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Aid agencies must implement long-term solutions in Horn of Africa to 'banish hunger'

With each of the three droughts in the Horn of Africa over the last decade, "the international community agreed that long-term measures were needed to prevent another tragedy. But each time, when the rains finally came, the world's good intentions melted away," Jose Graziano de Silva, director-general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) writes in a Project Syndicate opinion piece.

2 Mar 2012

U.S. to send food aid to North Korea after it agrees to suspend nuclear weapons tests

"North Korea announced on Wednesday that it would suspend its nuclear weapons tests and uranium enrichment and allow international inspectors to monitor activities at its main nuclear complex," a move "signaling that North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong-un, is at least willing to consider a return to negotiations and to engage with the United States, which pledged in exchange to ship tons of food aid to the isolated, impoverished nation," the New York Times reports.

2 Mar 2012

Kenya's ability to diagnose, treat MDR-TB questioned after mismanagement of patient's case

"The Kenyan government's recent failure to adequately treat a patient with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has some civil society organizations questioning whether the country's TB program is equipped to diagnose and treat such patients," PlusNews reports.

2 Mar 2012

HNSF, AAO publish new guideline on sudden hearing loss

On March 1, 2012, the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation published a new Clinical Practice Guideline on Sudden Hearing Loss (SHL). This guideline is published as a supplement to Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

2 Mar 2012

ER docs Medicaid complaint: Some patients denied coverage if diagnosis doesn't merit their care

Some states are not considering the symptoms that brought the patients to the hospital, the doctors charge. In other Medicaid news, Texas is looking at several options for Medicaid reform, Pennsylvania looks at human service program cuts, Wisconsin Democrats seek to stop reductions there and Minnesota officials respond to criticism from Sen. Charles Grassley.

2 Mar 2012

Study: Kidney donors at no increased risk of heart disease

There is good news for the 27,000 plus people around the world who donate a kidney each year. A study which followed living kidney donors for 10 years found that they were at no greater risk for heart disease than the healthy general population.

2 Mar 2012

Treatment with vitamin D reduces size of uterine fibroids

Treatment with vitamin D reduced the size of uterine fibroids in laboratory rats predisposed to developing the benign tumors, reported researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health.

2 Mar 2012

Campaign to elicit donations for health projects from airline travelers winds down amid funding woes

The Switzerland-based Millennium Foundation, a UNITAID-funded campaign to solicit donations for health projects from airline travelers, "is being wound down after spending nearly $20 million to generate less than $300,000 over the past four years," the Financial Times reports.

2 Mar 2012

U.S. panel may re-evaluate bird flu research after scientists present new data about risks to humans

Speaking at the American Society for Microbiology's (ASM) Biodefense and Emerging Diseases Research meeting in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Ron Fouchier, the leader of the team at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands that genetically altered the H5N1 bird flu virus, making it transmissible among ferrets and "touching off public fears of a pandemic, said that the virus he created was neither as contagious nor as dangerous as people had been led to believe, prompting the United States government to ask that the experiments be re-evaluated by a government advisory panel that recommended in December that certain details of the work be kept secret and not published," the New York Times reports.

1 Mar 2012

Viewpoints: Ryan and Medicare; Va. ultrasound bill 'overreaches'?; NEJM on patient-centered care

Over the past year, an entitlement revolution has taken place on Capitol Hill. ... The revolution involves Medicare, the health-care program for the elderly and the single biggest cause of America's looming debt crisis. Reform of Medicare would be achieved by a policy known as "premium support." It would bring consumer choice and spending restraint to the beleaguered program.

1 Mar 2012

Budget cuts threaten global health progress, advocacy group warns in report

The Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) -- consisting of 40 global health research and advocacy organizations -- on Tuesday held a congressional briefing to launch its third annual policy report, titled "Sustaining Progress: Creating U.S. policies to spur global health innovation," GlobalPost's "Global Pulse" blog reports (Donnelly, 2/28).

1 Mar 2012

Snowe - The lone GOP health law vote - opts to not seek re-election

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, cited the polarized climate of Congress and Washington as a key reason she will leave the Senate. Her departure renews Democrats' hope of winning this GOP seat.

1 Mar 2012

Language barriers could deter Californians from enrolling in Health Benefit Exchange

Language barriers could deter more than 100,000 Californians from enrolling in the Health Benefit Exchange, according to a study released today by the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, and the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.

1 Mar 2012

Dept. of Justice lawyers strategize on how to win key SCOTUS votes

Media outlets report on this and other health law implementation developments, including news about health exchanges and the measure's pre-existing condition insurance plan.

1 Mar 2012

Medicare actuary issues cautions about current efforts to 'cure' spiralling costs

Medicare's actuary warned Tuesday that controlling cost growth is the primary challenge to the entitlement program's financial stability, but that neither the premium support system sought by Republicans nor cost-cutting measures pushed by the administration provide all the answers.

1 Mar 2012

'Global leadership' through foreign assistance is 'strategic imperative' for U.S.

"[T]oday, with the national debt approaching $14.7 trillion, Americans rightly demand fiscal responsibility. Yet efforts in Congress to cut billions from the president's proposed budget for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are short-sighted," Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

1 Mar 2012

First Edition: March 1, 2012

Today's headlines set the stage for the Senate's scheduled vote on a measure sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., that would allow employers and insurers to opt out of provisions in Obama's health care law to which they object on religious or moral grounds.

1 Mar 2012

SIR to showcase latest minimally invasive treatments at 37th annual meeting

Health, science and medical reporters are invited to register now for the Society of Interventional Radiology's 37th Annual Scientific Meeting March 24 at Moscone Center (North), San Francisco, Calif. The meeting's theme, "IR Evidence," was chosen to focus on the results of care-changing investigations that showcase research into minimally invasive treatments that provide treatment options, advance patient care and improve quality of life.

1 Mar 2012

Kodak seeks to end health coverage for Medicare-eligible retirees

Eastman Kodak Co., looking to whittle expenses as it reorganizes under bankruptcy protection, wants to end health care benefits for about 16,000 retirees who are over age 65 and thus eligible for Medicare.

1 Mar 2012

Detailing efforts to implement the health law - an insider's view

After leaving ACA's Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight this year, Jay Angoff has remained a senior adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. ... Q: How did politics make it difficult for you to implement ACA? Angoff: The hard part had nothing to do with politics.

1 Mar 2012

Health Care News and Research

Aid agencies must implement long-term solutions in Horn of Africa to 'banish hunger'

U.S. to send food aid to North Korea after it agrees to suspend nuclear weapons tests

Kenya's ability to diagnose, treat MDR-TB questioned after mismanagement of patient's case

HNSF, AAO publish new guideline on sudden hearing loss

ER docs Medicaid complaint: Some patients denied coverage if diagnosis doesn't merit their care

Study: Kidney donors at no increased risk of heart disease

Treatment with vitamin D reduces size of uterine fibroids

Campaign to elicit donations for health projects from airline travelers winds down amid funding woes

U.S. panel may re-evaluate bird flu research after scientists present new data about risks to humans

Viewpoints: Ryan and Medicare; Va. ultrasound bill 'overreaches'?; NEJM on patient-centered care

Budget cuts threaten global health progress, advocacy group warns in report

Snowe - The lone GOP health law vote - opts to not seek re-election

Language barriers could deter Californians from enrolling in Health Benefit Exchange

Dept. of Justice lawyers strategize on how to win key SCOTUS votes

Medicare actuary issues cautions about current efforts to 'cure' spiralling costs

'Global leadership' through foreign assistance is 'strategic imperative' for U.S.

First Edition: March 1, 2012

SIR to showcase latest minimally invasive treatments at 37th annual meeting

Kodak seeks to end health coverage for Medicare-eligible retirees

Detailing efforts to implement the health law - an insider's view

Event guide: 3rd Measuring Patient Engagement Summit eBook

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

Expanding access to NMR with the Fourier 80 Duo

Advancing Intracellular Delivery with LumiPore®

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