HIV/AIDS Rises Among Girls and Women
March 12, 2010
Top News
By Jason Ramsey
Women are encouraged to get tested for HIV/AIDS regularly —every six months — and participate in National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NWGHAAD).
NWGHAAD is celebrated with an aim to raise awareness of the rising effect of HIV/AIDS on women and girls.
Launched by the Office on Women’s Health (OWH), on March 10 of every year, organizations across the country extends support discuss and educate women and girls about prevention, the need for regular testing, and the way to lead a normal, healthy life instead of being infected in recognition of NWGHAAD.
The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services claims that a woman in the United States gets tested positive for HIV every 35 minutes and nearly 25% Americans surviving with HIV are women.
Also, less than 15 percent of new HIV infections in the U. S. were among females 13 and older in the mid 1980s, which boosted to about 27 percent by 2006.
The Global Fund is reported to meet in The Hague, Netherlands, on March 24 with a view to examine how it can fulfill its goals eradicating or reducing instances of the three diseases by 2015.
It estimates that between $13-20 billion are needed for the period 2011-2013.
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Scandal Over Death at Hospital – None Blamed
February 26, 2010
Mail Online
By Fay Schlesinger, Andy Dolan, and Tim Shipman
Not a single official has been disciplined over the worst-ever NHS hospital scandal, it emerged last night.
Up to 1,200 people lost their lives needlessly because Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust put government targets and cost-cutting ahead of patient care.
But none of the doctors, nurses and managers who failed them has suffered any formal sanction.
Indeed, some have either retired on lucrative pensions or have swiftly found new jobs.
Former chief executive Martin Yeates, who has since left with a £1million pension pot, six months’ salary and a reported £400,000 payoff, did not even give evidence to the inquiry which detailed the scale of the scandal yesterday.
He was said to be medically unfit to do so, though he sent some information to chairman Robert Francis through his solicitor.
The devastating-report into the Stafford Hospital-shambles’ laid waste to Labour’s decade-long obsession with box-ticking and league tables.
The independent inquiry headed by Robert Francis QC found the safety of sick and dying patients was ‘routinely neglected’. Others were subjected to ‘ inhumane treatment’, ‘bullying’, ‘abuse’ and ‘rudeness’.
The shocking estimated death toll, three times the previous figure of 400, has prompted calls for a full public inquiry.
Bosses at the Trust – officially an ‘elite’ NHS institution – were condemned for their fixation with cutting waiting times to hit Labour targets and leaving neglected patients to die.
But after a probe that was controversially held in secret, not a single individual has been publicly blamed.
The inquiry found that:
• Patients were left unwashed in their own filth for up to a month as nurses ignored their requests to use the toilet or change their sheets;
• Four members of one family. including a new-born baby girl. died within 18 months after of blunders at the hospital;
• Medics discharged patients hastily out of fear they risked being sacked for delaying;
• Wards were left filthy with blood, discarded needles and used dressings while bullying managers made whistleblowers too frightened to come forward.
Last night the General Medical Council announced it was investigating several doctors. The Nursing and Midwifery Council is investigating at least one nurse and is considering other cases.
Ministers suggested the report highlighted a dreadful ‘local’ scandal, but its overall conclusions are a blistering condemnation of Labour’s approach to the NHS.
It found that hospital were so preoccupied with saving money and pursuit of elite foundation trust status that they ‘lost sight of its fundamental responsibility to provide safe care’.
Health Secretary Andy Burnham accepted 18 recommendations from Mr Francis and immediately announced plans for a new inquiry, to be held in public, into how Department of Health and NHS regulators failed to spot the disaster.
But Julie Bailey, head of the campaign group Cure the NHS, condemned his response as ‘outrageous’ and backed Tory and Liberal Democrat demands for a full public inquiry into what went wrong.
Tory leader David Cameron said: ‘We need openness, clarity and transparency to stop this happening again.’ Gordon Brown described the scandal as a ‘completely unacceptable management failure’ and revealed that the cases of 300 patients are now under investigation.
He told MPs the Government was belatedly working on plans to ’strike off’ hospital managers responsible for failures. The hospital could also lose its cherished foundation status.
Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said ‘These awful events show how badly Labour has let down NHS patients. It should never again be possible for managers to put a tick in a box marked “target met” while patients are pushed off to a ward and left to die.’
The Francis probe was launched following a Healthcare Commission report on Stafford Hospital in March last year. It found that deaths at the hospital were 27 to 45 per cent higher than normal, meaning some 400 to 1,200 people died unnecessarily between 2005 and 2008.
Click here for the full report
British Hospital Causes ‘Unimaginable Suffering’ To Patients
February 26, 2010
Times Online
By David Rose
Patients were routinely neglected or left “sobbing and humiliated” by staff at an NHS trust where at least 400 deaths have been linked to appalling care.
An independent inquiry found that managers at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust stopped providing safe care because they were preoccupied with government targets and cutting costs.
The inquiry report, published yesterday by Robert Francis, QC, included proposals for tough new regulations that could lead to managers at failing NHS trusts being struck off.
Staff shortages at Stafford Hospital meant that patients went unwashed for weeks, were left without food or drink and were even unable to get to the lavatory. Some lay in soiled sheets that relatives had to take home to wash, others developed infections or had falls, occasionally fatal. Many staff did their best but the attitude of some nurses “left a lot to be desired”.
The report, which follows reviews by the Care Quality Commission and the Department of Health, said that “unimaginable” suffering had been caused. Regulators said last year that between 400 and 1,200 more patients than expected may have died at the hospital from 2005 to 2008.
Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, said there could be “no excuses” for the failures and added that the board that presided over the scandal had been replaced. An undisclosed number of doctors and at least one nurse are being investigated by the General Medical Council and Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Mr. Burnham said it was a “longstanding anomaly” that the NHS did not have a robust way of regulating managers or banning them from working, as it does with doctors or nurses. “We must end the situation where a senior NHS manager who has failed in one job can simply move to another elsewhere,” he added. “This is not acceptable to the public and not conducive to promoting accountability and high professional standards.”
A system of professional accreditation for senior managers would be considered and the Mid Staffordshire trust might lose its foundation status.
Some NHS chief executives have received six-figure redundancy packages or moved to other trusts despite poor performance. Martin Yeates, the former chief executive at Mid Staffordshire, received pay rises that took his annual salary to £180,000, while standards at the trust deteriorated.
The Liberal Democrats claimed that he had also received a payoff of more than £400,000 after stepping down last March, though Mr Burnham said he had received “no more than his contractual entitlement”.
The Care Quality Commission, the NHS regulator, said that the trust under its new management was now “safe to provide services”. But it still had concerns about staffing, patient welfare, the availability and suitability of equipment at the trust, and how it monitored and dealt with complaints. The inquiry made 18 recommendations for the trust and the wider health service, which the Government accepted in full. They include a new review of how regulators and regional health authorities monitor NHS hospitals and a report on “early-warning systems” to identify failing trusts.
But the families of those who died or suffered poor care branded the inquiry a “whitewash” and repeated calls for a full public investigation. The Conservatives accused ministers of trying to blame managers rather than taking responsibility for problems with national targets.
Julie Bailey, who founded the victims’ campaign group Cure the NHS after her mother died at Stafford Hospital, said that the handling of the scandal was disgraceful and unacceptable.
“It is time that the public were told the truth about the very large number of excess deaths in NHS care and the very large number of avoidable but deadly errors that occur every day.”
The NHS Confederation, which represents health trusts, said: “The responsibility for the way this hospital was run rests with its board, management and staff but, as the report says, the framework of targets, regulatory systems and policy priorities it worked within are also very important.”
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More Than Half the Experts Fighting Pandemic Have To Ties to Drug Firms
January 14, 2010
Mail Online
By Fiona Macrae and Sophie Borland
More than half the scientists on the swine flu taskforce advising the Government have ties to drug companies.
Eleven of the 20 members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) have done work for the pharmaceutical industry or are linked to it through their universities.
Many have declared interests in GlaxoSmithKline, the vaccine maker expected to be the biggest beneficiary of the pandemic.
The disclosure of the register of interests comes just days after a health expert branded the swine flu outbreak a ‘false pandemic’ driven by the drug companies which stood to profit.
The Government is now trying to offload up to £1billion worth of unwanted swine flu vaccine.
Last July, the Department of Health warned of up 65,000 deaths, with 350 a day at the pandemic’s peak. But the death toll now stands at just 251.
SAGE was created to give Ministers recommendations on how to control and treat the virus.
Official documents show some members are linked to vaccine manufacturer Baxter and to Roche, which makes Tamiflu.
GSK, Baxter and Roche stand to make up to £1.5billion between them from Government contracts related to swine flu.
The scientists declared the interests to the Department of Health.
They were not obliged to declare the amounts they earned but they are thought to range from around £500 for a lecture or presentation to more than £100,000 for a directorship of GSK.
Some will simply be heads of university research departments which received funding from companies.
Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb said last night: ‘While there is no evidence that experts acted improperly, the sheer scale of the pharmaceutical industry’s influence is a cause for concern and needs to be looked at.’
However, some researchers said industry experience could only add to the scientists’ knowledge, enabling them to provide the best and the most up-to-date advice.
Leading flu expert Professor John Oxford said it was right to have people with different types of experience.
He said: ‘If you are giving advice about vaccines or anti-viral drugs, you can’t sit in your ivory tower and think you know everything about it.’
One of the biggest earners on SAGE is the former rector of Imperial College, London, Professor Sir Roy Anderson. He is a non-executive director of GSK which also makes Relenza, the Tamiflu alternative for pregnant women.
GSK strongly denied any conflict of interest.
It said Sir Roy was asked to rejoin SAGE, which he had left to join GSK, because of his expertise.
The company said: ‘He has not attended any meetings related to purchase of drugs or vaccine for either the government or GSK.’
Dr Stephen Inglis of the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control has interests in more than 40 drug companies, all connected to the NIBSC rather than himself.
He says: ‘The NIBSC is a centre of the UK’s Health Protection Agency, a not-for-profit public body whose purpose is to enhance and safeguard public health.
It must engage with many pharmaceutical companies and, in some instances, it is appropriate to charge them for products and services.’
The Department of Health said: ‘Committee members do not take part in discussions that may involve a potential conflict of interest.’
But that raises the possibility of more than half of the handpicked advisers being shut out of key discussions.
Click here for the full report
Man Drinks ‘Glass Of Fat’ In NYC Anti-Soda Video
December 15, 2009
CBS News
By Scoot Rapoport
There’s a controversial new video ad on the Internet aimed at curbing people’s cravings for sugary soft drinks.
The message has been presented in perhaps the most “tasteless” way possible.
It’s the latest skinny on those high-calorie, sugary sweet soft drinks.
“That’s nasty. That’s horrible,” one woman told CBS 2 HD on Monday night.
It’s a 30-second video released Monday showing globs of fat being gulped from a soft drink can.
“I don’t want any soda again,” said Patsy Callymore of Brooklyn.
It’s a graphic depiction from the New York City Department of Health of the potential effects of over consuming sugary beverages.
The Health Department says over the course of a year drinking one non-diet soda a day can make you 10 pounds heavier.
“We wanted to call attention to this problem of people drinking too many sugar sweetened beverages and the risk of obesity that’s associated with that,” said the Health Department’s Cathy Nonas.
CBS 2 HD showed the video to stunned soda drinkers in Times Square.
“I drink soda and I ain’t drinkin’ it anymore,” said Brenda Sinclair.
The video is part of the Health Department’s anti-obesity campaign, targeting sugary drinks like soda, sports drinks and energy drinks, among others.
But in response the American Beverage Association called the campaign irresponsible, saying in a statement: “If the goal is to reduce obesity among New Yorkers, then this public education campaign should be based in fact, not simply sensationalized video that inaccurately portrays our industry’s products, products that are fat-free.”
In the meantime, the Health Department is urging people to reach for alternative beverages like seltzer or plain old NYC tap water.
According to a Health Department survey, more than 2 million New Yorkers drink at least one sugar sweetened beverage each day, adding as much as 250 empty calories to their diets.
Click here for the full report
D.C. Hands Out $15M in Bonuses Despite Recession
December 15, 2009 by JP
Filed under Government
December 15, 2009
The Washington Examiner
By Bill Myers
The economy has been in the dumps for years, but the good times keep on rolling for some favored D.C. employees.
City officials have doled out nearly $15 million in bonuses and awards since Mayor Adrian Fenty took office in January 2007, records obtained by The Examiner under the Freedom of Information Act show.
Among the big winners were Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who was handed $41,250 in August 2007 after barely two months on the job; Department of Health Director Pierre Vigilance, who was given $15,000 in 2008; and city property manager Robin-Eve Jasper, handed $18,000 over two years.
The bonuses were ladled out even as the city was facing nine-figure budget shortfalls and officials — including Rhee — were firing employees by the busload, claiming they could no longer afford them.
It paid to be on Rhee’s good side. School employees, including Rhee’s top staff, accounted for nearly half of the Fenty-era bonuses, records show. Then-special education “czar” Phyllis Harris was paid $17,000 in 2008; special-ed bureaucrat Karen Griffin was given $25,000 the same year; and Rhee’s chief of staff, Lisa Ruda, was given $17,000 in 2008, records show.
Under Rhee, standardized test scores in the public schools have made marginal improvements. Fourth-graders’ test result are now only the fourth-worst in the nation; eighth-graders’ are only the second-worst.
Worried by possible bad publicity for doling out cash during a recession, the city council voted to ban the practice as of Oct. 1, 2009. That hasn’t stopped the gravy train from rolling: Records show hundreds of employees have been paid more than $565,000 in bonuses since October.
Attorney General Peter Nickles said most of the bonuses to employees were tied to contracts that were entered into when “times were better” and that the city couldn’t back out of them now.
“We’re no longer entering into those contracts,” he said.
Nickles said the bonuses were worth the cost.
“We’ve made tremendous progress in these three years,” he said.
Condemnation from other quarters was swift.
“Fenty, Rhee and [police Chief Cathy] Lanier have tried to tell everybody in the city we don’t have enough police officers, firefighters and teachers because they don’t have any money. But at the same time they’re lining the pockets of their favorites,” police union Chairman Kris Baumann said. “If you put this in a movie, people wouldn’t believe it. It would be too far-fetched.”
Councilwoman Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, handed out bonuses for some staff in 2007-08, but this year voted to stop bonuses citywide. She said she was mystified that the practice continued.
“The idea was everybody was going to share the pain,” she said. “We could hardly give bonuses when everybody was losing their jobs.”
Not all of the bonuses had high price tags. Ted Loza, onetime chief of staff to Councilman Jim Graham, D-Ward 1, was given more than $3,000 in bonuses in the past two years, including a $700 bonus in April. In September, he was arrested on federal bribery charges.
“Of course, subsequent events have been very disturbing,” Graham said. “But at the time, I wasn’t aware of any of that.”
Click here for the full report
Raw Milk Undercover Operations
December 7, 2009
Natural News
By Mike Adams
Imagine being watched by two undercover cops as you engage in an illicit deal in a deserted parking lot. The buyer hesitantly hands you some cash. You flash a look over your shoulder, just to make sure the coast is clear, then you hand over the contraband. Neither of you says a word. You just nod, acknowledging the deal is done, then you head back to your car and buckle up for the drive home.
But before you can even put the car into drive, a screeching formation of police cars, surrounds you, sirens wailing. Armed officers leap from their vehicles, guns drawn and sunglasses glaring. “Come out with your hands up!” they shout.
You slowly open the driver’s door of your car and inch out of your seat with both hands raised in surrender, cowering behind the open door. “What did I do, officer? What’s my crime?”
Their answer comes back loud and intimidating: “SELLING RAW MILK!”
Springfield Missouri: Where farmers are branded criminals
The above description is a dramatization of real events that happened recently in Springfield, Missouri, where the state has decided to spend considerable taxpayer resources running a sting operating against a family that was caught dealing — gulp! — raw milk in a parking lot.
Yes, both the Missouri Dept. of Health and the state Attorney General (Chris Koster) have decided that prosecuting a farm family for illegally “trafficking” raw milk should be at the top of their list of priorities. The family being targeted by state officials is the Bechard family, of Armand and Teddi Bechard, and their children Joseph, Hananiah, Kazia and Katie.
The name of the cow offering the milk is reportedly “Misty.”
As the Springfield, Missouri News-Leader paper reports, “Two undercover investigators with the Springfield-Greene County Health Department allegedly caught two of the couple’s daughters on two occasions selling a gallon of milk each from a Springfield parking lot. Charges followed in municipal court.”
In case you’re not yet sure what you’re reading here, note carefully that these daughters were not caught selling crack, meth or crank. They weren’t dealing second-hand pharmaceuticals to yuppie school kids. They weren’t selling e.coli-contaminated hamburger meat, cancer-causing diet sodas (made with aspartame) or canned soups laced with MSG. They weren’t even selling broiler chickens contaminated with salmonella — just as you can find in every grocery store in America. Nope, they were selling raw milk. You know, the bovine mother’s milk, unpasteurized, unprocessed, non-homogenized and wholly pure, natural and innocent. The stuff America was raised on. The stuff your parents fed you when you were a kid, if your family was lucky enough to have a cow.
In Missouri today, selling such a natural product is now apparently a criminal act. What’s next? A ban on farm-fresh eggs because the Dept. of Health doesn’t control their quality? The outlawing of raw broccoli because broccoli contains natural anti-cancer medicine?
Fortunately, the Bechard family is fighting back. As reported by the News-Leader:
“They will not sign a consent order to make the state’s complaint go away and they’re defending themselves against the city charges, too. They’ve gotten legal help from the The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit organization made up of farmers and consumers pooling resources to fight for the rights of family farmers trying to get unprocessed food to consumers who want it.”
A view from the Missouri-born Health Ranger
I grew up in Raytown, Missouri, just a few miles from Springfield. I spent more than a few summers on a farm near St. Louis, where we would milk the cows, gather fresh eggs from the chickens, and fish for catfish in the pond. I’m not exactly a farm boy, but I’m familiar enough with living off the land to know the difference between real food and processed food (a distinction the Missouri Dept. of Health still hasn’t gleaned…)
Click here for the full report
Unhealthy Health Workers Hurting Patient Care
November 23, 2009
The Times
by David Rose
Health trusts must do more to help doctors and nurses exercise and give up smoking and heavy drinking, says the Government.
NHS organisations will be expected to improve access to intervention programmes such as counselling or gyms as part of a drive to reduce sickness absence, which costs £1.5 billion a year.
The first national audit of staff habits has found that high rates of obesity, smoking, absenteeism and poor mental health were having a direct impact on the quality of patient care.
The Health Secretary is expected to accept all the recommendations of the final review, drawn up by Steve Boorman, a leading occupational health expert, in a written ministerial statement.
The review found that the scale of sickness absence in the NHS was equivalent to more than 45,000 NHS employees being absent from the workforce each year.
However, the Department of Health has suggested that health workers should be encouraged to set an example for patients and the general public when it came to promoting healthy lifestyles.
The review found that hospitals whose staff were in poorer health were less productive and had higher rates of patient mortality and superbug infection. More than three quarters of 11,000 staff polled acknowledged that the state of their health affected patient care.
Dr Boorman, a former GP and the chief medical adviser to Royal Mail, told The Times earlier this year that health awareness among NHS staff was “very inconsistent”. He said that a clear correlation had emerged between the performance of hospitals and staff health.
His recommendations include cutting smoking rates in the NHS, which are the same as in the general population, and providing more time or opportunities for staff to exercise.
Health workers with musculoskeletal and mental health conditions are also to be promised access to early interventions such as physiotherapy or counselling.
The review will call on trusts to appoint health and wellbeing leaders at board level to bring down rates of obesity, drinking and smoking, and on the Department of Health to devise and implement national standards and provide resources to ensure that these standards are given priority.
How We Came About Current Cancer Guidelines
November 23, 2009
New York Times
By Gina Kolata
A few years ago, an independent group that issues guidelines on cancer screening decided to review its recommendations for breast cancer. It had last issued guidelines in 2002, but things had changed — there was new science and researchers had become more sophisticated in analyzing existing data.
So the group, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, started what it thought would be a straightforward job: gathering the newest science and asking about the benefits and risks of breast cancer screening, the best time to start and how often women should be screened.
The group ended up recommending that most women forgo routine mammograms in their 40s and test every other year instead of every year.
The response was swift and angry. Professional groups, like the American College of Radiology, advocacy groups, like the American Cancer Society, and politicians said the guidelines would deprive women of a life-saving test. And some said the guidelines were politically motivated to save money.
Panel members have been taken aback by the response. Their work seemed almost mundane, they say, just an effort to gather and evaluate the best possible evidence.
The task force, a 16-member panel of experts appointed by the Department of Health and Human Services, began its work as usual. It went to an academic center, in this case the Evidence-Based Practice Center at the Oregon Health and Science University, and asked for an extensive review of all the relevant papers published on breast cancer screening, including ones used in the last review. At that time, the task force recommended routine screening starting at 40, saying that there were benefits although they became greater as age increased. The Oregon group had done similar reviews for the panel, including a review for the 2002 guidelines.
This time, the panel hoped that it could get missing pieces of the puzzle. New studies allowed scientists to zero in on benefits and harms for women in their 40s and to evaluate with far more certainty not just whether women should be screened but also how often.
The Oregon scientists began by combing the literature. By November 2007, the researchers, led by Dr. Heidi D. Nelson, a professor of medicine, medical informatics and clinical epidemiology at the university, had finished its review and sent its work to 15 outside scientists for review, then sent it to the panel. Finally, the researchers were ready to make their first full presentation to the panel members.
Part of that evidence, which Dr. Nelson’s group included, was new results from a huge study in England of mammograms for women in their 40s. This study, published in 2006, compared 54,000 women offered mammograms starting at age 40 with 107,00 women the same age who were not offered them. Previous studies of women in their 40s had them starting at various times in that decade of their lives and so were less useful.
Click here for the full report
Health and Safety Snoops to Enter Family Homes
November 20, 2009
The Sunday Times
By Robert Watts
Health and safety inspectors are to be given unprecedented access to family homes to ensure that parents are protecting their children from household accidents.
New guidance drawn up at the request of the Department of Health urges councils and other public sector bodies to “collect data” on properties where children are thought to be at “greatest risk of unintentional injury”.
Council staff will then be tasked with overseeing the installation of safety devices in homes, including smoke alarms, stair gates, hot water temperature restrictors, oven guards and window and door locks.
The draft guidance by a committee at the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has been criticised as intrusive and further evidence of the “creeping nanny state”.
Until now, councils have made only a limited number of home inspections to check on building work and in extreme cases where the state of a house is thought to pose a serious risk to public health.
Nice also recommends the creation of a new government database to allow GPs, midwives and other officials who visit homes to log health and safety concerns they spot.
The guidance aims to “encourage all practitioners who visit families and carers with children and young people aged under 15 to provide home safety advice and, where necessary, conduct a home risk assessment”. It continues: “If possible, they should supply and install home safety equipment.”
The proposals have been put out to consultation and, if approved, will be implemented next year.
Matthew Elliott, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It is a huge intervention into family life which will be counter-productive.
“Good parents will feel the intrusion of the state in their homes and bad parents will now have someone else to blame if they don’t bring up their children in a sensible, safe environment.”
About 100,000 children are admitted to hospital each year for home injuries at a cost of £146m.
