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SAMHSA awards Knowledge Dissemination Conference Grants to four organizations

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration announced the award of four Knowledge Dissemination Conference Grants totaling $100,000 to the organizations below. The grant awards will support conferences that highlight the latest evidence-based prevention strategies, practices, and polices. The conferences are designed to help integrate what is known about prevention into real-world community-based practice.

26 May 2010

SCID added to the core panel of 29 genetic disorders

On May 21, 2010, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services announced the addition of Severe Combined Immunodeficiency -- commonly known as bubble boy disease -- to the core panel of 29 genetic disorders -- as part of her recommendation to adopt the national Recommended Uniform Screening Panel.

26 May 2010

AHF urges Obama to address growing ADAP crisis

As many states across the nation face budget and funding shortfalls that are crippling their lifesaving AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs), AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, is urging President Barack Obama to redirect a portion of unspent stimulus funds in the Health and Human Services Department in order to address the growing ADAP crisis.

26 May 2010

Federal law to expand coverage to kids is off to slow start

USA Today: "A federal law that President Obama signed early last year to expand health insurance to 4 million more low-income children has gotten off to a slow start because of budget problems in the states. The law makes more than $10 billion in federal aid available each year through 2013 but requires state funds as well."

25 May 2010

State regulators mull definition of medical loss ratio

News outlets report on efforts to define what will be considered "medical expenses" when it comes to the mandated medical loss ratios in the new health law.

25 May 2010

Joint research by UB and CDC could lead to new generation of antiviral medicines

Future pandemics of seasonal flu, H1N1 and other drug-resistant viruses may be thwarted by a potent, immune-boosting payload that is effectively delivered to cells by gold nanorods, report scientists at the University at Buffalo and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The work is published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

25 May 2010

A unique multi-modal atlas of human brain

The Allen Institute for Brain Science announced today that it has launched the Allen Human Brain Atlas, a publicly available online atlas charting genes at work throughout the human brain.

25 May 2010

Advances in health IT

The New York Times: A "broad transformation in health care underway" is "fueled in good part by technology" that "promises to shift a lot of the diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of disease from hospitals and specialized clinics, where treatment is expensive, to primary care physicians and patients themselves — at far less cost."

25 May 2010

FDA clears Simplexa Influenza A H1N1 (2009) test

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced it has cleared the Simplexa Influenza A H1N1 (2009), a test for the 2009 H1N1 Influenza Virus in patients with signs and symptoms of respiratory infection.

24 May 2010

Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical pleads guilty for promoting epilepsy drug Topamax for psychiatric use

Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical LLC, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, pled guilty today in U.S. District Court in Boston to one count of misdemeanor violation of the Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act for illegally promoting its epilepsy drug Topamax for uses that were not approved by the FDA. The company was also sentenced at today's hearing.

24 May 2010

New national standards issued for newborn screening

New national standards issued today will assist states to align their newborn screening programs with "the most up-to-date research, technology, laboratory and public health standards and practices."

24 May 2010

Common myths about tanning and sun protection

Half the battle in knowing how to properly protect oneself from skin cancer is being able to separate fact from fiction. Unfortunately, some myths about tanning and sun protection are deep rooted and could mislead people into thinking that tanning is safe - when, in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

24 May 2010

KHN column: The prevention dilemma

In this Kaiser Health News column, Partnership for Prevention President and CEO Robert Gould writes: "If given the choice to spread prevention money around or to concentrate it to make a profound, historic and measurable impact, what would you do?

24 May 2010

Eli Lilly to honor individuals with Welcome Back Award for improving lives of others

Despite years of debilitating depression, multiple psychiatric hospitalizations and episodes of homelessness, Joseph Rogers refused to let mental illness and an unlucky adolescence blot out his potential imprint on the world. Despite once being branded unemployable, Joseph relishes his role as advocate, embracing the challenges of being a change agent in mental health legislation, and pioneering the peer-run services movement.

21 May 2010

First Edition: May 21, 2010

In today's headlines, legislation containing a Medicare pay 'fix' and an extension of the COBRA subsidy is moving toward House consideration.

21 May 2010

SAMHSA study reveals differences in rates of substance use among various Asian-American adults

A new national study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) shows there are significant differences in rates of substance use among adults in various Asian-American populations. For example, the past month binge drinking rate among Korean-American adults is three times higher than among Chinese-American adults (25.9 percent versus 8.4 percent). Similarly the level of past month illicit drug use among Japanese-American adults is nearly three times higher than the level among Asian Indian-American adults.

21 May 2010

Medicare to evaluate how beneficiaries used personal health records

The Department of Health and Human Services is preparing to evaluate a 17-month-old pilot program that has tested whether beneficiaries use personal health records (PHR) in Utah and Arizona, Modern Healthcare reports.

21 May 2010

GSK, EMBL-EBI, NLM and CDD collaborate to apply principles of open source to drug discovery for malaria

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) had teamed up with leading public-domain data providers European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the U.S.-based informatics service provider Collaborative Drug Discovery (CDD) to make freely available key scientific information on more than 13,500 compounds that could ultimately lead to new treatments for malaria.

20 May 2010

ABBOTT PRISM Chagas test receives FDA approval

Abbott received Biologic License Application (BLA) approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the ABBOTT PRISM Chagas test. The test is a fully automated blood screening assay that can detect antibodies to Trypansoma cruzi (T. cruzi), a parasite found only in the Americas and most commonly acquired through contact with the blood-sucking triatomine or "kissing bug."

19 May 2010

HHS sends letter to Committee on Education and Labor over improper practices by Head Start grantees

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to Chairman George Miller and the Committee on Education and Labor regarding the Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation into improper practices by Head Start grantees. The investigation is the subject of the Committee's upcoming hearing. Secretary Sebelius' letter outlines HHS's plans and steadfast commitment to upholding the integrity of this critical program.

19 May 2010