Archives: Morning Breakouts

The World Bank's annual World Development Report, which was released on Sunday and this year "focuses on gender equality around the world, offers some stark facts about how women and girls fare in developing countries despite decades of progress," the Wall Street Journal reports (Reddy, 9/18). "The most glaring disparity is the rate at which girls and women die relative to men in developing countries, according to" the report, Reuters/AlertNet reports (Curtis, 9/19).

The Associated Press reports that, even with their emphasis on deficit reduction, most of the GOP presidential candidates don't seem to be talking about the Medicare drug program, a massive entitlement with future unfunded costs of about $7 trillion, as much as the 2010 health law.

After a six-month review of the financial systems at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a seven-member independent panel "recommended a substantial overhaul Monday in the grant organization's practices," the Wall Street Journal reports. The panel, led by former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt and former Botswana President Festus Mogae, "said in a report the fund must improve risk management, simplify grant application processes, and place greater emphasis on results," according to the newspaper.

The New York Times describes how, as the U.N. begins its meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), Chinese and Indian generic drug makers "say they are on the verge of selling cheaper copies" of costly biotech medications used to treat cancers, diabetes, arthritis and other chronic illnesses. "Their entry into the market in the next year -- made possible by hundreds of millions of dollars invested in biotechnology plants -- could not only transform the care of patients in much of the world but also ignite a counterattack by major pharmaceutical companies and diplomats from richer countries," the newspaper writes.

Low-income countries "could introduce measures to prevent and treat millions of cases of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and lung disease for a little as $1.20 per person per year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday" in a report released on the eve of the U.N. High-level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) taking place this week in New York, Reuters reports (Kelland, 9/19).

"World leaders at a meeting of the United Nations on Monday will agree to a deal to try to curb the spread of preventable 'lifestyle' diseases," including heart disease, cancers and diabetes, also known as non-communicable diseases (NCDs), "amid concern that progress is already being hampered by powerful lobbyists from the food, alcohol and tobacco industries," the Guardian reports. "The scale and disastrous potential of these diseases has led the U.N. to call only its second high-level summit on a health issue on Monday -- the first was over AIDS in 2001. Months of negotiation have led to a draft declaration [.pdf] that will be signed at the summit," the newspaper writes (Boseley, 9/16).

Despite payments by drug and device companies, none of the more than 75 doctors named as participants were sanctioned.

The Wall Street Journal reports that as budgets tighten, school officials are more aggressively scrutinizing doctors' diagnoses that call for costly accommodations.