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Survey: Nearly 38% of lesbians less likely to have routine cervical cancer screening

Nearly 38 percent of lesbians polled in a national survey were not routinely screened for cervical cancer, putting them at risk of developing a highly preventable cancer, according to a University of Maryland School of Medicine study being presented at the 11th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research.

19 Oct 2012

AAP renews call to reduce destructive effects of guns in children and adolescents' lives

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is renewing its call to reduce the destructive effects of guns in the lives of children and adolescents, including counseling parents about safe gun storage as well as supporting legislation to prevent firearm injuries and deaths.

19 Oct 2012

Canadian Task Force updates diabetes screening guidelines

The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care has updated its recommendations on screening asymptomatic adults for Type 2 diabetes.

19 Oct 2012

Harvard, SLU to develop asthma alert messaging system

A $93,000 gift from Google together with a $25,000 award from Saint Louis University's President's Research Fund will allow faculty at SLU, Harvard and St. Louis College of Pharmacy to research smart phone and web-based applications and data infrastructure to create an asthma alert messaging system.

19 Oct 2012

Obama, Romney vie for women's votes

Both President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney battled for the support of female voters Wednesday with new ads and arguments on the campaign trail related to women's health care, underscoring the importance of undecided female voters in a tight race.

19 Oct 2012

As election day nears, health issues remain central

KHN hosts a discussion with former Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle and conservative health care analyst Avik Roy to explore the plans advanced by President Barack Obama and GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. Romney focuses on some of those themes in a new ad incorporating video from this week's town hall debate.

19 Oct 2012

Two leading health systems announce plan to merge

Trinity Health and Catholic Health East plan to consolidate operations. Together, the two systems will span 21 states and include more than 70 hospitals.

19 Oct 2012

Simple strategies can make big difference in maternal mortality

Aissata Sall Yade, a communications assistant for the Senegal Urban Reproductive Health Initiative, part of IntraHealth International, writes in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog about Aissatou Dia Fall, a head midwife at Senegal's Gallo Dia Health Center in Yeumbeul, and her efforts to improve access to health care for women in the community.

19 Oct 2012

NPR series on polio examines efforts to fight disease in Pakistan

In its ongoing series examining efforts to eradicate polio, NPR's "All Things Considered" aired a story on Wednesday looking at how health care workers in Pakistan are attempting to overcome challenges to immunizing the child population.

19 Oct 2012

House and Senate races turning on health, abortion issues

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is focusing on Medicare and women's health issues in new TV ads, as Missouri Rep. Todd Akin strengthens his ties to evangelicals.

19 Oct 2012

Examining how issue of abortion portrayed in Kenyan Constitution

In an opinion piece in the Huffington Post's "Global Motherhood" blog, David Olson, a global health communications consultant who worked as a communications adviser to the Reproductive Health and Rights Alliance in Kenya earlier this year, describes how "abortion rights [in the country] have been liberalized in certain cases in a Constitution approved in a public referendum two years ago."

19 Oct 2012

Uruguay's Congress approves bill to legalize abortion during first trimester

"Uruguay's Congress voted narrowly on Wednesday to legalize abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a rare move in largely Catholic Latin America that underscores the country's liberal leanings," Reuters reports.

19 Oct 2012

First Edition: October 19, 2012

Today's headlines include reports about how Medicare and women's health issues are playing in a number of House and Senate races.

19 Oct 2012

New report shows increasing HIV prevalence, incidence in Uganda

"An HIV/AIDS report by advocacy organizations in Uganda indicates that new transmissions are on the rise amidst troubling trends of increasing prevalence and incidence," Uganda's New Vision reports.

19 Oct 2012

Governments should focus 'scant resources' on food security before biofuels

"The latest calculations show that U.S. ethanol policies have increased the food bills of poor food-importing countries by more than $9 billion (£5.6 billion) since 2006," Olivier De Schutter, U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, writes in the Guardian's "Poverty Matters" blog.

19 Oct 2012

Current draft of India's Food Security Bill excludes many from public food system

India's National Food Security Bill, "expected to be discussed in Parliament later this year, ... holds out hope of addressing some of the nation's most persistent and pervasive problems," Ashwin Parulkar, a research scholar at the Centre for Equity Studies, writes in the Wall Street Journal's "India Real Time" blog.

19 Oct 2012

Study hopes to improve the outlook for native Americans with kidney disease

Americans have a 1 in 10 chance of suffering from kidney disease, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For Native Americans, the risk doubles.

19 Oct 2012

Viewpoints: NYT's Kristof on the death of his friend; Obama, Romney fight for women

I wrote in my last column about my uninsured college roommate, Scott Androes, and his battle with Stage 4 prostate cancer - and a dysfunctional American health care system. I was taken aback by how many readers were savagely unsympathetic. "Your friend made a foolish choice, and actions have consequences," one reader said in a Twitter message.

19 Oct 2012

Lack of 'fiscal cliff' talk offers proof that the urgent issue is frozen until after election

The fact that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and President Barack Obama have not discussed looming automatic spending cuts leads this roundup of Capitol Hill news.

19 Oct 2012