Latest KFF Health News Stories
Efforts To End AIDS Could Also Reduce TB Burden With Proper Funding
In response to Michael Gerson’s November 11 column in which he said the end of AIDS is possible because of combination prevention and treatment innovations, David Bryden, the Stop TB advocacy officer at RESULTS, writes in a Washington Post letter to the editor, “Another benefit of [HIV] treatment is that it sharply reduces deaths from tuberculosis [TB], which is the primary killer of people living with HIV/AIDS.” He says that “to fully succeed in Africa, where TB and HIV/AIDS are often two sides of the same coin, we have to quickly identify people who have TB or who are vulnerable to it and get them the services they need,” which also means developing an accurate quick test for the disease.
Examining Funding In Light Of New Evidence On HIV Prevention, Treatment Strategies
In this Huffington Post opinion piece, Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development, reports on a World Bank- and USAID-sponsored debate she moderated last week as part of a series on HIV/AIDS issues, the topic of which was “Countries should spend a majority of what is likely to be a flat or even declining HIV prevention budget on ‘treatment as prevention.'” She notes several of her reactions to the debate and asks with regard to global health spending, “What about the pie? Even if it grows, there will be tradeoffs.”
Future Research Critical To Ending AIDS Epidemic
Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention and a founding member of the Global Health Technologies Coalition, writing in The Hill’s “Congress Blog,” welcomes Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s November 8 announcement of “an additional $60 million for implementation of a combination of prevention strategies in four sub-Saharan African countries and evaluation of their impact,” adding that “this funding can only be viewed as a down payment on the work that needs to be done.” He says the Obama administration and the governments of other countries “need to add specific commitments, milestones, and strategies to the vision,” as well as “commit to the long haul.”
Debt Panel Deliberations Involve Gloom, Doom And Blame
As indications suggest that the super committee stalemate continues, the panel members and other lawmakers are pointing fingers and assigning blame. Health programs — including Medicare — continue to be a sticking point. News outlets also examine how the threatened cuts that would kick in if the panel doesn’t find success would impact the health sector.
Medicaid Expansion Key Part Of Court’s Health Law Review
The high court’s announcement that it would review the law was not a surprise, but the specific issues it will examine have triggered some shockwaves. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court attention to the health law also has moved the issue of the overhaul back to the forefront of many campaigns.
HuffPost Green Examines Relationship Between Environment, Malaria
As part of its series on the relationships between human, animal and environmental health, titled “The Infection Loop,” HuffPost Green examines how changes in climate and landscape, human movement, agricultural practices, and microbe adaptation are affecting the spread of malaria. “Our disease-fighting weaponry has certainly improved in recent years, from the widespread distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets to hopeful progress towards a malaria vaccine,” but some “experts suggest that getting ahead of the disease, let alone maintaining a lead, is far easier said than done,” according to the article, which includes quotes from malaria researchers working in several academic disciplines (Peeples, 11/16).
Kenya Readies To Step Up Fight Against Trachoma
AllAfrica.com reports on trachoma — a chronic bacterial infection spread by direct contact with eye, nose and throat secretions from others who are infected — in Kenya, profiling Kajiado County where the disease has reached the blinding stage in 3.4 percent of patients, “making it a serious public health problem in that region and many other similarly remote areas with little access to health care and screening.” According to the news service, “Officials with the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) estimate that of every 100 people screened for trachoma in Kajiado alone, 17 will have active stage symptoms such as redness and irritation of the eyes.”
South African public health experts from Medecins San Frontieres (MSF) South Africa and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) “are calling on governments to use legally available mechanisms to promote the production or import of generic drugs in their countries,” Inter Press Service reports. The article examines how countries can alter their patent acts under the Doha Declaration — a World Trade Organization declaration on the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Public Health that “exists to ensure that patents do not undermine the ability of countries to achieve the right to health” — “to access generic versions of otherwise patented medicines in cases where prices are prohibitively expensive, the organizations say.”
In advance of a U.N. climate change conference this month in Durban, South Africa, the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, a high-level international panel, on Wednesday announced its recommendations (.pdf) for achieving food security while addressing the effects of climate change, VOA News reports. The panel, which includes scientists from 13 countries who are experts in agriculture, climate, economics, trade, nutrition and ecology, “spent the past year analyzing many climate studies — a year that included climbing food prices, humanitarian disasters and political unrest — all of which, it says, threaten food security,” VOA writes (DeCapua, 11/16). “The seven high-level recommendations include significantly raising the level of global investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems in the next decade; sustainably intensifying agricultural production on the existing land base while reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and reducing losses and waste in the food system,” a commission press release states (11/16).
Multi-Drug Resistant Bacteria Widespread In Europe, Report Says
Multi-drug resistant bacteria “are increasing their grip in Europe with rates of drug resistance in one type of bacteria reaching 50 percent in the worst-hit countries, health officials said Thursday,” Reuters reports. “In a report [.pdf] on multi-drug resistant bacteria, … the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease across the European Union, said the need to combat resistance was ‘critical,'” the news agency writes, adding, “To a large extent, antibiotic resistance is driven by the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, which encourages bacteria to develop new ways of overcoming them” (Kelland, 11/17).
Report By Aid Watchdog Group Finds Many International Donors Lack Transparency
IRIN examines the results of a report by the aid watchdog group Publish What You Fund that examines “whether donors publish information about their budgets, their allocation and procurement policies, or audit reports on their own performance” and “finds that most international aid donors are still not open enough about their aid programs, and some offer no information at all.” The report, which “ranks 58 aid-giving countries and organizations according to their openness about 37 aspects of their aid programs,” was released in anticipation of the fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness to be held in Busan, South Korea, at the end of the month, where “transparency will be up for discussion,” according to IRIN. Some of the organizations ranked in the report include the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the GAVI Alliance, the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) and the African Development Bank, according to IRIN (11/16).
Pollution Threatens Health Of Chinese Population, UNEP Report Says
“The pollution that has accompanied China’s spectacular rate of economic growth will have dire health consequences for its population, the United Nations has warned in a report,” the International Business Times reports. “Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), told media that already hundreds of thousands of Chinese people have suffered respiratory illnesses or died prematurely due to the heavy smog that envelops some cities in the country,” the news service writes.
Case Challenging Vets’ Mental Health Care Goes Back To Appeals Court
The full appeals court will now consider the case. In May, a three-judge panel had ordered sweeping changes in the system.
Outside Groups Launch TV Ads Warning About Medicare Cuts
Americans United for Change, AFSCME, SEIU and MoveOn.org are among the groups targeting GOP lawmakers regarding proposals to cut Medicare. Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is striking back with ads of its own warning about government-run health care.
Survey Finds Health Care Costs A Key Issue In Presidential Campaign
But Americans remain split in their support for the health law. Meanwhile, in news from the campaign trail, Paul, Romney, Perry and Bachmann all grab health policy headlines.
Study: Health Insurance Premiums Soar In All 50 States
The new study by the Commonwealth Fund confirmed what other research had highlighted as a national trend in employer-sponsored coverage — higher costs for skimpier benefits.
CMS Delays Florida MLR Decision; Conn. Exchange Board Under Fire
In Florida and Connecticut, officials are wrestling with issues related to implementation of the national health reform law.
House Gives Nod To Correcting Medicaid ‘Glitch’
The measure, which already passed the Senate, will now go to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature.
Schwartz Presses Super Committee To Advance Her ‘Doc Fix’ Proposal
The plan, advanced by Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., would prevent a 27.4 percent cut in Medicare physician payments from kicking in Jan. 1, phase out the current outdated formula and transition to a new one. Though some physician groups are lining up behind her approach, the American Medical Association has not yet “on board.”
State Roundup: Calif. Cuts Make Public Health Outlook Bleak
A selection of stories from California, Maine, Florida, Indiana, Alaska, Massachusetts and Oregon.
