Archives: Morning Breakouts

In his opening address at the U.N. High Level Meeting on AIDS on Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "told presidents, ministers and diplomats from across the globe that if all partners involved in the fight unite 'as never before,'" the goal of "zero new infections, zero stigma and zero AIDS-related deaths" can be achieved, the Associated Press/Kansas City Star reports (Lederer, 6/8).

In his opening address at the U.N. High Level Meeting on AIDS on Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "told presidents, ministers and diplomats from across the globe that if all partners involved in the fight unite 'as never before,'" the goal of "zero new infections, zero stigma and zero AIDS-related deaths" can be achieved, the Associated Press/Kansas City Star reports (Lederer, 6/8).

A new report from the World Bank and International Finance Corporation outlines how the public and private sectors in Africa can work together to improve health care quality and access, VOA News reports (Onyiego, 6/6).

"In an era of strained finances, it makes sense to invest in solutions that save money in the long run. HIV vaccine development fits that bill. As we mark the 30th anniversary of AIDS, there could be no better way to commemorate the occasion than to renew our commitment to its end," Seth Berkeley, president and CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, and Phill Wilson, president and CEO of the Black AIDS Institute, write in a CNN opinion piece (6/8).

"Much of the $19 billion in foreign aid that the United States has pumped into Afghanistan in the past decade may be fueling development on the ground in the short term, but is unlikely to produce change that will last once U.S. troops depart, according to a new congressional report," the Christian Science Monitor reports (Mulrine, 6/8).

Researchers and "advocates for all vaccine research today launched yet another effort to increase funding and coordination," ScienceInsider reports.

The G20 plans to launch an initiative aimed at reducing food price volatility when the group's agriculture ministers meet this month in France, the Financial Times reports.

About 6.4 million "children's lives and billions of dollars could be saved if vaccines were more widely available in 72 of the world's poorest countries," according to a series of studies published Thursday in the June 2011 issue of Health Affairs, Reuters reports.

Peter Hotez, chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine at George Washington University and president of Sabin Vaccine Institute, "will join the staffs of Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine this summer, [and] will serve as founding dean of a new, as yet unnamed, tropical disease research school at Baylor," the Houston Chronicle reports (Christian, 6/8).

Meanwhile, a poll released today shows Americans are "torn" over the issue of raising the debt limit, but more than half said they trust President Barack Obama to protect Medicare.