New Bush Policies Limit Reach of Child Insurance Plan
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: The Bush administration, engaged in a battle with Congress over whether a popular children's health insurance program should be expanded, has announced new policies that will make it harder for states to insure all but the lowest-income children.

New administrative hurdles, which state health officials were told about late last week, are aimed at preventing parents with private insurance for their children from availing of the government-subsidized State Children's Health Insurance Program. But Democrats and children's advocates said that the announcement will jeopardize coverage for children whose parents work at jobs that do not provide employer-paid insurance.

Under the new policy, a state seeking to enroll a child whose family earns more than 250 percent of the poverty level -- or $51,625 for a family of four -- must first ensure that the child is uninsured for at least one year. The state must also demonstrate that at least 95 percent of children from families making less than 200 percent of the poverty level have been enrolled in the children's health insurance program or Medicaid -- a sign-up rate that no state has yet managed

Labels: bush, health

BP gets OK to dump mercury into Lake Michigan -
From USATODAY.com
Excerpt: "A BP (BP) refinery in Indiana will be allowed to continue to dump mercury into Lake Michigan under a permit issued by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

The permit exempts the BP plant at Whiting, Ind., 3 miles southeast of Chicago, from a 1995 federal regulation limiting mercury discharges into the Great Lakes to 1.3 ounces per year.

The BP plant reported releasing 3 pounds of mercury through surface water discharges each year from 2002 to 2005, according to the Toxics Release Inventory, a database on pollution emissions kept by the Environmental Protection Agency that is based on information reported by companies.

The permit was issued July 21 in connection with the plant's $3.8 billion expansion, but only late last week began to generate public controversy. It gives the company until at least 2012 to meet the federal standard. " More

Labels: environment, health

U.S. patients choosing Mexican hospitals for price, quality
From the Dallas Morning News
Excerpt: ... For now, most Americans coming to Mexico for health care are considered "medical refugees," as in the case of Mr. Woods, 43, a network engineer. He visited a Christus Muguerza hospital in Monterrey last Christmas and stayed with his wife's relatives there. He had looked into getting laser eye surgery close to home, but the cost made that impossible, he said. U.S. doctors wanted to charge him $4,000, Mr. Woods said, but he paid $1,500 in Mexico.

"People were very cordial, warm," Mr. Woods said of the experience. "They treated me very well, and I wouldn't hesitate returning for other medical procedures." ...

... In the hospital itself, a private room looks more like a hotel suite, with a separate living room, two televisions and space for an entire family for $300 per night – something unthinkable in the United States, said hospital director Mr. Tarabay, who has managed U.S. hospitals.

About 90 percent of Santa Engracia patients are well-off or well-insured Mexicans, many of whom used to go to Texas for top-notch health care. Mr. Moreno, the U.S. consul in Monterrey, said he bought a home for retirement in San Antonio, in part to be close to the medical facilities in Monterrey, a four-hour drive away.

"They have a cultural thing here in Mexico where you're not treated like a number," said Mr. Moreno. "Without a doubt, these are the best medical facilities that I've ever seen in my foreign-service career."
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Labels: health

Doctors not prepared for new prescription pad rules
From AP via the Seattle Post Intelligencer
Excerpt: Millions of Medicaid patients and their pharmacists could be in for a nasty surprise Oct. 1.

A tiny provision tucked into a spending bill for Iraq requires that prescriptions for Medicaid patients be written on "tamper-resistant" pads. But most doctors do not use such pads.

The law is designed to make it harder for patients to obtain controlled drugs illegally and easier for the government to save money. The quick start date leaves little time to educate doctors and pharmacists.

"Our members are absolutely flabbergasted that they're going to be put on the hook for denying prescriptions if something is not on a tamperproof pad," said Paul Kelly, vice president of government affairs for the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. "Our biggest fear is the negative impact this could have on patient care and access to prescriptions."

Pharmacists' groups have asked lawmakers and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to delay putting the law in place.

"Millions of Medicaid beneficiaries may not be able to obtain their medications after Oct. 1," they said in a recent letter to lawmakers. "This could lead to higher Medicaid costs for emergency room visits, hospitalizations and physician office visits if medication cannot be obtained in a timely manner."
Doctors not prepared for new prescription pad rules

Labels: congress, health

Bush Administration Fights Mad Cow Testing
From AP via the Witchita Eagle
Excerpt: The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Arkansas City-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows.

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive test, too.

A federal judge ruled in March that such tests must be allowed. The ruling was to take effect Friday, but the Agriculture Department said Tuesday it would appeal -- effectively delaying the testing until the court challenge plays out.

Labels: agency, bush, health

Effects of Chickenpox Vaccine Fade Over Time: Study
From Scientific American
Excerpt: Merck's chickenpox vaccine Varivax not only loses its effectiveness after a while, but it has also changed the profile of the disease in the population, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

The study confirmed what doctors widely knew -- that the vaccine's protection does not last long.

And with fewer natural cases of the disease going around, unvaccinated children or children in whom the first dose of the vaccine fails to work have been catching the highly contagious disease later in life, when the risk of severe complications is greater, they said.

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Labels: health

FDA Rules Override Warnings About Drug
Cattle Antibiotic Moves Forward Despite Fears of Human Risk
From the Washington Post

Excerpt: The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency's own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous for people.

The drug, called cefquinome, belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine's last defenses against several serious human infections. No drug from that class has been approved in the United States for use in animals.

The American Medical Association and about a dozen other health groups warned the Food and Drug Administration that giving cefquinome to animals would probably speed the emergence of microbes resistant to that important class of antibiotics, as has happened with other drugs. Those super-microbes could then spread to people.

Echoing those concerns, the FDA's advisory board last fall voted to reject the request by InterVet Inc. of Millsboro, Del., to market the drug for cattle.

Yet by all indications, the FDA will approve cefquinome this spring. That outcome is all but required, officials said, by a recently implemented "guidance document" that codifies how to weigh the threats to human health posed by proposed new animal drugs.
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Labels: agency, FDA, health

Hospital Officials Knew of Neglect
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army's surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years.

A procession of Pentagon and Walter Reed officials expressed surprise last week about the living conditions and bureaucratic nightmares faced by wounded soldiers staying at the D.C. medical facility. But as far back as 2003, the commander of Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who is now the Army's top medical officer, was told that soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were languishing and lost on the grounds, according to interviews.
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Labels: health, iraq, troops, veterans

FDA Budget Malnourished
From the Los Angeles Times
Excerpt: WASHINGTON — When scientific advisors urged the Food and Drug Administration in February to put a strong warning about suspected cardiovascular risks on attention-deficit drugs taken by millions of children and adults, agency officials said more clinical evidence was needed.

Now, the FDA-funded study meant to authoritatively answer questions about the drugs for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder may be halted in midstream. The reason: The agency doesn't have the money to finish it.

The threat to the study, as revealed in documents and interviews, stems from chronic shortchanging of the nation's drug safety program. It is one symptom of a federal agency increasingly constrained by a budget that has failed to keep up with costs. This crunch is even more dire in the food division, which tries to keep tainted foodstuffs from supermarket shelves.

Even as concerns grow, the agency has budgeted only $1.6 million for such safety studies of medications already on the market, and that number is scheduled to drop to $900,000 in the coming year. Outside experts estimate that the agency needs $20 million to $100 million a year to conduct such studies.

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Labels: agency, drug safety, FDA, food, health

Inner Circle Taking More of C.D.C. Bonuses
From the New York Times
Excerpt: Top officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received premium bonuses in recent years at the expense of scientists and others who perform much of the agency's scientific work, agency records show. Those inside the office of the centers' director, Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, have benefited the most, the records show....

From 2002 through mid-2006, William H. Gimson III, the agency's chief operating officer, received bonuses totaling $147,863, which included seven cash awards of more than $2,500. Mr. Gimson's bonuses were about twice the amount granted to any other C.D.C. employee, the agency's records show...

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Labels: agency, CDC, health

Sick veterans blame new weapon
From the Boston Globe
Excerpt: ... Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, the Army National Guard veteran has had trouble with bleeding gums. There also is blood in his urine and his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache.

There is something massively wrong with Reed, though no one is sure what it is. The Department of Veterans Affairs medical center in the Bronx has supplied him with an internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon, and a dermatologist.

Reed believes that the military's new favorite weapon -- depleted uranium coating artillery shells and tanks -- has made him terrifyingly sick. ...

...Reed says he unknowingly breathed depleted uranium dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was removed in 2003 because of herniated spinal discs. Then began a series of symptoms he had never experienced in his previously healthy life.

At Walter Reed, he ran into some buddies from his unit. ``We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says. ``The doctors said, `It's all in your head.' "

Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442d Military Police, an Army National Guard unit of mostly police and correctional officers from the New York area. ...

...Depleted uranium can contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust. In 2005, the UN Environmental Program identified 311 polluted sites in Iraq. Cleaning them will take at least $40 million and several years, the agency said.

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Also see: Campaign Against Depleted Uranium

Labels: depleted uranium, health, iraq, veterans

Center for War-Related Brain Injuries Faces Budget Cut
From USA Today
Excerpt: Congress appears ready to slash funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by bomb blasts, an injury that military scientists describe as a signature wound of the Iraq war.
House and Senate versions of the 2007 Defense appropriation bill contain $7 million for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center — half of what the center received last fiscal year.

Proponents of increased funding say they are shocked to see cuts in the treatment of bomb blast injuries in the midst of a war.

"I find it basically unpardonable that Congress is not going to provide funds to take care of our soldiers and sailors who put their lives on the line for their country," says Martin Foil, a member of the center's board of directors. "It blows my imagination."

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Labels: health, iraq, spending, veterans

FDA Tries to Limit Drug Suits in State Courts
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: People who believe they were injured by drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration should not be allowed to sue drug companies in state courts, the agency said yesterday in a formal policy statement. ...
... "It's a typical abuse by the Bush Administration -- take a regulation to improve the information that doctors and patients receive about prescription drugs and turn it into a protection against liability for the drug industry," he said in a statement.

The Bush administration has intervened in a number of state liability cases against drug and medical device manufacturers with friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the companies. Yesterday's policy statement was just a way to make the same points on a broad and general basis, Gottlieb said. More

Labels: agency, bush, FDA, health, law

More deaths may be linked to Ground Zero cleanup
From the New York Daily News via Kentucky.com
Excerpt: ...But the New York Daily News has learned that an additional 22 men, mostly in their 30s and 40s, have died from causes their families say were accelerated by the toxic mix of chemicals that lodged in their bodies as they searched for survivors or participated in the cleanup after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Among them are private employees, a sanitation worker, a correction officer, a utility worker, transit workers, firefighters and police officers. They died from black lung and cancers of the esophagus and pancreas.
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Labels: Ground Zero, health, September 11

Rumsfeld Stands to Make Fortune from Bird Flu
From CNN Money
Excerpt: The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it's proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that's now the most-sought after drug in the world.
Rumsfeld served as Gilead (Research)'s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.
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Labels: bird flu, health, rumsfeld, science

EPA Looking at Using Tests on People
From the Associated Press
Excerpt: In setting limits on chemicals in food and water, the Environmental Protection Agency may rely on industry tests that expose people to poisons and raise ethical questions.
The new policy, which the EPA is still developing, would allow Bush administration political appointees to referee any ethical disputes. Agency officials are putting the finishing touches on a plan to take a case-by-case approach. ...

... Citing ethical concerns, EPA earlier this month also temporarily suspended a planned government study into how children's bodies absorb pesticides and other chemicals.

EPA scientists and environmentalists said the two-year study, with $2 million in backing from a chemical makers' trade group, might encourage poor families to use more pesticides. Families that participated were to get $970 each plus a camcorder and children's clothes.
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Labels: agency, EPA, health

Bush Battles over Sick Workers
From the Associated Press
Excerpt: The Bush administration is locked in a rare election-year fight with fellow Republicans in the Senate over a troubled program for tens of thousands of weapons plant workers who got sick building nuclear bombs.

The lawmakers say they don’t understand why the administration is blocking a Senate-passed amendment to the defense bill that would overhaul a compensation program bogged down by delays and other problems.

"I can’t fully understand what their resistance is," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who is in a tough re-election battle in Alaska. "We’ve been hammered by our constituents.”...

..."These people are sick and dying," said Terrie Barrie of Craig, Colo., whose husband was sickened while working at the former Rocky Flats plant near Denver. "The administration, the Department of Energy, is just refusing to listen." ...
...The lawmakers complain the Energy Department has squandered much of the $95 million it received since Congress created the program. As of the end of July, the agency has paid only 31 claims out of about 25,000 filed. The $700,000 in paid claims amounts to an average benefit of roughly $22,500... More

Labels: agency, bush, DOE, health, spending

London: Prozac Found in Drinking Water
From Reuters
Excerpt: Traces of the anti-depressant Prozac have been found in the drinking water supply, setting off alarm bells with environmentalists concerned about potentially toxic effects.
The Observer said that a report by the government's environment watchdog found Prozac was building up in river systems and groundwater used for drinking supplies.
The exact quantity of Prozac in the drinking water was unknown, but the Environment Agency's report concluded Prozac could be potentially toxic in the water table...

... But environmentalists called for an urgent investigation into the findings.
Norman Baker, environment spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said it looked "like a case of hidden mass medication upon the unsuspecting public".
"It is alarming that there is no monitoring of levels of Prozac and other pharmacy residues in our drinking water," he told the Observer. More

Labels: environment, health, UK

Use of depleted uranium weapons lingers as health concern
From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Excerpt: The ideal legacy of the war in Iraq is a free and democratic society, but a sinister legacy of another kind is possible as well -- cancers and birth defects.
Depleted uranium weapons used by the U.S.-led forces in the war have left battle sites throughout Iraq contaminated with abnormally high levels of radiation...

The Pentagon and United Nations estimate that U.S. and British forces used 1,100 to 2,200 tons of armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium during attacks in Iraq in March and April -- far more than the estimated 375 tons used in the 1991 Gulf War.

U.S. tanks, Bradley fighting machines, A-10 attack jets and Apache helicopters routinely used depleted uranium rounds, but in the recent war, the ammunition was used in and near heavily populated areas, not just in the desert...

Labels: depleted uranium, health, iraq, UK