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So far, 11 states have accepted federal money to set up their own state-run insurance exchange. Meanwhile, the Basic Health Program, another health law initiative, is drawing attention.
"In the run up to the U.N. summit on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), there are fears that industry interests might be trumping evidence-based public health interventions," BMJ reports. "Many hope that this meeting will force [NCDs] into the spotlight just as the first health-related U.N. summit did for AIDS a decade ago," but "[w]ith only weeks to go before the summit ... [d]iscussions have stopped on the document that forms the spine of the summit," BMJ writes.
"The Delhi-based International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) and the Lala Ram Sarup Institute of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases, collaborated with the National University of Singapore to develop" a urine test that "offers a less invasive diagnostic method for" tuberculosis (TB), SciDev reports. "Drug-resistant cases need an expensive, sophisticated test that takes two weeks of culturing blood samples to detect the bacterium," but developing countries, which "account for 95 percent of new infections and 98 percent of deaths ... prefer a simple test requiring minimum resources and trained personnel, and one that gives quick and easily interpreted results, the Delhi scientists observed," according to the news agency (Padma, 8/23).
IRIN reports on the difficulties some people living with HIV in Kenya face in accessing food. "Partly because of a prolonged dry spell, some 3.6 million Kenyans need emergency food assistance," and, while there is food aid available in Kenya, poor roads prevent the aid from reaching some villages, according to IRIN.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which "froze disbursements of its AIDS grant to China in November and all other grants in May over suspected misuse of the money and the government's reluctance to involve community groups, ... said Tuesday that it was lifting the freeze on financing to ensure that AIDS work in China continued while it worked with government officials, representatives from United Nations agencies and private groups to resolve the dispute," the Associated Press reports.
A potpourri of opinions and editorials from around the country.
In other health IT news, a study found that Google-type word searches of hospital medical records are better at detecting patient safety issues than searches using numerical billing codes.
Other states wrestle with issues regarding Medicaid eligibility, payments and fraud.
The HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response is trying to harness the power of social media to respond to public health emergencies through a contest, titled "Lifeline Facebook Application Challenge," that asks application developers to "provide actionable steps for Facebook users to increase their own personal preparedness and strengthen connections within their social networks for the sake of personal preparedness and community resilience," Kaiser Health News reports. The competition runs through the end of hurricane season on November 4, the news service notes (Kulkarni, 8/23).
The guidance, which is designed to help scientists avoid financial conflicts when conducting government-funded research, will take effect Aug. 24, 2012.
The report, out today, recommends that Congress extend COBRA subsidies through 2014.
News outlets report on a variety of state health policy issues.
The final decision won't be made until November, but a draft recommendation is expected today.
In other news related to health reform politics, a coalition of health insurers and small businesses is launching a new assault on the law.
Ultimately, Medicare officials hope that bundling payments to hospitals, doctors and even post-hospital caregivers will lead to increases in cost-effective care.
The action is scheduled for the week of Oct. 17 in St. Paul, Minn. The case is "one of the most prominent in the second round of health reform lawsuits working its way up to the Supreme Court."
David Stuckler of the University of Cambridge, Sanjay Basu of the University of California, San Francisco, and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, write in a BMJ commentary that misconceptions and fallacies "have led to serious under-budgeting for non-communicable diseases" (NCDs). The authors question whether food companies, or lobbying groups and non-governmental organizations that are influenced by food corporations, should "be viewed as trusted partners and have a seat at the table during public health negotiations" leading up to the U.N. High-level Meeting on NCDs.
Speaking at a breastfeeding conference on Tuesday in Johannesburg, South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said that "reducing child mortality is one of the most important priorities in our country and central to this is breastfeeding as a child survival strategy," Agence France-Presse reports.
"[M]alnutrition, one of the leading killers of children under five in the Central American nation [of Guatemala], is receiving scant attention on the campaign trail" ahead of the country's presidential elections scheduled for September, AlertNet reports. "Organized crime and rising drug-fuelled violence" are overshadowing many issues, according to the news service.
JAMA discusses "a recent report from the Pew Health Group about the growing risks of substandard and counterfeit medications resulting from the increasing overseas production of pharmaceuticals and their ingredients." According to JAMA, "The report notes that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) now estimates that as much as 40 percent of pharmaceuticals used by U.S. consumers are made in other countries, and 80 percent of active ingredients and bulk chemicals used in drug manufacturing come from foreign countries." The report "recommends that pharmaceutical companies exert tighter control over their international suppliers, that Congress provide the FDA with more resources and greater authority to oversee foreign drug production, and that a universal system be created to track drugs from production to the pharmacy," the journal writes (Kuehn, 8/24).
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