Latest KFF Health News Stories
In this Christian Science Monitor opinion piece, Jim White, vice president of operations at Mercy Corps, and Matt Ellingson, director of program development at Samaritan’s Purse, who “co-led a team from five U.S.-based aid organizations that traveled to North Korea to deliver flood relief supplies” last month, ask why the U.S. and South Korea continue to delay food aid to North Koreans affected by the country’s food crisis despite the fact that “aid groups have a proven ability to monitor the way food is distributed in North Korea.”
Indoor Cooking Stoves Kill 2 Million Annually, NIH Study Says
Pollution from indoor cooking stoves, typically open fires that that burn solid fuels such as wood, charcoal or dung, kills two million globally each year, scientists at NIH said in a study published in the journal Science on Thursday, Agence France-Presse reports. Smoke emitted from the stoves, used by three billion people worldwide, “causes pneumonia and chronic lung disease that particularly affects women and children who tend to spend more time in the home while men are outside working,” AFP writes, adding that “little public awareness surrounds what the World Health Organization describes as the globe’s top environmental killer” (Sheridan, 10/13).
Panel Gets Earful Of Advice On Taming The Federal Deficit
Among the messages to the super committee members: caution. Meanwhile, Democratic governors expressed fears about deep cuts in federal aid to their states, especially regarding Medicaid and other entitlement programs. Hospital advocacy groups also carried a similar message about treading lightly in regard to trimming Medicaid funding.
House Approves Bill To Block Abortion Coverage
The measure, which among other things would ban women from using the health law’s tax subsidies to purchase health insurance that includes abortion coverage, is unlikely to be considered in the Democratic-led Senate and has recieved a veto threat from President Barack Obama.
State News: Texas Pharmacies Fear Lower Medicaid Fees
News outlets report on health policy stories around the country.
National Health Service Corp. Nearly Triples In Size, According To HHS
Funding from the health care law and the 2009 stimulus bill helped drive the increase of the loan-repayment and scholarship program, which grew from about 3,600 clinicians in 2008 to more than 10,000 this year.
Blue Shield Of Calif. Adds Additional $283 Million To Policyholder ‘Giveback’
In fulfilling its promise to return excess profits to policyholders, the insurer’s return will reach an estimated $450 million in credits by the end of the year.
Uninsured Rates, Impact Of Malpractice Award Limits In Perry’s Texas
Texas Gov. Rick Perry takes the media hot seat today as news outlets examine his state’s uninsured rate, the success of Texas’ malpractice award limits and the GOP hopeful’s claims about rival Mitt Romney’s health plan.
A selection of today’s editorials and opinions from around the country.
Research Roundup: Options To Cut Health Spending; Covering Teenagers
This week’s reports come from the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the Urban Institute, the Health Services Research Journal, the Journal of General Internal Medicine and the Kaiser Family Foundation.
First Edition: October 14, 2011
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including more status reports on the super committee’s deficit-reduction deliberations.
Growing Global Trade Puts World At Greater Risk For Foodborne Disease Outbreaks, WHO Officials Say
“The world has become more vulnerable to outbreaks of disease caused by contaminated food because of growing global trade, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday,” Agence France-Presse reports. WHO officials say that “[i]nvestigating these outbreaks has also become more difficult because food can contain ingredients from around the world and is transported through a complex global supply chain,” according to AFP. Speaking “at a conference in Singapore on improving preparedness against global health threats,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said, “Problems nowadays can arise from any link or kink in a convoluted food chain” and governments worldwide are faced with the challenge of how to “reduce the health and economic consequences of foodborne diseases,” the news service writes (10/13).
WFP Says Millions In Yemen Going Hungry, Warns Of ‘Serious Humanitarian Situation’
“The U.N. World Food Programme [WFP] said Wednesday that more Yemenis were going hungry because of rising food prices and severe fuel shortages brought about by months of political unrest,” Agence France-Presse reports. “The months of violence and instability have pushed the already stressed Yemeni economy to the brink of collapse and forced millions of families further into poverty,” the news service writes, noting that “WFP
World Food Prize Symposium Examines Link Between Food Security and Health, Poverty Efforts
KPLU 88.5’s “Humanosphere” blog reports on the World Food Prize symposium and Borlaug Dialogue taking place in Iowa this week, where “about 1,000 people, including many former heads of state and top agricultural policy folk, are gathered together to talk about
Survey Measures What Americans Know About The U.S. Foreign Aid Budget
This post in Population Services International’s (PSI) “Healthy Lives” blog reports the results of a “survey of 507 Americans [administered] at the end of September [that] sought to capture what, exactly, Americans know about the foreign aid budget.” According to the blog, the PSI survey asked participants how important it is for the U.S. to provide aid for foreign countries, what the most important reason for U.S. investment in global health and development is and whether it is important for the U.S. to invest in these sectors because recipient countries will become significant consumers of U.S. goods, and concluded that “[a] strong majority of Americans believe foreign aid is a good thing” (10/12).
India Faces Nutrition Crisis Despite Growing Prosperity
India’s Hindustan Times reports on “a striking contrast between rising economic prosperity and stagnating rates of malnutrition” in Mumbai, where “80,000 children … are malnourished, according to government data, a statistic that makes Mumbai the most malnourished city in India.” The newspaper writes, “Malnourishment in Mumbai could actually be worse than India believes,” because estimates are based “on data provided by Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), a government child-care program that reaches only a quarter of children in the city’s slums.”
Funding For NCDs Doesn’t Have To Come At The Expense Of NTDs
In this “End the Neglect” blog post, Alanna Shaikh, a writer for U.N. Dispatch, writes that while “[a]t first glance, the new focus on cardiovascular and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) looks like trouble for the funding for things like neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) … that conflict is mostly superficial. NCDs and NTDs have much more in common than their initials.”
“Young women in India are much better off than their mothers, but they fare much worse than their counterparts in many developing countries when it comes to the physical survival rate of women and participation in labor force, says a report by the World Bank … titled ‘Gender Equality and Development,'” Business Standard reports (10/13). The report “said that while life expectancy had increased in low- and middle-income countries by 20 years since 1960 … almost 4 million women died too early in the developing world compared to rich countries,” with almost one million of these excess deaths occurring in India, according to the Times of India (Dhawan, 10/13).
Study Finds Vitamin D Is Critical In Human Immune Response To Tuberculosis
“Vitamin D is needed to activate the immune system’s response to tuberculosis (TB),” a finding that “could lead to new treatments for the lung disease,” researchers from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) said in a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, Agence France-Presse reports. “Researchers have long known that vitamin D plays a role in the body’s response to TB, but the study … shows it must be present in adequate levels to trigger the immune response,” AFP writes.
Aid Donors, NGOs Should Ensure Development Work Benefits Disabled People
In this post in the Guardian’s “Poverty Matters Blog,” Tim Wainwright, CEO of ADD International, writes, “It puzzles me why so much of mainstream development’s resources, research, campaigning efforts and attention ignore disabled people,” which account for one in seven of the world’s population, or one billion people. “My challenge to the mainstream is this: employ representative numbers of disabled people. Make all your offices accessible. Ensure your development work involves and benefits disabled people equally,” he writes.
