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Aeras, IDRI partner to develop novel TB vaccine

In a guest post on the Global Health Technologies Coalition's "Breakthroughs" blog, Jamie Elizabeth Rosen, media and communications manager at Aeras, interviews Steven Reed, founder, president, and chief scientific officer of the Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI), "a 120-person non-profit biotech committed to applying innovative science to the research and development of products to prevent, detect, and treat infectious diseases of poverty."

31 May 2012

U.S. House poised for a series of health-related votes

Included on the list is a bill to repeal the health law's medical device tax and another to repeal the OTC ban. The device-tax issue has already emerged as a hot topic in many congressional races.

31 May 2012

U.N. releases annual Central Emergency Response Fund report

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Tuesday released its 2011 Annual Report of the Central Emergency Response Fund, which highlights the contributions of the U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to humanitarian partners in 45 countries in 2011, the U.N. News Centre reports.

31 May 2012

IPS, AlertNet report on health issues resulting from climate change

Inter Press Service examines the relationship between climate change and family planning in least-developed countries (LDCs), writing the "double challenge of mitigating climate change and combating crushing poverty makes improving reproductive rights and promoting gender equality imperatives that can no longer be delayed, according to several recent reports and agreements."

31 May 2012

Hospital debt-collection practices to be examined at Wednesday hearing

Sen. Al Franken, D- Minn., convened the hearing to find out whether aggressive efforts to collect debt from patients in hospitals broke any federal laws.

31 May 2012

Health care, women's health issues split Midwest voters ahead of elections

In Ohio, working class voters are split on whether Mitt Romney or President Barack Obama more closely align with their views on health care.

31 May 2012

Implications of eradicating polio, or failing to do so, go beyond public health

In this Atlantic opinion piece, Rachel Hills, a freelance writer based in London, examines the WHO's decision on May 25 to declare polio a public health emergency, "calling for the 194 member states to fully fund the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, and fill the currently $945 million gap in its budget for 2012-13."

31 May 2012

With Adderall shortage, drug counterfeiters try to seize a market opportunity

A shortage of Adderall began last year, sending millions of people with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and narcolepsy on perpetual wild goose chases to find drugstores with the pills they need to stay alert and focused. So it's not surprising that Adderall counterfeiters have seized a big marketing opportunity. What is surprising is their clumsiness.

31 May 2012

State exchanges and health IT could be hurdles to health law implementation

It seemed like a good idea at the time. But a health insurance tax credit for small businesses, part of President Barack Obama's health care law that gets strong support in public opinion polls, has turned out to be a disappointment. Time-consuming to apply for and lacking enough financial reward to make it attractive, the credit was claimed by only 170,300 businesses out of a pool of as many as 4 million potentially eligible companies in 2010.

31 May 2012

Simple soft-drink cooler could help patients battle antibiotic-resistant TB

Tuberculosis, now largely controlled in the industrialized world, remains a stubbornly persistent killer in most of Africa, as well as parts of Asia and South America. The spread of multidrug-resistant strains of TB has slowed progress against the devastating disease, which is estimated to strike more than 10 million people annually. Now a modified soft-drink cooler, developed by researchers at MIT's D-Lab, could make a dent in the disease's impact.

31 May 2012

U.N. officials warn 18M people will be affected by hunger in African Sahel this year

"U.N. officials say they expect 18 million people in West Africa will go hungry this year, including three million young children whose lives or health will be at risk," the Associated Press reports.

31 May 2012

CIA's use of health workers in intelligence operations could hurt 'innocent people'

"The CIA's vaccination gambit put at risk something very precious -- the integrity of public health programs in Pakistan and around the globe" and has "also added to the dangers facing nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in a world that's increasingly hostile to U.S. aid organizations," opinion writer David Ignatius writes in a Washington Post opinion piece.

31 May 2012

Despite progress, more effort 'urgently' needed to prevent maternal mortality in Africa

Citing a U.N. report released in May, titled "Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990 to 2010," which shows "the number of women worldwide dying of pregnancy and childbirth-related complications has almost halved in the last 20 years," Agnes Odhiambo, a researcher for women in Africa at Human Rights Watch, writes in this Inter Press Service opinion piece.

31 May 2012

House to vote on bill banning abortions based on sex of fetus

According to rules governing the vote, the GOP will have to pick up about 50 Democrat votes to pass the bill. The vote may not be the end of abortion controversies on the Hill this year, however, as several measures have been inserted into national security bills, Politico Pro reports.

31 May 2012

Alleviating world hunger, malnutrition essential for sustainable development, FAO report says

"Sustainable development cannot be realized unless hunger and malnutrition are eradicated, the [Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)] said in a policy document prepared for the Rio+20 Summit to be held in June in Rio de Janeiro," an FAO press release reports.

31 May 2012

Genetics can predict success of smoking cessation and need for medications

Genetics can help determine whether a person is likely to quit smoking on his or her own or need medication to improve the chances of success, according to research published in today's American Journal of Psychiatry. Researchers say the study moves health care providers a step closer to one day providing more individualized treatment plans to help patients quit smoking.

31 May 2012

Trade officials at WIPO fail to make progress on proposals to improve access to generic medicines

Trade officials met last week at the U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization "to make progress on a proposal that would allow poor countries to provide inexpensive generic versions of lifesaving medications, rather than rely a single version of the same drugs under expensive patent monopolies," but the U.S. "remained steadfast in rejecting proposals aimed at lowering the prices of existing medicines in poor countries," the Huffington Post reports.

31 May 2012

AAPS honors Morphotek with 2012 Excellence in Ligand Binding Assays Award

Morphotek, Inc., a subsidiary of Eisai Inc., announced today that The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) has awarded its 2012 Excellence in Ligand Binding Assays Award to the Bioanalytical Development group from Morphotek for their abstract, "Development and Validation of a Pharmacokinetic Assay on the Gyrolab Platform for Use in Phase II/III Clinical Studies."

31 May 2012

State roundup: Minn. defends Medicaid billing; Cigna, N.H. Group form joint venture; Health coupons in Mass.

Top Minnesota health officials pushed back Tuesday against a congressional committee probing allegations that the state overbilled federal taxpayers for Medicaid services to cover losses from in other state-run public health programs. In a letter to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Minnesota Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson defended reforms implemented under DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, saying "our focus has been on changing course rather than investigating the past."

31 May 2012

International conference: 'Preventing Overdiagnosis'

Overdiagnosis poses a significant threat to human health by labeling healthy people as sick and wasting resources on unnecessary care, warns Ray Moynihan, Senior Research Fellow at Bond University in Australia, in a feature published on bmj.com today.

31 May 2012