Archives: Morning Breakouts

A U.S. Embassy statement on Saturday said the U.S. would provide nearly $1 billion to Bangladesh over the next five years "towards alleviating poverty and malnutrition, as well as family planning and the fight against infectious diseases," Reuters reports. "The funds will also be used to support research in improving farm productivity and deal with the impact of climate change," the news service writes, adding, "As of 2011, the U.S. government has provided over $5.7 billion in development assistance to Bangladesh" (Quadir, 1/14).

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday "urg[ed] the Taliban to allow teams conducting a polio vaccination campaign access to areas under their control" and "said that whoever hampers the medical workers 'is the enemy of our children's future,'" the Associated Press/Washington Post reports (1/17). "A total of 80 cases of the crippling disease were reported in Afghanistan last year -- a three-fold increase over 2010, the health ministry said on Tuesday, marking a major setback in the drive to eradicate polio worldwide," Agence France-Presse writes, adding that "Karzai appealed to religious and community leaders to persuade the insurgents to allow the immunization teams to vaccinate children" (1/17).

A group of religious conservatives endorsed Rick Santorum, and GOP presidential candidates prepare for debate tonight.

A new report from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has found that five percent of Americans are responsible for half the nation's health care spending. In the meantime, half the population spends practically nothing on health care in a year.

Nine days before the South Carolina primary, Mitt Romney has 'picked up his pro-life rhetoric' as Newt Gingrich goes on the attack.

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).