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Alaska Medicare beneficiaries have trouble finding primary care physicians

Alaska Medicare beneficiaries experience greater difficulty than beneficiaries in other states in finding primary care physicians, and "evidence indicates" the problem is "worsening" amid a growing physician shortage and low federal reimbursements rates, the Anchorage Daily News reports.

25 Feb 2007

Cyprus considers social welfare measures to offset declining fertility rate

Cyprus Minister of Labor and Social Insurance Antonis Vassiliou on Thursday announced the government is creating a series social welfare measures that might include paying couples who have three or more children $45,351 in an attempt to reverse the country's declining population, Agence France-Presse reports.

22 Feb 2007

Health Corps response to hurricanes inadequate

The more than 2,100 officers in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who were deployed to the Gulf Coast to respond to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in August and September 2005 lacked adequate training, and the federal response to the hurricanes did not include an adequate number of nurses, dentists and mental health professionals, according to a report recently compiled by the HHS Office of Inspector General, the AP/Houston Chronicle reports.

21 Feb 2007

Senate HELP committee passes mental health legislation

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Wednesday voted 18-3 to approve a bill (S 558) sponsored by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) that would require health insurers to provide the same level of coverage for treatment of mental illnesses and substance abuse as they provide for physical illnesses, CQ Today reports.

19 Feb 2007

Millions to benefit from mental health insurance

New legislation in the United States will mean that health insurance companies will have to offer mental health coverage on a par with financial and treatment coverage offered for other physical illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes or asthma.

18 Feb 2007

Papua New Guinea should boost HIV prevention efforts

More than one-third of the adult population in Papua New Guinea could die of AIDS-related causes within 20 years if the spread of HIV is not controlled in the country, according to a report released Thursday by the Australian Centre for Independent Studies, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

12 Feb 2007

Politicians increasingly addressing health care reform, universal coverage, including 2008 Presidential contenders

The Dallas Morning News on Thursday examined how "[a]fter a decade of relative silence, politicians are again broaching the issue of universal health care."

12 Feb 2007

Congress likely to approve FDA prescription drug safety reforms in 2007

The Baltimore Sun on Friday examined how Democrats' takeover of Congress and the expiration of a law that requires drug manufacturers to pay user fees to FDA "is driving a flurry of activity that could lead to major changes" in the agency's drug safety policies.

12 Feb 2007

High-dose progesterone treatment helps at-risk pregnant women avoid premature delivery

In this study, 45 women who experienced premature labor (before 37 weeks gestation) were randomly divided into treatment and observation groups. The treatment group received twice-weekly 341-mg doses of progesterone until week 36.

11 Feb 2007

Senate HELP Committee likely to pass mental health parity bill

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee likely will pass legislation that would require health insurance companies to cover mental illnesses at the same level as they cover physical illnesses, committee Chair Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said, CQ HealthBeat reports.

7 Feb 2007

China aims to raise public awareness of HIV prevention

The program -- funded by U.S. Department of Labor -- aims to raise public awareness of HIV prevention, protect employment rights of people living with the disease, and reduce stigma and discrimination in the workplace (Xinhua/People's Daily, 1/26).

30 Jan 2007

Giving birth to a child naturally increases risk of hemorrhage in newborns

The first researchers to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study the brains of a large group of babies soon after birth found a small amount of bleeding in and around the brains of one in four babies who were delivered vaginally.

30 Jan 2007

Bush promotes health care proposals

Initiatives that encourage U.S. residents to purchase health insurance through the private insurance market are the best way to expand coverage and reduce health care costs, President Bush said Thursday while visiting a Missouri hospital to promote the health care proposals he outlined earlier this week in his State of the Union address, the Washington Post reports

28 Jan 2007

No good reason to invest in new fetal oxygen monitor

New technology for measuring blood oxygen levels of a baby during labor which was intended to provide information useful for preventing birth complications, apparently offers no apparent benefit.

23 Nov 2006

Congress to focus on labor-HHS, other unfinished appropriations Bills during Lame-Duck session

Congress likely will focus on the fiscal year 2007 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill and other unfinished spending bills during a lame-duck session that began on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reports.

13 Nov 2006

Phase I clinical trial of experimental gene therapy to treat HIV shows encouraging results

The results of a Phase I clinical trial of an experimental gene therapy aimed at treating HIV indicate that the therapy is safe and effective and also might sustain viral loads, according to a study published on Monday in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the AP/Washington Post reports.

8 Nov 2006

USA Today examines issues Supreme Court will decide in challenge to federal abortion ban

USA Today on Monday examined how Congress' "power to limit the reach" of Roe v. Wade -- the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case that effectively barred state abortion bans -- by "restricting medical options for women" will be tested in the Department of Justice's appeal to the high court to uphold a federal law banning so-called "partial-birth" abortion.

30 Oct 2006

Too much TV for tots could lead to autism?

A new study has come up with the rather bizarre theory that watching too much television at an early age may trigger autism.

23 Oct 2006

Uganda begins enrollment of Phase I trials of a perinatal HIV vaccine

Uganda last week began enrollment of Phase I trials of a perinatal HIV vaccine that aims to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, Uganda's Daily Monitor reports (Nabayunga, Daily Monitor, 10/18).

19 Oct 2006

Bill to allow U.S. residents to bring prescription drugs across the Canadian border

Mary Agnes Carey, associate editor of CQ HealthBeat, discusses an appropriations bill that would allow U.S. residents to bring prescription drugs across the Canadian border, legislation to reauthorize NIH and the pending approval of Andrew von Eschenbach to head FDA in this week's "Health on the Hill from kaisernetwork.org and CQ."

26 Sep 2006