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In Colorado, Obama focuses on women's health issues

Campaigning in the western swing state, President Barack Obama said his opponent, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, would take women's health care back to the 1950s.

10 Aug 2012

Even during August break, congressional health policy concerns draw headlines

Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., is working to build support for new legislation to expand Medicare's nursing home coverage while Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., notes problems within the Indian Health Service. All the while, the health law's contraception coverage mandate continues to trigger disputes.

10 Aug 2012

IOM panel examines the promise and reality of telemedicine

Institute of Medicine experts find that the continued integration of telemedicine into the health care system will face challenges in the years ahead.

10 Aug 2012

BMJ authors challenge pharma's concerns about 'innovation crisis'

For the past decade or so, we've been hearing repeatedly about an "innovation" crisis in pharmaceuticals. Big Pharma and its friends in government and elsewhere have claimed that research into new drugs is slowing down, primarily, they say, because of onerous regulatory demands

10 Aug 2012

Senegal working to improve contraceptive supply

In a post in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, Perri Sutton, an associate program officer on the family planning team at the foundation, discusses Senegal's history of contraceptive stock-outs and Minister of Health Awa Marie Coll-Seck's plan to "fix the problems that result in stock-outs and ensure that women have access to the full range of contraceptive options."

10 Aug 2012

NGOs call for full implementation of human right to water, sanitation in letter to U.N. member states

At the end of last month, the international community commemorated the second anniversary of a July 2010 U.N. General Assembly resolution declaring water and sanitation a basic human right, but "there was hardly any political rejoicing either inside or outside the U.N.," Inter Press Service/Guardian reports.

10 Aug 2012

As flap continues over pro-Obama PAC's ad, Romney aide praises Mass. health law

The ad, which highlights the death of a steelworker's wife after Bain closed his plant, triggered criticism from Republicans. But a Romney aide's comments about how that family would have benefited from the Massachusetts health reforms signed into law by then-Gov. Mitt Romney was not well received in conservative circles.

10 Aug 2012

First Edition: August 10, 2012

Reporting for Kaiser Health News, in collaboration with The Washington Post, Susan Jaffe writes: "Concerned that a growing number of seniors have been unexpectedly forced to pay thousands of dollars for nursing home care after a stay in a hospital, Medicare has launched a pilot project to test whether relaxing its hospital payment rules could help beneficiaries".

10 Aug 2012

Protecting human rights of women living with HIV

"Women who are living with HIV remain particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses, including unlawful breaches of confidentiality, denial of health services, compulsory HIV testing and in some cases forced sterilization," a UNAIDS feature story reports

10 Aug 2012

IRIN examines administration of methadone as treatment for people who inject drugs in Bangladesh

"Methadone treatment is proving to be the most efficient way to wean people in Bangladesh from addiction to buprenorphine, a pharmaceutical drug, and health experts say it should be expanded to reach thousands more drug users to prevent the spread of HIV," IRIN reports.

10 Aug 2012

Longer looks: Waking up to the need for sleep

Among the more than 11,000 dearly departed inhabitants of Southeast Portland's Multnomah Park Cemetery, friends Eric Cordingley and David Anderson have their favorites: a reputed French madam, a young Norwegian institutionalized for being gay, and Louis Napoleon Lepley -- or, as they call him, "Louis the cannibal." Intriguing as their individual stories may be, together they help tell a bigger, darker tale

10 Aug 2012

Accurate vaccination needed to protect children

This year the U.S. has seen the worst outbreak of whooping cough in more than 50 years. In fact, it has reached epidemic levels in many states and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the numbers of cases reported is already twice as many as last year. With kids getting ready to head back-to-school, the numbers of children impacted or killed by this disease could continue to rise if children aren't accurately vaccinated.

10 Aug 2012

Access to care in Mass. improves, but many docs still don't accept new patients

The survey by the Massachusetts Medical Society says access to primary care is slowly improving, but that it can still take a month or longer to get an appointment. In addition, only about half of internal and family medicine practices are accepting new patients.

10 Aug 2012

Trauma: spending more money doesn’t translate to higher survival rates

A large-scale review of national patient records reveals that although survival rates are the same, the cost of treating trauma patients in the western United States is 33 percent higher than the bill for treating similarly injured patients in the Northeast. Overall, treatment costs were lower in the Northeast than anywhere in the United States.

10 Aug 2012

Loyola to offer new radiotherapy system for cancer patients

A new radiotherapy system at Loyola University Medical Center will offer cancer patients shorter radiation treatments, with pinpoint accuracy and precision.

9 Aug 2012

Addressing food insecurity in the DRC

In this post in USAID's "Impact" blog, Jessica Hartl, information officer for the Office of Food for Peace, notes she "recently traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to visit food assistance programs implemented by" the office and asks, "[W]hy in countries so lush and ripe for agriculture were people so food insecure?"

9 Aug 2012

Should 'health exchanges' be renamed?

The Wall Street Journal reports that the phrase confuses consumers in focus groups. Meanwhile, Papa John's CEO and founder John Schnatter, who is a fundraiser for Mitt Romney, told shareholders last week that the health care law is going to raise the company's costs, which he vowed to pass onto consumers.

9 Aug 2012