Archives: Morning Breakouts

As the company splits into two separate entities, it has indicated that $1.5 billion will be set aside to cover an expected settlement with the federal government over claims that the company went way too far in selling a seizure drug.

GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's health policies are not only the target of his Republican opponents but are also drawing attention and barbs from Democrats. Also on the trail, Newt Gingrich, another GOP primary candidate, criticized the tenor of the campaign season so far.

Across the country, state officials and lawmakers are weighing in on abortion clinics and practices.

On Tuesday at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Chelsea Clinton, board member of the William J. Clinton Foundation, and Christy Turlington Burns, founder of Every Mother Counts, helped launch the GW + Phones = Hope campaign, which is "working with the national nonprofit Hope Phones to collect phones to benefit maternal health programs in Democratic Republic of Congo and Nepal," the "GW Hatchet" blog reports (Ferris, 10/18).

Working in conjunction with the Haitian Ministry of Health and the Haitian aid group GHESKIO, Boston-based Partners In Health (PIH) will begin an immunization campaign in January aimed at providing two doses of the oral cholera vaccine Shanchol "to 100,000 Haitians living in two vulnerable communities: a neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, where potable water and latrines are luxuries, and to an isolated rural village in the lower Artibonite Valley region," the Miami Herald reports.

"Vaccines are among the most successful and cost-effective health investments in history," Seth Berkley, CEO of the GAVI Alliance, writes in this post in the Huffington Post's "Impact" blog. Because vaccines have saved millions of lives, "donors, the global health community and developing countries themselves [must] stay focused on immunization," he writes.

The Guardian features an interview with Moncef Slaoui, now chair of research and development at GlaxoSmithKline, who discusses his 23-year involvement in the research leading to the RTS,S malaria vaccine that has shown to halve the risk of malaria among African children. Slaoui said cellular immunity is the key to the vaccine's success and research on the vaccine has advanced the company's knowledge of adjuvants, substances that stimulate the immune system, which has allowed the development of other vaccines (Boseley, 10/19).

"Clearly, there is no room for complacency" in India's efforts to eradicate polio, defined by the WHO as no recorded case of the disease for three years, because "[t]he goal of complete eradication is within reach," Deepak Gupta, a senior U.N. professional in Strategic Health/Development Communication, writes in an Asia Sentinel opinion piece. "[T]he next three years -- till 2014 -- will be crucial," he writes, meaning experts should focus on "intense communication and preventive work, especially with regard to critical risk-factors like poor routine immunization and lack of proper sanitation," he states, concluding, "The challenge is to ensure the sustainability of the success achieved so far" (10/19).