Archives: Morning Breakouts

PhRMA and analysts on Wall Street ruminate on the fate of the health care bills pending in Congress.

Even as timing and strategies appear unclear, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that both the House and Senate continue to work on the health care reform bill.

Over the next decade, efforts to vaccinate "infants against rotavirus could save the lives of millions of children in developing nations who would otherwise die from the diarrhea-causing disease, two new studies show," HealthDay/BusinsessWeek reports. The studies track diarrhea deaths among children vaccinated against rotavirus in Africa and Mexico and appear in the Jan. 28 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (Thomas, 1/27).

Haitian President Rene Preval said the country is in need of sturdy tents and jobs to prevent an ongoing crisis, the Miami Herald reports. At a press conference, Preval said, "Help the people with tents. Create employment so people can buy food in the country. That is what's most important."

Several health care organizations are urging President Obama and Congress to finish health reform.

A new hospital is a key to plans to build a $1.2 billion academic medical center in the Mid-City neighborhood. Meanwhile, other states grapple with quality and coverage issues.

President Obama Wednesday appealed to Congress - albeit less prominently than before - to agree on and pass health care reform, but the bill remains in jeopardy.

A group of Republicans and Rep. Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who chairs the Energy and Commerce committee, are prodding the White House to release documents detailing agreements cut with industry groups in exchange for their support for health reform.

The Food and Drug Administration releases voluntary guidelines and warns drugmakers to "look beyound traditional indicators" to determine the potential abuse of new drugs.

In his response to President Obama's State of the Union address, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell said, "Americans wanted affordable health care, but they didn't want the government to run it."