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Obama misleads on abortion funding in health reform

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement after President Obama said that it's a "fabrication" and "distraction" to say abortion funding is included in the health care reform plans.

19 Aug 2009

Message from The White House: The President is not backing away from the public plan

"White House spokesman Robert Gibbs insists the Obama administration has not shifted its goals on health care reform or distanced itself from a government-run public insurance option." He told reporters today that stories indicating the Obama administration was backing away from including the public option in its push to overhaul the health system were "overblown."

19 Aug 2009

Kyl says GOP won't support co-op proposal

"The number two Senate Republican said Tuesday replacing a public health care option with a nonprofit private cooperative wouldn't win any more Republican support, saying they are essentially the same thing," The Wall Street Journal reports. "Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.), said Republican objections were more fundamental than simply changing the name of a new national entity to compete with private medical insurers."

19 Aug 2009

CSL Biotherapies to supply Afluria influenza vaccines from newly licensed packaging facility

CSL Biotherapies, a subsidiary of CSL Limited, one of the world's leading manufacturers of influenza vaccine, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has licensed the company’s newest vaccine filling and packaging facility, located in Kankakee, Ill. The facility, part of an investment to expand CSL’s U.S. influenza vaccine production capabilities, includes a high-speed, single-dose vaccine syringe filling line.

19 Aug 2009

TBI's new Ocular Services Division to replace its Tissue Distribution and Information Center

TBI/Tissue Banks International, Inc. today announced it has developed an Ocular Services Division to replace the Tissue Distribution and Information Center at the organization.

19 Aug 2009

Obama calls for veterans' health care expansion

President Obama Monday included health care in a speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars' national convention Monday, The Arizona Republic reports.

19 Aug 2009

H1N1 pandemic: no time for complacency

Prevention of H1N1 influenza virus through vaccination must be our top priority if disease patterns in the northern hemisphere follow those in the southern hemisphere this fall, writes Paul Hébert, Editor-in-Chief of CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) in an editorial.

18 Aug 2009

Health overhaul explainers and answers

NPR provides an interactive report on how a health care overhaul would affect different consumers such as the uninsured, employer insured and underinsured. It notes: "President Obama has challenged Congress to come up with a bill that provides quality, affordable health insurance to all Americans -- without adding to the deficit. See how key proposals would affect you" (Knox, 8/14).

17 Aug 2009

Scientific studies enough to warrant action on bisphenol A

Scientists, physicians, consumers and environmental health advocates today responded to an FDA staff presentation on progress of their review of bisphenol A (BPA), a synthetic sex hormone linked to cancer, diabetes, heart problems and other illness. Congressmen Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak asked for FDA to review their evaluation of BPA.

17 Aug 2009

Mandatory folic acid fortification may be unnecessary

Persistently present levels of unmetabolized folic acid found in the population indicate that introducing mandatory food fortification may result in an ‘overdosing’ effect. A study of blood donors, new mothers and babies, published in the open access journal BMC Public Health, has found that most already get enough folic acid from voluntarily fortified foods.

17 Aug 2009

GSK starts testing H1N1 vaccine; Opinion piece addresses U.S. role in helping developing countries procure vaccine

"GlaxoSmithKline has started testing its pandemic H1N1 swine flu vaccine in humans, and expects to start giving the results to government agencies next month, the drugmaker said on Friday," Reuters reports. The company "plans to conduct 16 different trials of the vaccine and to test 9,000 people in total across Europe, Canada and the United States," according to the news service (Deighton, 8/14).

17 Aug 2009

Summary of key health care provisions

With so much turmoil surrounding the federal government's health care initiatives, the Federation of American Consumers and Travelers (FACT) is attempting to create a summary of key provisions. The goal is to condense incredibly lengthy and convoluted language into something which all consumers can digest so that they can then decide which way they want their legislators to proceed.

17 Aug 2009

Abuse, self-neglect places seniors at increased risk for premature death

Older adults who are subjected to abuse or self-neglect face a greater risk of premature death than other seniors, according to a study published in the medical journal JAMA.

16 Aug 2009

Britons getting irritated by health-reform rhetoric

U.S. health care reform efforts garner attention and reaction from around the globe especially from Britain.

13 Aug 2009

Cancer mortality rates declined steadily in the last three decades

The number of cancer deaths has declined steadily in the last three decades. Although younger people have experienced the steepest declines, all age groups have shown some improvement, according to a recent report in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

13 Aug 2009

Cancer deaths declined steadily in last three decades

13 Aug 2009

Stanford researchers want FDA to require drug makers to state how new medications compare with similar, existing treatments

The labeling information that comes with prescription drugs tells you what’s known about the medication, but researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine think it’s high time that the labeling tell you what isn’t known.

13 Aug 2009

Building a comprehensive child vision care system

Even though universal comprehensive eye exams for children prior to starting school would result in more children being diagnosed and successfully treated for vision problems and eye diseases, requirements vary widely from state to state and only three states require eye examinations for school-age children, according to a new report from the National Commission on Vision and Health.

13 Aug 2009

$3.2M grant to explore how chemicals affect human health

Most people would agree that arsenic, lead, mercury, benzene and carbon monoxide pose dangers to humans. Not many, though, realize that the average person is exposed to about 10,000 different chemicals per day.

12 Aug 2009

U.S. health care system - “envy of the world”? not in Canada!

As members of Congress return to their states and districts to debate the merits of the Democrats’ proposals for health care reform, critics of the proposals may repeat the phrase used by some Republicans, newspaper editorials and bloggers that ‘the American health care system is the envy of the world.”

12 Aug 2009