Latest KFF Health News Stories
U.N. Official Urges Donors To Provide More Relief For Flooding In Central America
Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Catherine Bragg on Tuesday “urged donors to give generously to assist Nicaragua and El Salvador cope with the aftermath of the recent floods, saying that the scale of the disaster is beyond what the small Central American nations can handle on their own,” the U.N. News Centre reports. According to the news service, approximately 1.2 million people in the region are affected by flooding, “[t]housands of homes have been damaged and hundreds of schools, roads and health facilities are closed,” and [w]ater-borne diseases are spreading …, she added.” Bragg also said food security was a concern, as thousands of acres of crops were destroyed, “‘making it increasingly difficult for people to get enough food for the next six months,’ she stated,” the news service notes (11/8).
U.N., Aid Groups Appeal For Additional Funding, Supplies For Pakistan Flood Victims
The U.N. and several other international aid groups, including Oxfam, Save the Children, Care and ACTED, on Wednesday “warn[ed] they are running short of money and supplies to help millions of people affected by floods in Pakistan,” the Associated Press reports (11/9). “Floods in August hit Sindh province in the south, killing at least 430 people and disrupting the lives of nine million. Many people are still camping out in the open with little food, water or shelter,” Reuters writes, adding “agencies fear flood victims could suffer from a major outbreak of dengue fever, malaria and acute respiratory infection” (Conway, 11/9). The U.N., which has raised just $96.5 million of the $357 million it wants for flood relief, called the appeal ‘distressingly underfunded,'” the Guardian notes (Ford, 11/9).
“Using GlaxoSmithKline’s Cervarix vaccine to protect girls against the [human papillomavirus (HPV)] that causes cervical cancer is so effective that health authorities could reduce the need for later cervical screening,” according to two studies published Wednesday in the journal Lancet Oncology, Reuters reports. In a large efficacy trial involving 20,000 healthy women from 14 countries on four continents, researchers from the U.S. and Finland found the vaccine “‘offers excellent protection’ against two key strains of [HPV], particularly when given to young adolescent girls before they become sexually active” and “found the vaccine partially protects against several other cancer-causing HPV types that it is not specifically designed to target, giving protection against a group of strains that together cause about 85 percent of cervical cancer worldwide,” the news service writes.
Rights Group Files Claim With U.N. Seeking Reparations For Haitians Affected By Cholera
The Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti on Tuesday “filed claims with the United Nations seeking damages on behalf of more than 5,000 Haitian cholera victims and their families,” the Associated Press/San Francisco Chronicle reports (Daniel, 11/8).
First Edition: November 9, 2011
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports on the latest super committee’ developments, an appeals court upholds the health law and results from yesterday’s elections.
Capsules: Panel Proposes Cures For Health Technology Ills
IT systems can improve care but have also led to “dosing errors, failure to detect fatal ailments and treatment delays.”
The Global Fund to Fight HIV, TB and Malaria has delayed the closing date for applications for its next round of funding, reduced the estimated amount of money that will be available in that round, and potentially delayed the disbursement of the funds until 2013, PlusNews reports. “The delay in Round 11 funding was announced at the Fund’s latest board meeting on 26 September, the second such delay, which has pushed the application deadline back to at least 1 March 2012,” the news service notes.
In a speech to be delivered at the NIH, “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to call Tuesday for a new push by the U.S. and other countries to harness recent science to stem the HIV/AIDS pandemic,” the Wall Street Journal reports. She is expected to call for preventive tools “to be widely implemented in countries where the pandemic continues to rage, and to ask donors to step up aid to intensify the response, according to people briefed on the speech,” the newspaper writes.
Medical Malpractice Efforts Stall; Analysis In Texas Reveals Rural Doctor Gap
Politico reports that President Obama’s initiative to institute medical malpractice reforms has stalled, falling prey to politics and tight money. In Texas, tort reform analysis reveals a widening doctor gap between cities and rural areas.
Romney Takes Health Care Message To Iowa
Republican presidential hopeful promises to roll back federal health law in Dubuque speech.
Despite Gap, Super Committee Republicans Warm To New Revenue, But Not Taxes
Super committee Republicans are warming to the idea of finding new Medicare premium revenues to help bridge the still-wide gap between themselves and Democrats over deficit reduction proposals, but they aren’t budging on their opposition to tax increases.
On Election Day, Watching Key Ballot Issues in Ohio, Mississippi
Ohio has ballot measures regarding the federal health law’s individual mandate and collective-bargaining rights for public employees. Mississippians will vote on a ‘personhood’ amendment that aims to restrict access to abortions.
Parents of Children On Medicaid, CHIP Give Programs Good Grades
CQ HealthBeat reports that 66 percent of parents of children on CHIP or Medicaid were “very satisfied” with the programs.
Cutting U.S. Global Health Funding Would Slow Progress, Hurt Development In Other Countries
A Minnesota Daily editorial writes that a proposed nine percent cut in U.S. global health program funding “would drastically slow … progress and hurt development and advancement in other countries,” adding that “investing in the development of poor countries is good for everyone involved. When there are more highly educated, healthy countries, there is more prosperity for all.”
New Poverty Calculations Show How Health Costs Hurt Seniors
The Census Bureau’s analysis finds childhood poverty declining because of the CHIP health care program and supplemental nutrition efforts. But older Americans fare worse because of out-of-pocket health costs.
Judge Blocks FDA Rule On New Cigarette Pack Warning Images
Federal Judge Richard Leon says the regulation ordering cigarette makers to put graphic images on the packages may “unconstitutionally compel speech.”
Heeding Gates’s Suggestions To Fill Global Development Finance Hole Without Spending More Money
In his Foreign Policy column, “The Optimist,” Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and a Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation, responds to a speech to G20 leaders last week by Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in which he “suggested that a financial transactions tax, alongside additional taxes on tobacco and carbon, could be used to help rich countries meet a global target of committing 0.7 percent of GDP to development aid.” Kenny writes, “The outlook is particularly grim in the United States, where traditional aid is on the congressional chopping block,” but “[t]he good news is that the United States (and, for that matter, everyone else) could be doing a lot more for development without spending more money — and in some cases even saving it.”
Viewpoints: Today’s ‘Personhood’ Vote in Miss.; Reactions To Romney’s Health Care Plan
A selection of editorials and opinions about health policy from around the country.
A selection of stories from Michigan, Maryland, California, Kansas, Minnesota, Georgia and Florida.
