Latest KFF Health News Stories
Humanitarian Aid ‘Stolen’ From U.S. Taxpayers Should Be Spent On Domestic Health Issues
In this New American opinion piece, Beverly Eakman, an author and former editor-in-chief of NASA’s newspaper in Houston, writes of humanitarian aid, “With the U.S. debt having surpassed 100 percent of gross domestic product August 3, to $14.58 trillion, it’s crudely entertaining to see how multimillionaire lawmakers in Congress and administrations both past and present find ‘compassionate’ ways to spend ever-more of taxpayers’ money,” asserting that “such expenditure is not specifically sanctioned by American taxpayers, and therefore constitutes theft by the U.S. government for what the State Department probably hopes will buy international good will.”
PRI’s ‘The World’ Interviews Member Of Delegation That Investigated Hunger In North Korea
PRI’s “The World” recently spoke with Matt Ellingson, director of Program Development at Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief organization, who was part of a mission to North Korea this month during which five U.S.-based, non-governmental organizations were allowed to send observers to the country to monitor delivery of aid to areas affected by severe floods this past summer. The group “came away concerned about widespread malnutrition and starvation in North Korea” and “is now calling for an urgent humanitarian intervention,” “The World” reports. The radio show provides audio of the interview and a link to a “factfile” on the North Korea food crisis published in The Telegraph earlier this month (9/23).
Vietnam Closes Kindergartens To Control Outbreak Of Hand, Foot And Mouth Disease
“More than a dozen kindergartens in Vietnam have closed to deal with an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease that has killed 111 children and sickened more than 57,000 this year, an official and the government said,” according to the Associated Press/Washington Post. The southern province of Hau Giang, which reported 70 percent of the recorded 57,055 cases and 90 percent of the 111 deaths in the country, “has had 361 cases since June, and some 50 children are hospitalized,” the AP reports. “The Health Ministry says more than 2,000 new cases of hand, foot and mouth disease are being reported each week. In a typical year, the virus infects up to 15,000 children in Vietnam and kills 20 to 30 of them,” the news agency writes (9/26).
GAVI To Purchase $1 Billion In Childhood Vaccines For Distribution In 37 Of The Poorest Nations
The Geneva-based GAVI Alliance, a fund backed by governments, the World Bank, the WHO and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday that it will purchase more than $1 billion in vaccines against rotavirus, pneumococcal and other diseases through deals made with GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co. to immunize children in 37 of the poorest nations, Bloomberg reports. “Wealthy nations donated $4.3 billion to purchase the vaccines as part of a plan to immunize 250 million children by 2015,” the news service notes (Bennett, 9/27).
Justice Dept. Decision Clears Path For High Court Health Law Ruling
The Obama administration announced Monday that it won’t press for an en banc appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Such an action would have delayed the legal process and likely pushed back the timing of a final Supreme Court decision until at least 2013.
USAID, NGO Partners Testing Nutritional Impact Assessment Tool
USAID is working with non-governmental organization partners to test a “nutritional impact assessment tool” that “‘would be a way for organizations designing or reviewing agricultural programs to mitigate any risks or potential negative effects on nutrition — in other words a “do no harm” approach,’ said Michael Zeilinger, head of the nutrition division with USAID’s office of health, infectious disease and nutrition,” IRIN reports. “‘As we start to design major agriculture programs around value chains and increasing production (such as Feed the Future and Global Agriculture and Food Security Program), we should really remember that there are some practices in agriculture that may have potential negative effects on nutrition, and this is just to make sure that they’re thought through,’ Zeilinger told IRIN.”
Perry, Romney Continue In GOP Primary Spotlight
News outlets report on the ongoing sparring between the two candidates and on Perry’s health policy record as Texas governor. Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann points to her rivals’ positions on issues including health care and says Republicans should not settle for a moderate candidate. Also, NPR flashes back to GOP candidate Herman Cain’s 1994 debate performance. And, on the other side of the political spectrum, The Associated Press reports that Democrats are shifting their campaign message away from the health law and toward Medicare.
GlobalPost Interviews Reproductive Health Expert Frederick Sai
GlobalPost’s “Global Pulse” blog features an interview with Frederick Sai, a Ghanaian physician who is a member of Aspen’s Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health and a former president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and director of population at the World Bank. Sai addresses his interest in reproductive health, motivating leaders to talk about family planning, and how his experience as a medical doctor changed his views on family planning, according to the article (Donnelly, 9/26).
Survey Shows Rise In Unprotected Sex Among Youth, Raises Concern About Sex Education
“The number of young people having unprotected sex in the West has risen sharply over the past two years,” according to a global survey conducted by the International Planned Parenthood Federation between April and May of this year, Agence France-Presse reports. The study was funded by Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals, the news agency notes (9/26). The survey, titled “Clueless or Clued Up: Your right to be informed about contraception,” prepared for World Contraception Day on September 26, “questioned more than 6,000 young people from 26 countries … on their attitudes toward sex and contraception” and “reports that the number of young people having unsafe sex with a new partner increased by 111 percent in France, 39 percent in the USA and 19 percent in Britain in the last three years,” Reuters notes (9/25).
Viewpoints: Lots Of Advice For Super Committee On Medicare, Medicaid
A selection of opinions and editorials from around the country.
Global Health ‘Blunders’ Can Lend Useful Lessons
New York Times reporter Lawrence Altman recounts his experience in the mid-1960s with a measles immunization campaign in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) during his time with the Epidemic Intelligence Service of the CDC in a “Doctor’s World” perspective piece in the newspaper. Altman says that although the effort to expand the immunization campaign from a small field trial to a regional program “failed miserably,” the “lessons learned from these blunders led to a new program that wiped out smallpox, still the only human disease to have been eradicated from the planet.”
‘Urgent Action’ Needed To Prevent Resistance To Antiretroviral Therapy
“The clear pattern of increasing antiretroviral resistance in lower-income settings must be considered in the context of the worldwide HIV-control agenda,” especially because “the increasing rates of antiretroviral resistance in low-income settings represent a potential threat to the emerging treatment-as-prevention strategy,” Evan Wood and Julio Montaner of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS write in a Lancet Infectious Diseases opinion piece, adding, “Urgent action is needed.” They describe steps to help lower the threat of resistance, including deploying proven preventive strategies, “early and sustained” highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) to prevent vertical transmission, and programs to provide HAART to 15 million people worldwide by 2015.
The New York Times on Monday published a special section, titled “Small Fixes,” containing several articles examining how low-cost innovations could help save thousands of lives. The articles examine issues as diverse as using circumcision to reduce the risk of HIV infection among men to a water-filtering straw that can provide one person with clean drinking water for up to one year. Other articles examine paper diagnostic tests for liver damage, using vinegar to diagnose precancerous cervical lesions, nectar poisons to kill disease-carrying mosquitos, a wetsuit-like compression suit that can save a woman experiencing hemorrhaging after giving birth, and scratch-off labels on medicines that allow a user to text message a code and discover whether the drugs are counterfeit, among others (Various authors, 9/26).
Peru Hopes To Continue Fight Against Child Malnutrition Under New Government
Despite a seven percent annual growth rate over the past five years and a prediction from former President Alan Garcia that Peru will meet the millennium development goals (MDGs), “chronic infant malnutrition has been difficult to stamp out, particularly in rural areas,” the Guardian’s “Poverty Matters Blog” reports. In addition to geography challenging health workers in this mountainous country, language barriers, economic class and habits of eating lower-cost, low-protein foods contribute to malnutrition in children five years of age or younger, according to the blog.
Selling The American ‘Health Ecosystem’ Internationally?
A coalition of U.S. health care businesses is seeking to help rebuild the American economy by helping other nations meet worldwide demand for health care in aging populations with sales of American insurance, medical devices and record-keeping technology.
Report Raises Questions About High Costs Of Cancer Care
The report, which was published in the September issue of Lancet Oncology, notes that, while cancer care is more advanced than ever before, it is also more expensive. It poses this question: Will the related expenses bankrupt the world’s economies?
Some Low-Income Minn. Residents Must Change Health Plans
Also in Medicaid news, Washington state begins new program that limits emergency department visits for Medicaid enrolless. Oregon also reports gains in efforts to get children coverage.
Survey: Many Physicians Say Their Patients Receive Too Much Care
About half, however, said they were giving their patients “the right amount of care.” In other news, a study from the Archives of Internal Medicine, according to Medscape, concluded that more frequent office visits by patients leads to faster diabetes control.
State Roundup: Conn.’s New Insurance Commissioner Getting Noticed
News outlets report on a variety of state health policy issues.
