Public/Global Health

A new study finding the U.S. falling behind industrial countries could rekindle the debate over the new healthcare law.

President Obama's administration has made women and families a top priority "since day one," first lady Michelle Obama said.

Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) are asking their colleagues to spare the National Institutes of Health from major budget cuts.

The two senators were circulating a “dear colleague” letter Thursday that asks Senate appropriators to “maintain a strong commitment” to NIH as work begins on next year’s spending bills.

NIH escaped the last big round of cuts — a stopgap measure to keep the government open through the end of the year. But with Congress focused on cutting spending, supporters fear the agency could come under the knife soon.

“We all recognize the difficult choices that need to be made as we seek to reduce the deficit,” the letter states. “If we are to improve the health of Americans and the quality of their lives, we must continue to invest in areas like biomedical research that have the potential to save money in the future, improve the lives of Americans, and offer an economic return.”

A broad coalition of stakeholder groups, including academic research centers and the pharmaceutical industry, has also been pushing for NIH funding. The coalition, United for Medical Research, released reports last month that said NIH research supports more than 480,000 jobs.

The push to make buildings more energy efficient could have negative health effects, according to a report issued Tuesday. 

Europe's E. coli outbreak is now being linked to German bean sprouts, not Spanish produce as Germany first claimed, the Guardian reports.

Cash-strapped states are turning to philanthropies to help pay for the healthcare reform overhaul, reports Kaiser Health News.

New research promises to create personalized therapies for cancer patients, writes The Wall Street Journal.

The New York Times reports on the dismal conditions at New York's homes for the disabled.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls on donor nations to increase their commitments to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS on the 30th anniversary of the epidemic.

Connecticut is poised to become the first state in the country to mandate paid sick leave for service workers, reports the Hartford Courant.

Yearly ovarian cancer screening fails to reduce death rate but increases false positive tests, says a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Reservists considered essential to wartime missions aren't properly informed about their ability to purchase healthcare coverage under the DOD's TRICARE program after their active-duty coverage expires, says a new GAO report.

U.S. farmers aren't required to test for the deadly new E. coli strain ravaging Europe, reports The Washington Post.

Officials in the U.S. are dismayed that Europe is fighting its outbreak with antibiotics, reports The New York Times.

States have a lot more flexibility than commonly thought when designing health insurance exchanges, says the National Academy of Social Insurance and Georgetown University.

The National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a) examines how communities across the country are preparing for an aging population.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has released its 2010 state-by-state snapshot of healthcare quality and disparities.

AHRQ also released its vision for future research aimed at helping to improve healthcare in the U.S.

Medicaid managed care is expanding in California, reports Kaiser Health News.

Researchers at Emory University on Wednesday launched an interactive map that for the first time allows viewers to seek AIDS data by poverty rate, race, ethnicity, age and gender at both the state and county levels.

The map, using the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "pinpoints areas of the country where HIV prevalence rates are the highest and where the needs for prevention, testing and treatment services are the most urgent," Emory said in a press release. The map comes 30 years after the first AIDS cases were reported to the CDC.

"AIDSVu is an important new public health tool that makes data on the geography of HIV in the United States available to anyone with an Internet connection," James Curran, dean of Emory's Rollins School of Public Health, said in a statement. "AIDSVu shows us that every area of the country is affected by HIV, and we hope that AIDSVu helps individuals better understand HIV in their communities and take charge of their health."

Rep. Bilbray and others have asked appropriators to avoid making deep cuts to the National Institutes of Health's budget.

The head of the House Oversight Committee on Friday continued to hammer the Obama administration over the 2009 recall of a defective pain medication. 

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hasn't followed through on vows to monitor a Puerto Rican drug plant — run by McNeil, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary — at the center of a 2009 recall of Motrin, a popular pain killer.

Last September, then-FDA Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein told lawmakers on the oversight panel that FDA "intends to keep a close eye on these facilities until the company earns our confidence back."  

Since then, however, no FDA inspectors have visited the McNeil facility in San Juan, Issa said in a Friday letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg. Issa had visited Puerto Rico earlier this week to meet with FDA leaders, including Maridalia Torres, FDA's Puerto Rico district director. He didn't like what he found.