Latest KFF Health News Stories
Research Roundup: Medicaid Vs. Private Pay ER Use; Caregiver Stress
This week, we include studies from the Institute of Medicine, the American Journal of Public Health, the Urban Institute, the National Alliance for Caregiving and the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Cuts To Health Budget Lead To Increases In HIV/AIDS, Malaria, TB Incidence In Greece
“The savage cuts to Greece’s health service budget have led to a sharp rise in HIV/AIDS and malaria in the beleaguered nation, said a leading aid organization on Thursday,” the Guardian’s “News Blog” reports. “The incidence of HIV/AIDS among intravenous drug users in central Athens soared by 1,250 percent in the first 10 months of 2011 compared with the same period the previous year, according to” Reveka Papadopoulos, “the head of Medecins Sans Frontieres [MSF] Greece, while malaria is becoming endemic in the south for the first time since … the 1970s,” the blog notes.
WHO Releases Global Report On Mortality Attributable To Tobacco
A global report (.pdf) published by the WHO, titled “Mortality Attributable to Tobacco,” “provides information by country on the proportion of adult (age 30 years and above) deaths attributable to tobacco by major communicable and non-communicable causes by age and sex,” the agency’s website states (March 2012). According to the U.N. News Centre, the report “shows that five percent of all deaths from communicable diseases worldwide and 14 percent of deaths resulting from non-communicable illnesses among adults aged 30 and above were attributable to tobacco use” (3/15).
People Of Faith Can Work Together To Make Water Safe Worldwide
“We don’t honor God when 4,500 children die every day — but they do — from the lack of something so simple, each of us takes it for granted: a safe glass of water,” Rabbi Jack Bemporad, executive director of the Center for Interreligious Understanding, and journalist Susan Barnett write in Huffington Post’s “Religion” blog. “Current U.S. funding for water and sanitation development amounts to less than one one-hundredth of a percent of the federal budget,” they write, adding, “Yet for every dollar invested, there’s an economic return of $8.” They continue, “With all the good work the faiths do, from malnutrition to malaria, it’s all being undercut by the overarching absence of clean water and sanitation. Not prioritizing the global water crisis defies logic. It prevents productivity, increases poverty and inequality for women.”
Indian Finance Minister’s Budget Includes 58% Increase For Malnutrition Programs
Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s “budget includes a big boost in spending on reducing malnutrition,” with an increase for malnutrition programs of “58 percent in fiscal 2012-13 to 158 billion rupees, or about $3 billion,” the Wall Street Journal’s “India Real Time” blog reports. “Despite its rapid economic growth, India has struggled with persistently high rates of malnutrition, far worse than many worse-performing economies,” according to the blog.
“[F]amily planning is one of the best public health interventions that can be made,” U.S. Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer said in an interview with Amar Bakshi, editor of CNN World’s “Global Public Square” (GPS) blog, adding, “It makes such a difference in a woman’s life for her to be able to have the wherewithal — the family planning contraceptives available so that she can decide the size and the spacing of her children.”
Zimbabwe’s Plan To Conduct Household HIV Testing Raises Concerns Among Some Advocates
PlusNews examines the challenges and concerns surrounding Zimbabwe’s plan to conduct a door-to-door HIV testing campaign, which has not yet begun but “is already being met with skepticism by activists who feel this is not a priority for the country, especially with global HIV/AIDS funding on the decline.” National AIDS officials say the country’s “AIDS levy — a three percent tax on income — has become a promising source of funding”; in 2010, $20.5 million was collected, with most of that going to purchase antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), PlusNews notes. Of the estimated 1.2 million people living with HIV in Zimbabwe, 347,000 access ARVs through a national program, and another 600,000 people “urgently” need them, according to the news service.
“With much of the global economy facing slowing growth and uncertain prospects, especially in developed countries, a new World Bank report” — titled “The Fiscal Dimension of HIV/AIDS in Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland, and Uganda” — “urges African governments and their development aid donors to do significantly more to prevent new HIV infections” and “warns that current spending on HIV/AIDS relates to past infections and is a potentially misleading indicator of the long-term public cost of the fight against HIV/AIDS,” a World Bank press release states. According to the press release, “The report argues that governments need to better assess the financial sustainability and allocative efficiency of their national HIV/AIDS responses over time so as to sustainably manage the long-term burden of HIV/AIDS” (3/14).
Partnerships Critical To Stopping HIV/AIDS, GBV Among Women
“For the past two weeks, the buzz in Washington, D.C., and at the White House is all about women and girls,” Roxana Rogers, director of the USAID Office of HIV/AIDS, writes in this “IMPACTblog” post. She highlights a recently announced initiative, funded through PEPFAR, “to help local communities and grassroots organizations fight HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence [GBV].” Rogers continues, “Partnerships between U.S. agencies, civil society, private corporations, and international institutions are key to tackling these issues,” and describes several USAID-supported programs working to address HIV/AIDS and GBV (3/15).
Gates Foundation Grants Biotech Firm Aeras $220 Million Over 5 Years To Develop TB Vaccines
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is “to give $220 million over five years to the non-profit biotech firm Aeras to develop vaccines to fight tuberculosis [TB], a company statement said Thursday,” Agence France-Presse reports (3/15). The “grant will allow Aeras to advance several vaccine candidates into pivotal large-scale efficacy trials in South Africa and elsewhere,” South Africa’s Health-e writes (Thom, 3/15). According to AFP, Aeras “has developed six possible TB vaccines that are being tested across Africa, Asia, Europe and America” (3/15).
U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Discusses AIDS 2012 Conference
“For the first time in over 20 years, the biennial International AIDS Conference will be hosted on American soil,” U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby writes in this post in the AIDS.gov blog. “From July 22 to 27, AIDS 2012 will convene scientists, health professionals, policymakers and those affected by AIDS in Washington, D.C., to assess progress to date and identify next steps in the global response,” he writes. He notes, “The conference theme, Turning the Tide Together, underscores the pivotal moment in which AIDS 2012 is taking place,” and discusses the role that the U.S. has played in achieving scientific progress in the fight against AIDS since it was identified 30 years ago (3/15).
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports that the federal government has cut Texas Medicaid funds because of a Planned Parenthood flap.
In Congress, A Budget Battle Is Brewing
House GOP lawmakers are pushing cuts in the 2013 budget plan that go much deeper than the outline agreed upon last summer as part of a Republican-Democratic deal to raise the debt ceiling.
Individuals’ Views On Health Law Form Hopes, Predictions About Court Decision
New polls released by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Pew Research Center and Bloomberg explore what the public expects of the high court’s proceedings as well as how much they expect politics to impact justices’ views.
Are HIPAA Rules Impeding Medical Research?
The Philadelphia Inquirer explores the possibility that health privacy rules are preventing researchers from accessing information that can help formulate best health care practices and policies.
Questions Continue About Obama Birth Control Coverage Compromise
The Associated Press reports that the U.S. Catholic bishops consider the administration’s pledge to soften this mandate “dubious.”
Romney Critics Cite Mass. Health Law, Planned Parenthood Statement
The Massachusetts health law, which GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney signed while governor and which includes an individual mandate, continues to haunt him in the primaries. Meanwhile, Democrats use his recent pledge to ‘get rid of’ Planned Parenthood to diminish his appeal with female voters.
New Payment Methods Squeezing Doctors
As the government and insurers push to switch from traditional fee-for-service payments, doctors scramble to find ways to keep practices afloat.
S.C. Won’t Have To Refund Exchange Grant, Other Exchange News
South Carolina won’t have to refund the federal government a $1 million grant it received, even though the state decided not to create a health insurance exchange. Mississippi and California, in the meantime, are moving along on creating such marketplaces, despite differing views on the health law.
Wis., N.H. Advance Bills Limiting Abortion Coverage, Availability
Wisconsin’s measure affects insurance coverage while New Hampshire’s would require women to wait 24 hours for an abortion.
