchers combined the results of eight previous studies involving thousands of children,” VOA writes, adding, “The studies were done on three continents, in countries as varied as Haiti, Cambodia, and Ghana.”
A selection of opinions and editorials from around the country.
The Down Economy Drives Mounting Medical Bills
The rate of medical debt is at an all-time high in the U.S. Meanwhile, Kaiser Health News reports on denials in the individual health insurance market.
Researchers Investigate Impact Of Physician Financial Incentives
Reuters reports on an analysis of data related to incentive programs from the U.S., the U.K. and Germany.
“Reducing the incidence of malaria could also drastically reduce the number of deaths from bacterial infections among children in Africa, a study” published last week in the Lancet found, according to SciDev.Net. “‘Children who are protected from malaria are less likely to catch bacterial infections. It therefore means that controlling malaria will give an additional benefit,’ Anthony Scott, the lead author and a researcher at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, in Kenya, told SciDev.Net.”
Ky. Medicaid Plan Approved; Calif. Dentists Decry Reduced Patient Benefits
In state Medicaid news, Kentucky gains federal approval for a managed care system, California dentists say cuts to programs there have hurt patients, a nursing homes prepares to close in New York City and questions are raised about the mental health managed care system in Kansas.
Will Obama Jobs Plan Undercut Health Sector’s Jobs Growth?
Politico reports that health care providers are warning that deeper cuts to entitlement programs will slow growth in the health care sector.
Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don’t believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government’s priorities.
Government Funding Crisis In Swaziland Disrupts Supply Of HIV/AIDS Supplies
“An acute government funding crisis in Swaziland, Africa’s last absolute monarchy, is disrupting supplies of HIV/AIDS drugs and hampering the fight against the virus in the country with the world’s highest infection rate, Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) said Friday,” Reuters reports. “Stocks of testing kits and related chemicals were ‘almost dry,’ making it next-to-impossible to chart the progress of the 70,000 patients on therapy or more than 130,000 other people carrying the virus, the aid agency said,” according to Reuters.
The George W. Bush Institute is forming a public-private partnership to use PEPFAR’s existing infrastructure of doctors, nurses and clinics to expand screening and treatment of women for cervical cancer and perform breast cancer education in the developing world, the Wall Street Journal reports. The goal of the partnership, which also includes the State Department, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and UNAIDS, “is to reduce the number of cervical cancer deaths by 25 percent in five years in countries where it scales up screening and treatment,” WSJ writes, adding, “Its initial investment will be $75 million.”
“United Nations humanitarian agencies have begun to assist communities in southern Pakistan that have been pummeled by monsoon rains which have claimed the lives of almost 200 people and destroyed or damaged nearly one million homes in an area still recovering from last year’s catastrophic floods,” the U.N. News Centre reports. The U.N. and the Pakistan government “have begun a rapid needs assessment in Sindh, with shelter, food, water, sanitation, hygiene and health care expected to be the priorities,” the news service writes (9/10).
IPS Examines Medical Research Regulations In Light Of 1940s Guatemala Experiments
Inter Press Service examines regulations related to human medical research, writing that “experiments carried out by U.S. doctors in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948 using 1,300 human subjects who were infected with sexually transmitted diseases highlighted the inadequacy of controls and safeguards in clinical testing in this Central American country — still a major problem today, according to experts.”
Rep. Berman Unveils Discussion Draft Of Global Partnerships Act Of 2011 Aimed At Foreign Aid Reform
At an event on Thursday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, co-hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Brookings Institute, House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) unveiled a discussion draft of the Global Partnerships Act of 2011, aimed at “reshap[ing] foreign assistance, making it more relevant ‘by incorporating the best practices and lessons learned over the last half century,'” he said, the Malaria Policy Center’s “Malaria Watch” blog reports (Todd, 9/9). Released as a draft instead of a numbered bill in order to spur discussion, the document covers “the full spectrum of foreign aid — development, democracy promotion, arms transfers and nuclear nonproliferation — but doesn’t include spending levels,” according to AEI’s “The Enterprise Blog” (Johnson, 9/8).
First Edition: September 12, 2011
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about the pressures faced by the ‘super committee’ as well as the latest on how states are doing with the implementation of the health law.
GOP Contentiousness On Medicare, Health Law To Emerge In Monday Debate
CNN and the Tea Party Express are sponsoring the Florida debate among the Republican presidential candidates.
The GlobalPost’s “Global Pulse” blog reports on an event held on Wednesday at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., entitled “7 Billion: Conversations that Matter,” at which Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile and now the under secretary-general and executive director of UN Women, spoke about the importance of family planning as the global population approaches the seven billion mark.
The Importance Of Safe Drinking Water In Haiti’s Ongoing Post-Earthquake Recovery Efforts
Stacey McMahan, sustainability advisor and design fellow with Architecture for Humanity, who has resided in Port-au-Prince, Haiti for a year teaching the locals how to build safe structures, writes about the importance of clean drinking water as an integral part of post-earthquake recovery in Haiti, which she writes will be ongoing in Haiti for decades, in this post in Huffington Post’s “Impact” blog.
Haiti’s Cholera Epidemic, The Hemisphere’s Worst In Decades, Neglected By International Community
“Cholera in Haiti is the worst epidemic that this hemisphere has seen in decades, yet it has received relatively little attention,” Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and president of Just Foreign Policy writes in this Al Jazeera opinion piece, adding, “The international community has failed Haiti in so many ways and for so many years that it is almost unimaginable.”
Experts Gather In London To Propose Appropriate Medical Devices For Developing World
The Guardian’s “Poverty Matters Blog” reports on a one-day conference held in London this week that brought together engineers, health workers, donors and charities to look at devices specifically designed for the developing world. The conference, which was organized by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), addressed that fact that, according to WHO estimates, “as much as three-quarters of all medical devices in the developing world do not function” because of such factors as “[p]arts that are expensive and difficult to replace, the need for a constant electricity supply, a lack of trained operators [or] unsuitability to rough terrain,” the blog notes.
A team of researchers led by Stephen Hoffman of Sanaria Inc. have created a candidate malaria vaccine against Plasmodium falciparum, the most deadly of the malaria parasites, using live but weakened parasites that “represents a potentially encouraging anti-malaria strategy,” an NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases press release reports. The findings of the research, which “was conducted by scientists at the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, working in concert with a large team of collaborators,” were published in Thursday’s online issue of Science, the press release states (9/8).
