Archives: Morning Breakouts

News outlets report on a variety of public health issues.

Pharmacy benefits management company Express Scripts announced in July it was acquiring a similar firm, Medco.

Advocates of the law seek a change to the subsidy provision, and some fear that the administration is too eager to compromise with business.

Scientists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Colorado State University report in the September 4 issue of Nature Medicine that "[a] potential vaccine against tuberculosis [TB] has been found to completely eliminate tuberculosis bacteria from infected tissues in some mice," according to a HHMI press release. "The vaccine was created with a strain of bacteria that, due to the absence of a few genes, are unable to avoid its host's first-line immune response," the release states, adding, "Once this first-line defense has been activated, it triggers the more specific immune response that can protect against future infections" (9/4). A spokesperson for the campaign group TB Alert told BBC News, "These are interesting experiments but it is too early to tell what impact they will have on the development of a safe and effective vaccine," the news service reports (Gallagher, 9/4).

In anticipation of the September 2011 U.N. High-level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) "should not only look at the lessons learned in the control of NCDs in developed countries, but also those from other areas of public health, especially AIDS, which can inform the design of an effective and sustainable response to NCDs in developing countries," Rebecca Dirks from FHI 360 and colleagues write in this PLoS Medicine Policy Forum editorial piece.

Reuters examines how budget debates in Congress "could undo" President Barack Obama's "'smart power' approach, which elevates diplomacy and development alongside military power as guarantors of U.S. security in a rapidly changing world." Programs run through the State Department and USAID that provide "[f]ood aid to hungry countries, ... improved medical services for expectant mothers and the U.S. response to natural disasters such as earthquakes and droughts could be hit in a major scale-back of U.S. assistance," the news agency writes.

"Sierra Leone's free health care plan for pregnant women and young children is dysfunctional and hobbled by corruption and a lack of accountability," according to a report (.pdf) released Tuesday by Amnesty International, Agence France-Presse reports. The nation's free health care program for pregnant women, nursing mothers and children under five years old was launched in April 2010 with support from UNICEF, the World Bank, the WHO and the U.K. Department for International Development, AFP notes (9/6).

A survey by Gallup and Healthways finds wide variations in the number of uninsured from state to state.

Nancy Lindborg, USAID's assistant administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, writes in this post in USAID's "IMPACTblog" that the U.S. "continue[s] to call on all parties involved to allow unfettered humanitarian access to Somalis in need." She continues, "The unfortunate reality is that Somalia is the most difficult operating environment for humanitarians in the world today," adding that "unless we -- the international community -- can get access to provide humanitarian assistance to southern Somalia, the already horrific situation will get worse. Without access, the number of people in crisis will increase, and famine will continue to spread in Somalia" (9/6).