Health News
E-Clips
An electronic healthcare news link service
provided by UHA,
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Bill would offer health care programs to legal immigrant children (Salt Lake Tribune, February 2, 2010) Faced with an abscess on their daughter's leg, an uninsured family tried a series of home remedies. When they finally took her to the emergency room at Primary Children's Medical Center, the infection was so serious that doctors feared the girl would lose her leg.
Once-homeless vets bumped off VA campus (Salt Lake Tribune, February 2, 2010) It's much better than living on the street. That's what Bret Lindsey reminds himself when he's feeling unhappy about his new living arrangements.
House OKs bill to criminalize intentional miscarriages (Salt Lake Tribune, January 30, 2010) A bill that would criminalize an intentional miscarriage cleared the House on Friday in a 59-12 vote and now goes to the Senate.
· Wrong approach (Editorial, Salt Lake Tribune, February 2, 2010) Making law based on one unfortunate incident is knee-jerk governing. That's what Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, is trying to do with his House Bill 12, which allows the state to prosecute a woman for criminal homicide if she causes her own miscarriage.
Bills move to hit E-cigarettes, smokeless nicotine (Salt Lake Tribune, January 30, 2010) A House panel voted unanimously Friday in favor of a bill meant to create new regulations for electronic cigarettes, while placing on hold a second bill that would regulate, and in many cases ban, smokeless nicotine products.
Utah House panel supports pre-abortion ultrasound access (Salt Lake Tribune, January 30, 2010) The House Health and Human Services committee voted unanimously Friday to support amending Utah's informed consent abortion laws and emphasize access to ultrasound tests prior to a woman receiving an abortion.
Utah
Legislature: Lawmakers take aim at tobacco products (Deseret News,
February 2, 2010) Lawmakers'
ongoing "anti-tobacco nicky fit," as Utah
smokers affectionately call the spate of prohibitions on almost anything with
nicotine, will continue this week after stalling momentarily when a House
committee realized that two bills are targeting the same nicotine-drenched
product.
National Healthcare Headlines
Obama to propose further Medicaid help for states (Washington Post, January 30, 2010) The Obama administration will propose giving cash-strapped states about $25 billion worth of help with their Medicaid budgets when presenting its 2011 budget on Monday, a White House official with knowledge of the plan said Friday. (Registration required)
Analysis: Dems' missteps led to health breakdown(Washington Post, February 1, 2010) Democrats say they never saw it coming, but the breakdown of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul was abetted by their own mistakes. (Registration required)
The
Insurer vs. the Hospitals (Editorial,
New York Times, January 29, 2010) A bitter dispute between one of the nation’s
largest health insurers and a consortium of New York City hospitals illustrates
the difficulties of controlling the ever-rising costs of medical care and
insurance premiums. In this case, the insurer appears to be acting responsibly,
if a bit heavy-handedly. (Registration required)
States Restart Health-Care Push (Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2010) With the fate of a national health care overhaul unclear, state legislators are pushing their own bills aimed at expanding coverage, though tight budgets are likely to hinder many of these efforts.
Humana Profit Rises 44%, Lifts Forecast (Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2010) Humana Inc.'s fourth-quarter earnings rose 44% amid lower medical costs, while its government businesses continued to offset continuing challenges at its commercial segment.
HCA Owners' Big Payout: $1.75 Billion (Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2010) HCA Inc., the nation's largest hospital operator, will pay its private-equity owners a $1.75 billion dividend, believed to be among the biggest ever, after reporting stellar 2009 financial results.
Wellness Efforts Face Hurdle (Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2010) Companies' efforts
to reduce health-care costs by nudging employees into wellness programs are
clashing with a federal law designed to prevent discrimination based on
genetics.
Gates Foundation pledges $10 billion to
vaccine research (Washington Post, January 30, 2010) The Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation will donate $10 billion over the next decade to
research vaccines and make them available to the world's poorest countries, the
Microsoft co-founder and his wife said Friday. (Registration required)
Giving Life in a Land Overflowing
With Pain (New York Times, January 31, 2010) Biology and the earthquake dictated that Roseline Antoine would give birth at 9:42 a.m. Thursday to
a healthy baby girl who has no home but the street. The same irrevocable forces
left Delva Venite naked a
few feet away, in pain, waiting nearly a day for doctors to deal with the
stillborn son inside her. (Registration
required)
·
U.S.
suspends Haitian medical flights as Florida hospitals run short of capacity
(Washington Post, January
31, 2010) The
U.S. military has temporarily halted medical evacuation flights for Haitians
critically injured in this month's earthquake, after Florida officials told the
Obama administration that the state's hospitals are becoming too crowded,
officials said Saturday. (Registration required)
·
U.S. military resuming Haiti medical flights (Deseret News,
January 31, 2010) The White House says the U.S. military will resume bringing
Haitian earthquake victims to the United States on its planes for medical
treatment, ending a suspension that lasted several days.
·
U.S.
doctors say Haiti stands out from other disasters (USA Today, February 2, 2010) Detroit emergency physician
Frank McGeorge says nothing could have prepared him
for what he saw in Haiti.
·
U.S.
military will resume flying Haitian earthquake victims to Florida (Washington Post,
February 1, 2010) The U.S. military will resume flying severely injured Haitian
earthquake victims out of the country, ending a dispute over hospital costs and
capacity that had stopped such flights. (Registration
required)
A Troubling Uptick (Editorial, New York Times, January 29, 2010) One of President
Obama’s worthier first-year achievements was to redirect federal sex-education
financing from an abstinence-only approach to broader, more-effective programs
that provide information to young people about contraceptives, pregnancy and
sexually transmitted diseases. (Registration required)
Aging:
Higher Co-Payments Tied to Costlier Care (New York Times, February 2,
2010) When Medicare plans
raise co-payments for outpatient care, older people cut back on doctors’ visits,
then wind up needing more expensive hospital care, a new study reports.
(Registration required)
Where There’s No Smoke, Altria Hopes There’s Fire
(New York Times, January 30, 2010) FOR years, Altria, home to Philip Morris and its popular Marlboro cigarette
brand, was a corporate pariah blamed for the deaths of millions of people and
sued for hundreds of billions of dollars by attorneys general in every state.
(Registration required)
NIH will start keeping track of patients' radiation exposure (USA Today, January 31, 2010) Concerned that Americans may be accumulating too much lifetime radiation exposure from medical tests, doctors at the National Institutes of Health will begin recording how much radiation patients receive from CT scans and other procedures in their electronic medical records.
A
Lasting Gift to Medicine That Wasn’t Really a Gift (New York Times,
February 2, 2010) Fifty years after Henrietta Lacks died of cervical
cancer in the “colored” ward at Johns Hopkins Hospital, her daughter finally
got a chance to see the legacy she had unknowingly left to science.
(Registration required)
Your Health: Too much sitting puts the body on idle (USA Today, January 31, 2010) For decades, scientists have studied exercise. But until recently, they paid little attention to the opposite end of the activity spectrum: the many hours modern humans spend sitting, barely moving at all.
Deteriorating children’s health isn’t a mystery (Boston Globe, February 1, 2010) From anxiety and hormonal disorders to high blood pressure and type II diabetes, doctors are treating boys and girls for numerous medical conditions that were once uncommon or never seen in children - and many are preventable. (Registration required)
Yes to postpartum screening (Editorial, Boston Globe, February 1, 2010) THE BIRTH of a child is a blessed event, but the following weeks and months can be hell for the 10 to 15 percent of new mothers who suffer from postpartum mood disorders. (Registration required)
War on AIDS Hangs in Balance as U.S. Curbs Help for Africa (Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2010) Ninsiima Agatha, a 20-year-old mother of two, showed up at a medical clinic here last month, weak, coughing, and desperate to save herself and her two children. She had just discovered that her husband was infected with HIV—and now she had the virus too. If she didn't get access to life-saving drugs quickly, she could easily pass the disease to the baby she was breast-feeding.
Children:
Quality of Life With Cochlear Implants (New York Times, February 2,
2010) Children with the surgically implanted hearing aids
called cochlear
implants rate their quality of life as highly as children with normal
hearing, according to one of the first studies that looked at children as well
as their parents. (Registration required)
White House Aims to Broaden Approach to Global Health (Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2010) The Obama administration is expected to propose in its fiscal 2011 budget Monday new funding to combat preventable and tropical diseases, malnutrition and other conditions afflicting the world's poor, as part of a strategy to broaden its approach to global health.
Study: Healthy adults need less sleep as they
age (USA Today, February 1, 2010) A new study on
sleep indicates that healthy older adults without sleep disorders
need less sleep than healthy young adults and are less sleepy during the day.
States mull Rx rule for meth ingredients (USA Today, February 1, 2010) State and local efforts to thwart methamphetamine production by further limiting consumer access to a popular decongestant are pitting law enforcement against pharmacists and patients.
Childhood asthma in premature babies linked pregnancy bug (USA Today, February 2, 2010) A common complication during pregnancy may predispose children born prematurely to asthma, a large study reports today.
The New Face of Sleep (Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2010) For the 18 million people with obstructive sleep apnea, the remedy is far from perfect: bulky and expensive masks that some compare to sleeping in scuba gear.
New Ways to Calculate the Risks of Surgery (Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2010) Facing abdominal surgery for colon and uterine cancer, Kathleen Rivard listened last Thursday as Stuart Bussell, her surgeon at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut, laid out the odds: a 1% risk of death, an 18% risk of a complication like an infection at the surgical incision site, and an 8% chance of a more serious complication like cardiac arrest.
L.A. Confidential: Seeking Reasons for Autism's Rise (Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2010) Why is a child born in northwest Los Angeles four times as likely to be diagnosed with autism as a child born elsewhere in California?
Stress Hormone's Startling Powers (Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2010) A hormone that can wreak havoc with the body by setting off harmful effects of stress may have a far more positive use: in a new way to treat diabetes.
The Miracle of Vitamin D: Sound Science, or Hype? (New York Times, February 2, 2010) Imagine a treatment that could build bones, strengthen the immune system and lower the risks of illnesses like diabetes, heart and kidney disease, high blood pressure and cancer. (Registration required)
Homeless,
Shoeless, Even Nameless (New York Times, February 2, 2010) When the police brought Jane to 3East, the soles of her feet
were blistered. Young and pretty beneath a layer of urban grime, she had been
picked up for wandering barefoot around Portland, Ore., on a 90-degree August
afternoon. (Registration required)