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Sebelius: Single-Payer Health Care Not In Plans
In an interview with NPR, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stressed that talk of a public plan doesn"t mean that a single-payer option is a possibility. "This is not a trick. This is not single payerò€¦ That"s not what anyone is talking about - mostly because the president feels strongly, as I do, that dismantling private health coverage for the 180 million Americans that have it, discouraging more employers from coming into the marketplace, is really the bad, you know, is a bad direction to go," she said. Sebelius added that a public insurance option would pressure private insurance companies to lower costs, which she says is "a good thing for the American public. Medicare right now has lower overhead than private insurers." Some Republicans have argued that Americans currently in private plans would flee to the public option, but Sebelius countered that expanding health insurance would potentially create "50 million-plus new insurance customers, whether you"re talking about a private plan or public option."

Parents Say Their Son Can Be Given Chemotherapy After Initially Refusing Treatment
Daniel Hauser, 13, who has Hodgkin"s lymphoma, and ran away with his mother after she refused chemotherapy treatment, is to be allowed treatment, his parents said. Daniel"s mother, Colleen Hauser, said she had wanted him to be treated with natural remedies for religious reasons. Hodgkin"s Lymphoma or Hodgkin"s Disease is a cancerous (malignant) growth of cells in the lymph system.
News of the day
Test For Strep Bacteria In Pregnant Women Misses More Cases Than Expected, Study Shows
A federal recommendation that all pregnant women undergo testing for Group B strep bacteria has helped increase the number of screenings but also has produced a high level of false negatives, according to a study published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the AP/Newark Star-Ledger reports. Group B strep is a common bacteria in the intestines or lower genital tract. Although it poses no harm to most adults, during delivery it can be spread to infants, who can develop blood infections, pneumonia, meningitis, mental retardation, hearing and vision loss, or death. Problems occur in fewer than one in 3,000 births, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2002 issued a recommendation that all pregnant women be tested because of the potential for serious complications. The study is the first research to examine the screening program. The researchers examined data on Group B strep cases in 10 states, finding that 250 infants out of nearly 7,700 were born with the infection. They compared the results with a similar study that was conducted before the CDC recommendations were in place, finding that the screening rate rose from 48% to 85% of pregnant women. The study also found that infant infections from Group B strep declined by 27%.Researchers predicted there would be between 44 and 86 false negatives in full-term infants, based on data from previous studies. However, their results showed about 60% of infected infants -- 116 cases -- were born to women who had tested negative for Group B strep. Researchers noted that the timing of a Group B test might play a role because the infection can come quickly, and tests could have been performed before the bacteria appeared. CDC recommends that pregnant women be screened between 35 and 37 weeks" gestation. CDC researcher Stephanie Schrag, who co-authored the study, said, "Maybe it was a true negative test, and the mother later became colonized" with the bacteria before delivery (Stobbe, AP/Newark Star-Ledger, 6/17).
Nutrition

Opinion: World Must Work Together To Stop Human Trafficking

"To some, human trafficking may seem like a problem limited to other parts of the world," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton writes in a Washington Post opinion piece, but "it occurs in every country, including the U.S., and we have a responsibility to fight it just as others do." According to Clinton, trafficking can produce "destructive effects" on "all of us," because it "weakens legitimate economies, breaks up families, fuels violence, threatens public health and safety, and shreds the social fabric that is necessary for progress." She writes that the problem is "particularly urgent now, as local economies around the world reel from the global financial crisis." "The State Department"s annual Trafficking in Persons Report, released this week, documents the scope of this challenge in every country. The report underscores the need to address the root causes of human trafficking - including poverty, lax law enforcement and the exploitation of women - and their devastating effects on its victims and their families," Clinton writes. Clinton also describes some of her own experiences advocating against trafficking and the effect it has had on global health. "In Thailand, I held 12-year-olds who had been trafficked and were dying of AIDS. ... The challenge of trafficking demands a comprehensive approach that both brings down criminals and cares for victims. To our strategy of prosecution, protection and prevention, it"s time to add a fourth P: partnerships," she writes (Clinton, Washington Post, 6/17). This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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