Archives: Morning Breakouts

Public health research data "must be made more widely available in the scientific community if researchers are to unlock its full potential and make progress in public health, the world's top health funding agencies said Monday," Reuters reports. "In a joint statement, 17 major health research funders from around the world pledged to work together to support 'timely and responsible' sharing of data gathered during studies on health," the news service notes (Kelland, 1/10).

House GOP leaders have suspended legislative action for the week ahead because of the Arizona shootings over the weekend.

Just as the repeal positions of some big insurers are becoming clearer, more details on the Democrats' strategy to defend the law are emerging.

At issue are charges to public hospitals and clinics that treat a large number of poor patients and a Vermont law that restricts prescription drug data.

Following the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) in Tucson Saturday, House leaders postpone all legislative business for the week.

The party-line vote set in place the rule that will govern next week's House floor action regarding the GOP proposal to repeal the health law.

Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), on Friday "warned of a 'worrying rise' in food prices which will affect millions of people following unexpected shortfalls in major cereals owing to bad weather in 2010," Agence France-Presse reports.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the names of four experts to be part of an independent panel that will "investigate the source of Haiti's cholera epidemic, which some Haitians blame on U.N. peacekeepers," Reuters reports (Worsnip, 1/6).

With "scores of commercial serology tests for tuberculosis ... being sold in high-burden countries," the "WHO is due to release a negative policy recommendation

"Among HIV-negative sexual partners, male circumcision helps prevent the transmission of human papillomavirus [HPV] from men to women," according to a study published online Thursday in the Lancet, HealthDay News/Bloomberg Businessweek reports. "However, circumcision offers only partial protection and partners must still practice safe sex, the researchers pointed out," according to the news service (1/6).

With the CBO findings, GOP efforts to undo the health law and to claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility took a hit. Democrats immediately pounced on the cost issue as new ammunition in this ongoing battle while Republican leaders instead pointed to their own estimates.

A new Gallup Poll found that public opinion is "closely divided" over whether Congress should vote to undo the health law. And on Capitol Hill, the divide is deep and entrenched, closely tracking with political loyalties.