Archives: Morning Breakouts

The funds will help centers in 48 states expand their capacity to serve an additional 900,000 people.

CNN reports on how "[t]he issue of forced abortions -- and in some cases, forced sterilizations -- in China has seized the spotlight in recent days with news of escaped activist Chen Guangcheng," who "rose to fame in the late 1990s because of his advocacy for what he calls victims of abusive practices, such as forced abortions, by Chinese family planning officials." China's so-called "one-child policy has been blamed for abuses," the news service reports. The news service writes, "In some cases, advocates say, fetuses identified as female are aborted, ... abandoned, left to die or raised as orphans," as "Chinese traditionally prefer boys over girls." CNN describes several reports from women's health advocates working in China of women undergoing forced abortion and sterilization; a report from the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, "created by Congress to monitor human rights and the rule of law in China"; and the State Department's 2009 Human Rights Report, the news service notes.

Although President Barack Obama and GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney offer voters "a distinct choice," Romney is still courting conservatives within his party who have been concerned about his past positions on things such as abortion and health reform.

"The world is falling behind in its pledge to reduce HIV/AIDS infections and improve treatment, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a U.N. report [.pdf] released Monday" by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the Associated Press reports. The report to the U.N. General Assembly "said that 'critical challenges remain' if the world is to make good on promises made at a U.N.-sponsored meeting on HIV/AIDS in June 2011," the AP writes (Alt Powell, 4/30). "Among the targets set by the international community at the June 2011 high-level meeting are the elimination of new HIV/AIDS infections in children, cutting sexually transmitted infections by 50 percent, and delivering antiretroviral therapy to 15 million people," Xinhua/China Daily notes (5/1).

The federal judge prevented Texas from enforcing the law, which banned Planned Parenthood from the state's health care program for women, until the legal challenge is concluded.

"Governments are failing to fund projects to improve access to toilets and other sanitation services in poor countries because the subject remains 'taboo,' a director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said on Monday," Reuters reports. "About 1.1 billion people across the world still defecate in the open because they have no toilets, according to the United Nations," Reuters writes. "It's the last big taboo and as a result more than one million kids die every year. Diarrhea is the second largest cause of death after respiratory infections in young children," Frank Rijsberman, director of water, sanitation and hygiene at the foundation, said at the Global Water Summit 2012 conference in Rome, the news service notes.

The next stage in the landmark 2006 health reform law is to scale back the growth in health care costs.

The May issue of the WHO Bulletin features an editorial on the establishment of an evidence base for e-health; a public health round-up; an article on the future of e-health technologies; a research paper on the use of e-health in low- and middle-income countries; and a systematic review on the factors that promote or inhibit the implementation of e-health systems (May 2012).

In this post in USAID's "IMPACTblog," Chris Thomas, a health and development officer at USAID, reports on an event held on Capitol Hill on Tuesday during which "the U.S. Government celebrated remarkable country-level success in saving the lives of women during pregnancy and childbirth." "Health ministers from Afghanistan, Cambodia, Dominican Republic, and the head of maternal and child health from Rwanda took center stage on Capitol Hill," where "each told a unique and personal story," he writes, noting, "USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah keyed in on drivers of successful maternal health programs and how such efforts can be accelerated and sustained throughout the developing world" (4/27).

The Guttmacher Institute on Friday released a media update examining the impact of U.S. international family planning assistance. The update highlights the benefits supported by $610 million "appropriated for U.S. assistance for family planning and reproductive health programs for FY 2012" and states, "These gains would be seriously jeopardized if this already modest funding for the program were to be cut again," noting that "reductions of different magnitudes would have proportional effects" (4/27).