Latest KFF Health News Stories
U.N. Receives Reports Of Malnutrition In Sudanese Border States
The U.N. “has received alarming reports of malnutrition in two Sudanese border states where the army is fighting insurgents,” according to Valerie Amos, U.N. under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Reuters reports. Since fighting broke out in June in the South Kordofan and Blue Nile states near the border of the newly independent South Sudan, “U.N. agencies and aid groups have only been able to keep small teams of local staff on the ground and the government has stopped any aid workers visiting areas where there has been fighting,” the news service writes. Amos “urged Sudan to lift a ban on international U.N. staff traveling to both border states” so the agency could ensure it has staff with the correct skills on the ground, according to Reuters (Laessing, 1/4).
Candidates Jockey For Position, Messages In Post-Iowa Landscape
News outlets report on how GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is being targeted by Republican rivals and the Obama campaign. Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann exits the primary race, and Rick Santorum, fresh from his Iowa caucus finish, draws headlines.
British Columbia’s ‘Treatment-As-Prevention Strategy’ Helping To Reduce HIV/AIDS Cases, Deaths
“New HIV cases and AIDS deaths are both going steadily down in British Columbia, according to data released last week,” the New York Times reports. Julio Montaner, director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, said, “We’re particularly pleased to see that our treatment-as-prevention strategy has taken off big-time,” the newspaper notes, adding that the strategy, which aggressively identifies and treats people with HIV, “lowers by 96 percent the chances that they will infect others.” The New York Times writes, “Montaner said he is frustrated that rich countries will not donate enough money to roll out the strategy in poor countries with huge HIV epidemics” (McNeil, 1/2).
India Looks To Design Science Policy To Address Poverty, Development Challenges
Speaking this week at “the 99th Indian Science Congress, the country’s largest annual gathering of scientists,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “said the occasion demanded looking anew at the role of science in a country ‘grappling with the challenges of poverty and development'” and “emphasized that ‘the overriding objective of a comprehensive and well-considered policy for science, technology and innovation should be to support the national objective of faster, sustainable and inclusive development,'” SciDev.Net reports. “Singh also underscored the need to use innovations creatively for social benefit,” the news service writes.
Major Health Insurers Prosper With Expanding Roles In Medicare, Medicaid
Meanwhile, a California study shows health care costs in that state are rising, while benefits are shrinking. Another study finds that coverage gaps can be disruptive to preventive care.
Viewpoints: Protecting Home Health Workers; Minn. Plans Cuts In Health Safety Net
A selection of editorials and opinions on health policy from around the country.
U.S. Cancer Death Rates Drop, New Report Says
In a new report from the American Cancer Society, researchers indicate that cancer death rates in the United States fell 1.8 percent in men and 1.6 percent in women each year between 2004 and 2008, but those gains weren’t as pronounced in young adults.
Aid Agencies Express Concern Over Child Malnutrition In Nepal, AFP Reports
In Nepal, “a child malnutrition epidemic described by humanitarian organizations as a ‘silent emergency’ is claiming the lives of thousands of infants each year,” Agence France-Presse reports. “According to government statistics 1.7 million children — nearly half of all under-fives — suffer from chronic malnutrition, a long-term condition also known as stunting,” the news service writes, adding, “Acute malnutrition, a condition known as ‘wasting’ blamed for half of Nepal’s infant deaths, is thought to affect 18 percent.”
State Roundup: Colo. Reports ‘Record’ Number Of Medicaid Recipients
A selection of health care stories from Connecticut, California, Colorado, Texas and New York.
Longer Looks: The Body’s Fight Against Losing Weight
This week’s selections come from The New York Times Magazine, National Review, Salon and American Medical News.
N.Y. Prosecutor Investigates Hospital Practices
Kaiser Health News reports that a lawsuit unsealed this week alleges that a national hospice company committed Medicare fraud by improperly cycling patients through nursing homes. In the meantime, a N.Y. prosecutor is investigating a hospital’s management practices.
The ‘Doc Fix’ Is High On Congressional To-Do List
As Congress returns to work, it will face a full plate of difficult items — including efforts to address the Medicare physician payment formula. Meanwhile, some observers are worried President Obama’s recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will lead to trouble for the confirmation of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner.
IRIN Examines Risk Of Waterborne Diseases In Zimbabwe
IRIN examines how a lack of sanitation facilities and access to clean water, as well as the onset of the rainy season, are increasing the risk of waterborne diseases in rural areas of Zimbabwe. A 2009 survey, “compiled by the government and U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), listed diarrhea as one of the major causes of infant mortality resulting in around 4,000 deaths in Zimbabwe annually” and “showed a 20 percent increase in under-five mortality since 1990,” IRIN writes.
New HIV Vaccine Candidates Show Promise In Monkeys
“The quest for a vaccine against AIDS is gaining momentum, with research published Wednesday identifying promising new candidates that protected monkeys against a powerful strain of the virus and that soon could be tested in humans,” the Wall Street Journal reports (McKay, 1/5). Researchers treated different groups of rhesus monkeys with several different two-stage vaccine combinations and then exposed them to a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) that was different than the one used to make the vaccines, according to Nature (Callaway, 1/4).
Bringing Health Solutions To Women, Children
In this Huffington Post “Impact” blog post, Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, writes that she will be visiting Bangladesh to “lear[n] even more about two of the biggest killers of children — pneumonia and diarrhea,” and says “Bangladesh has made incredible progress in recent years, reducing the number of childhood deaths by 65 percent since 1990.” She writes, “As I reflect back on what I learned this year about the progress and the challenges in women’s and children’s health, I’m struck by the fact that we don’t need to wait for the solutions,” including “[t]hings like life-saving vaccines, contraceptives, healthy practices for mothers and newborns and good nutrition.”
CSIS’s Morrison Discusses ‘End of AIDS’
SmartGlobalHealth.org features the latest episode of “Small Screen Sessions,” in which J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ Global Health Policy Center, discusses the policy changes that enabled the International AIDS Conference to return to the U.S. in 2012 after a 22-year hiatus, and the beginning of the “end of AIDS” (1/4).
UNC HIV Researcher Cohen Discusses His Work, HPTN 052
PSI’s “Healthy Lives” blog features a video from the University of North Carolina (UNC) Medical Center News Office in which Myron Cohen, a professor of medicine, microbiology, immunology and public health at UNC-Chapel Hill and the director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, discusses his research into HIV/AIDS prevention, including his lead role in HPTN 052. That study, which found “that the sexual transmission [of HIV] can be virtually stopped when the infected person is treated with ARVs, this year was heralded as the ‘Breakthrough of the Year’ by Science magazine,” according to the blog (1/4).
First Edition: January 5, 2012
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including a report that health law opponents want to add plaintiffs to their lawsuit as well as dispatches from the GOP primary election compaign trail.
Bachmann’s Parting Shot: Repeal Health Law
As she announced she was leaving the presidential race, Rep. Bachmann referred to “Obamacare” 11 times.
Study: Drug Research Often Suppressed
A British Medical Journal study found that drug research, including federal government-sponsored clinical trials, is often suppressed, which lead to higher drug costs and harm for patients.
