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USAID opens budget office, agency will assume more responsibility for its resources

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah recently told agency staff "of the creation of the new USAID Office of Budget and Resource Management (BRM), to be led by his senior budgetary advisor Mike Casella," Foreign Policy's blog, "The Cable," reports, adding that this will "give USAID an increased role in developing and then justifying parts of its own budget going forward."

15 Sep 2010

EHSI applauds Sen. Specter's support for Stem Cell Research Advancement Act

Emerging Healthcare Solutions, Inc. cheered Sen. Arlen Specter's (D-Penn.) statement of support for the Stem Cell Research Advancement Act on Monday.

15 Sep 2010

Senate amendments to strike health reform tax reporting provision fail

The Associated Press/Bloomberg Business: "The Senate failed Tuesday to repeal or ease an arcane tax reporting provision of the new health care law. ...Tucked into the health law is a requirement that businesses file tax forms called 1099s with the Internal Revenue Service for every vendor that sells them more than $600 in goods.

15 Sep 2010

Danny Davis to discuss diabetes, obesity rates in U.S. at UIC Midwest Conference

U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D-Chicago) will give opening remarks when the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies convenes a regional meeting Sept. 21 at the University of Illinois at Chicago to discuss the rapidly rising rates of diabetes and obesity in the U.S.

15 Sep 2010

Ricerca Biosciences collaborates with Instem to innovate drug safety studies

Ricerca Biosciences, is pleased to announce the successful result of a partnership with Instem, a leading provider of laboratory data and information management solutions. The collaboration resulted in the development of a novel approach to eliminating potential misdosing during drug safety studies.

15 Sep 2010

NBCA arms healthcare professionals to 'Stop the Clot'

The National Blood Clot Alliance (NBCA) is making available an easily accessible, no-cost online curriculum for nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and pharmacists to help increase understanding about the diagnosis and treatment of blood clots and blood clotting disorders.

15 Sep 2010

Hunger costs developing nations $450B per year, report says

"Reduced worker productivity, poor health and lost education caused by malnourishment" is costing poor nations $450 billion a year, according to a report by the aid agency ActionAid, Agence France-Presse reports (9/13). The number is "more than 10 times the estimated amount needed to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving global hunger by 2015, said the report" according to the U.K. Press Association, which added that hunger also results in premature deaths (9/13).

15 Sep 2010

Kansas Governor to head nursing home group after leaving office in January

Kansas City Star: "Parkinson, a Democrat, will be president and CEO of the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living, a non-profit, Washington-based trade and lobbying organization representing 11,000 nursing homes and assisted living centers." Before becoming lieutenant governor, Parkinson used to run a chain of long-term care facilities. He assumed the governor's job after Kathleen Sebelius left that post to become secretary of health and human services under President Barack Obama (Klepper, 9/13).

15 Sep 2010

Optimer Pharmaceuticals to present fidaxomicin Phase 3 clinical trial data at ICAAC Conference

Optimer Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced the presentation of new data from its North American and European fidaxomicin Phase 3 clinical trials in patients with Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) at the 50th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in Boston.

15 Sep 2010

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins enter into licensing agreement with CJAPS to provide PRS journal in Chinese

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a licensing agreement with the Chinese Journal of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery (CJAPS), to provide selected articles and abstracts from Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (PRS), the official journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, to be translated into Chinese and published in CJAPS.

15 Sep 2010

Some health insurance changes set to take effect next week

Kaiser Health News: On Sept. 23, a number of health law provisions will go into effect, including a ban on lifetime caps on health benefits, a practice some insurance plans use to restrain costs. For one family with two children with hemophilia whose treatments cost around $250,000 a year, that's a reassuring change that means "more freedom" for the kids.

15 Sep 2010

Ahead of MDG Summit, U.N. Secretary-General calls for additional funds, strategy for tackling women's and children's health issues

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday announced that "nearly 140" world leaders are planning to attend next week's U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Summit in New York, where they will discuss ways to help countries reach the targets by 2015, the Canadian Press reports (Lederer, 9/13).

15 Sep 2010

Florida Judge signals he will likely allow some parts of states' health law challenge to proceed

Bloomberg: "U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson in Pensacola said today he will make a decision by Oct. 14 on whether the states have jurisdiction to sue. He told lawyers he would probably dismiss part of the suit, while allowing other claims to proceed." The states involved in the lawsuit maintain that the federal government's "requirement that people buy health insurance" goes beyond Congress' constitutional powers.

15 Sep 2010

Berwick breaks silence, calling on insurers to join pursuit of 'shared goals'

In his first big speech as President Barack Obama's top Medicare official Donald Berwick Monday called on insurers to join in a "full partnership" with his agency to achieve a health system with lower costs that doesn't withhold care from anyone or risk harming patients, The Associated Press/Washington Post report. The remarks were delivered to a conference hosted by America's Health Insurance Plans. "The choice of the insurance lobby for his speech was unusual since the administration continues to trade verbal potshots with the industry" (Alonso-Zaldivar, 9/13).

15 Sep 2010

Medicare, Social Security grow with baby boomer retirement, joblessness

The Washington Post: Rapid growth in the number of applicants for Social Security disability benefits has soared between 2008 and 2009, threatening the solvency of the program. With an increase of 21 percent in that timeframe, "growth is the sharpest in the 54-year history of the program. It threatens the program's fiscal stability and adds to an administrative backlog that is slowing the flow of benefits to those who need them most." Broad economic problems and a flood of jobless applicants have caused the spike (Fletcher, 9/14).

15 Sep 2010

Guardian launches global development website

The Guardian on Tuesday launched a new website that will cover global development issues, such as hunger and infant mortality, according to an introductory note on the site (Bunting, 9/14).

15 Sep 2010

White House supports effort to scale back small business provision of health law

"Facing a backlash from small businesses over a new tax-reporting requirement in the healthcare law the president signed in March, the Obama administration is embracing the first change to the landmark legislation," the Los Angeles Times reports. "In a letter to Senate leaders, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner urged the Senate to back a proposal to scale back the new reporting mandate.

15 Sep 2010

Number of people enrolled in FEHBP expected to rise

Federal News Radio: "The number of people covered by the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program is expected to jump dramatically next year and the number of people switching from self-only to family coverage will also go up. Those eligible for FEHBP coverage will include dependent children and foster children up to age 26 who are not living with their federal parents.

15 Sep 2010

Legal challenge to new law gets a day in court: Today

A federal judge will preside over a lawsuit in Florida challenging the legitimacy of the health law today, "as 20 states and an influential small-business group argue that the bill amounts to a sweeping constitutional overreach, Politico reports. "The states argue that the federal government cannot impose a requirement on individuals to purchase insurance, the so-called individual mandate, and then force them to pay a fine if they don't.

15 Sep 2010

Insurers expand business overseas

The Wall Street Journal: "Cigna Corp. is expanding overseas, leading a push by health insurers to find growth amid uncertainties at home. Next month, the Philadelphia-based firm will launch an insurance policy in Spain that it says is the first of its kind to be sold by U.S. insurers. The new plan is sold directly to local individuals, as opposed to employer-sponsored or supplemental policies offered by Cigna in 26 other countries.

15 Sep 2010