|
A Los Angeles Times special report on infants infected with HIV through blood transfusions.
The Forgotten Ones:
Footnotes to a Tragedy
Charles Ornstein
(Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2007)
"Nowadays, the risk of receiving HIV-tainted blood in the United States is virtually nil -- 1 in 1.5 million transfusions, according to the American Red Cross.
But a quarter century ago, cases like [blood transfusion recipient, Alexander Ghaffari's] represented a crisis in this country, one that revolutionized the way it safeguards its blood supply.
Nationwide, at least 386 children under 13 and 9,334 adolescents and adults contracted AIDS through blood transfusions, nearly all in the early 1980s before a test for the virus existed.
Most did not survive...Cedars-Sinai, a nationally renowned medical center, was an epicenter in the crisis. In the early 1980s, it had both a large neonatal intensive-care unit where transfusions were common and an internal blood bank that relied, in part, on the donations of gay men from nearby communities.
At least 33 newborns were infected through transfusions at Cedars-Sinai during that period, according to a federally funded study published years later in the journal Pediatrics. But the number was almost certainly larger: Of 775 children who received transfusions from 1980 through 1985, more than 330 either came from families that could not be located or...declined to participate in the study."
Full Text
Free registration required.
Related story:
Charles Ornstein
(Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2007)
Free registration required.
See more articles in AIDS.
___________________________________________________________________
AIDS
Kevin Sullivan
(The Washington Post, July 18, 2007)
"Officials in Libya on Tuesday commuted the death sentences of six foreign health workers convicted of intentionally infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV, the latest in a series of steps aimed at closing a case that has severely strained relations between a once-pariah state and the United States and Europe."
Free registration required.
Marc Lacey
(The New York Times, July 17, 2007)
"Migrant workers [from Mexico] go to the United States with dreams of new prosperity, hoping to bring back dollars. But some are bringing back something else as well, HIV and AIDS, which they are spreading in the rural parts of Mexico least prepared to handle the epidemic."
Free registration required.
(BBC News Online, July 16, 2007)
"Malawi's government is calling on all sexually active people in the country to take an AIDS test, saying this would help it combat the pandemic."
See also:
Puerto Rico to Fix AIDS Medicine Program
(Newsday, July 17, 2007)
3 New Drugs for HIV are Raising Hopes
(The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 15, 2007)
Free registration required.
South Africa at Number One as India AIDS Stats Drop
(Mail & Guardian, South Africa, July 14, 2007)
Return to Index
Josh White
(The Washington Post, July 18, 2007)
"The Army plans to begin a program today to educate every soldier about traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. The rare effort to break the perceived stigma within the military on mental health problems comes as increasingly more troops return from battle with serious but undiagnosed conditions."
Free registration required.
(Associated Press, July 17, 2007)
"Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson pledged Monday to add mental health services at more than 100 VA medical centers to fight resistance to seeking help for depression and other illnesses. The VA is being pressed by growing cases of mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury from veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan..."
Lee Romney and Scott Gold
(Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2007)
"A nationally lauded program that has helped thousands of mentally ill homeless men and women break the cycle of psychiatric hospitalization, jail time, and street life is now on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s list of budget cuts."
Free registration required.
Return to Index
Children's Health Insurance Program
Robert Pear
(The New York Times, July 15, 2007)
"The White House said on Saturday that President Bush would veto a bipartisan plan to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program, drafted over the last six months by senior members of the Senate Finance Committee."
Free registration required.
Related Editorial:
Covering More Children
Editorial
(The Washington Post, July 17, 2007)
Free registration required.
Opinion
Atul Gawande, Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health
(The New Yorker, July 23, 2007 issue)
"The universal human experience of falling ill and seeking treatment -- frightening and difficult enough -- has been warped by our dysfunctional insurance system...The movie ['Sicko'] is so effective in depicting the inhumanity that it makes our failure to act seem baffling...The finger of blame points to an obstacle different from the one the movie suggests: us."
Opinion
(The Boston Globe, July 18, 2007)
"The shift from employer-sponsored health insurance to public-sector health insurance is being led by rural families. Among rural children in low-income families, the share covered by public-sector health insurance increased from 38 percent in 1998 to 54 percent in 2005, while children covered through parents' employers fell by 10 percentage points over the same period."
Free registration required.
Marc Levy
(The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 14, 2007)
"Pennsylvania's hospitals and nursing homes will be required to promptly report patient infections to state authorities and take measures to reduce such infections under a bill passed by state lawmakers Saturday."
Free registration Required.
See also:
Veterans Administration Chief to Step Down, Citing Return to Private Life
(The New York Times, July 17, 2007)
Free registration required.
Editorial
(The Boston Globe, July 16, 2007)
Free registration Required.
Healing Healthcare
Editorial
(Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2007)
Free registration required.
Few Minorities Use Hospice Care Services
(The Boston Globe, July 15, 2007)
Free registration required.
Return to Index
(Associated Press, July 18, 2007)
"[The bill] had been scheduled to be considered Wednesday in the Senate Health Committee, but the vote was postponed because of the Senate's all-night debate on the war in Iraq. It was unclear when the vote would occur."
Gardiner Harris
(The New York Times, July 17, 2007)
"As legislative changes go, the switch allowing cloves to be added to cigarettes instead of being banned was a relatively small one in a landmark bill to regulate tobacco products, but the bill’s detractors say it is symbolic of the bill’s unacceptable compromises."
Free registration required.
(Associated Press, July 16, 2007)
"The federal agency charged with keeping food and drugs from harming people may soon be asked to take a consumer product that kills more than 400,000 people a year and make it safer. The product is the cigarette -- generally acknowledged as anything but safe."
(The Times of India, July 16, 2007)
"The much-publicised 'Smoke-free Chandigarh' campaign finally came true on Sunday as the union territory became the first region in the country to implement the provisions of the Central Tobacco Control Act in total."
See also:
Let the FDA Butt In
Editorial
(The Boston Globe, July 18, 2007)
Free Registration required.
Return to Index
Laura Beil
(The New York Times, July 18, 2007)
"Virginity Rules and 700 kindred abstinence education programs are fighting serious threats to their future...Opponents received high-caliber ammunition this spring when the most comprehensive study of abstinence education found no sign that it delayed a teenager’s sexual debut....Lost in the political rancor, however, is that teenagers throughout the country are both abstaining more, and, especially among older ones, more likely to use contraception when they do not abstain."
Free registration required.
Andrew Adam Newman
(The New York Times, July 16, 2007)
"Controversy over a new advertising campaign by Trojan, the condom maker, has trickled down to the local level, with television stations in Pittsburgh roundly refusing to show it, and stations in Seattle giving it the green light. "
Free registration required.
Rob Stein
(Chicago Tribune, July 13, 2007)
"The popularity of the "morning-after" pill Plan B has surged in the year since the federal government approved the sale of the controversial emergency contraceptive without a prescription."
Free registration required.
See also:
The Politics of Sex
Opinion
(The Boston Globe, July 17, 2007)
Free registration required.
Louisiana First State to Outlaw Late-Term Abortion Procedure
(Chicago Sun Times, July 15, 2007)
(The New York Times, July 15, 2007)
Free registration required.
Portugal Legalizes Abortion
(The Globe and Mail, Toronto, July 15, 2007)
Free registration required.
Marian Burros
(The New York Times, July 18, 2007)
"According to testimony Tuesday before a House subcommittee, [exporters and importers] have been able to bring tainted products into this country because the F.D.A. has neither enough resources nor inspectors to stop them...Despite headlines about these imports, the F.D.A. intends to close 7 of its 13 laboratories that test for these problems."
Free registration required.
Mary Clare Jalonick
(The Atlanta Journal Constitution, July 16, 2007)
"Shoppers are in the dark about where much of their food comes from despite a five-year-old law requiring meat and other products to carry labels with their country of origin.That soon may change. Reports of tainted seafood from China have raised consumer awareness about the safety of imported food and many of the law's most powerful opponents have left Congress."
Free registration required.
David Barboza
(The New York Times, July 15, 2007)
"China said late Friday that it was suspending imports of some chicken and pork produced in the United States after inspectors here found shipments that were contaminated with chemicals or bacteria...The decision appears to be a response to growing criticism in the United States of tainted Chinese goods entering the American market, including contaminated food and toothpaste."
Free registration required.
A Chicago Tribune Investigation:
Patricia Callahan
(Chicago Tribune , July 14, 2007)
" Car-seat makers enjoy a rare advantage among companies. Theirs is the one children's product every parent, by law, must use. And many parents assume all seats are equally safe, so they choose based on what fits their budget or matches their car's interior.
But the willingness of some executives to dismiss warnings about potential hazards means parents can buy a car seat without knowing all the risks. At the same time, regulators have left consumers in the dark by failing to develop safety ratings for seats or significantly toughen crash tests."
Free registration required.
Return to Index
Judy Peres
(Chicago Tribune, July 18, 2007)
"Despite some high hopes, a diet loaded with fruits and vegetables doesn't seem to help women survive breast cancer, researchers reported Tuesday.
But experts said that doesn't mean a diet of cheeseburgers and beer is the way to go."
Free registration required.
(BBC News Online, July 16, 2007)
"A study of 50,000 post-menopausal women found eating just a quarter of a grapefruit daily raised the risk by up to 30%. The fruit is thought to boost levels of oestrogen - the hormone associated with a higher risk of the disease, the British Journal of Cancer reported."
Mark P. Couch
(The Denver Post, July 17, 2007)
Editorial
(Baltimore Sun, July 16, 2007)
(Associated Press, July 16, 2007)
"A couple who authorities say were so obsessed with the Internet and video games that they left their babies starving and suffering other health problems have pleaded guilty to child neglect."
Corrie MacLaggan
(Austin American-Statesman, July 15, 2007)
"When sisters Sue Knetig and Pam Castello, both foster parents, heard that some Texas foster children have been sleeping in state offices, they were frustrated and confused. That's because, for months, they have had an empty bedroom in their creekside home. Since January, about 500 children who have been removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect have slept at a state office building."
Return to Index
Brooks Barnes
(The New York Times, July 18, 2007)
"Trying to persuade critics the industry does not need government regulation, 11 big food companies, including McDonald’s, Campbell Soup and PepsiCo, have agreed to stop advertising to children under 12 products that do not meet certain nutritional standards."
Free registration required.
Roni Caryn Rabin
(The New York Times, July 17, 2007)
"While many eateries publish caloric information on their Web sites, or even on food packaging, advocates of labeling say diners need to be able to see the information while deciding what to order."
Free registration required.
See also:
California Gym Caters to Teenagers
(Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 17, 2007)
Fewer Children Biking or Walking to School
(Houston Chronicle, July 13, 2007)
Free registration required.
Richard Winton and Andrew Blankstein
(Los Angeles Times, July 18, 2007)
"Southern California law enforcement officials, who started the year fearing a surge in gang crime, have reached midyear with a major drop in homicides, according to crime statistics released Tuesday."
Free registration required.
Crystal Carreon
(The Sacramento Bee, July 17, 2007)
"Being a victim of violence as an adolescent, according to [a 2004 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health], means the individual is at increased risk of being a perpetrator or victim of violence as an adult. Intervention programs like Caught in the Crossfire reduce that risk, the researchers found."
Free registration required.
Andrew Maykuth
(The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 16, 2007)
"A new study by Philadelphia criminologists says that an increasing number of people shot in the city have had previous brushes with the law. Twenty-four percent of shooting victims last year had pending criminal court cases against them at the time they were shot, according to a report by researchers with the Philadelphia Adult Probation and Parole Department...[T]he report reinforces other studies nationally that show that the demographic of people firing guns and those getting shot often overlap."
Free registration required.
See also:
Cleveland Homicides on Track to Top 2006's 119
(The Plain Dealer, Ohio, July 16, 2007)
(The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 16, 2007)
"Private Insurers would have to provide up to $36,000 in coverage annually for autism services under a bill that the Pennsylvania House passed without opposition yesterday. The measure, sponsored by Speaker Dennis O’Brien (R, Phila.), calls for the state to pay for any treatment costs that exceed that amount."
Free registration required.
David Batty and Sarah Boseley
(The Guardian, London, July 16, 2007)
"[Andrew Wakefield, the doctor] who provoked a scare over a potential link between the MMR vaccination and autism paid children at his son's birthday party £5 each to give blood for his research, an inquiry heard today."
(The Independent, London, July 15, 2007)
"It is nine years since Dr. Andrew Wakefield raised doubts about MMR, suggesting it may be linked to bowel disease and -- by extension -- autism. His paper in The Lancet medical journal -- and the media firestorm that followed -- triggered one of the great public-health scares of modern times. Who should parents believe? The experts and officials who insisted Dr Wakefield was scaremongering? Or the lone doctor who said the needle might destroy their baby's chance of a healthy life?”
Return to Index
Nicole Ostrow
(The Boston Globe, July 17, 2007)
"Cases of Clostridium difficile colitis, which causes severe diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps, rose to 43,531 in 2003 from 17,058 in 1993, according to a study in the Archives of Surgery journal. Death rates from the condition rose over the same time period."
Free registration required.
Nicholas Bakalar
(The New York Times, July 17, 2007)
"Certain kinds of carbohydrates may play a role in the development of age-related macular degeneration, an incurable degenerative eye disease that is a leading cause of blindness in older adults. A new study has found that eating carbohydrate-rich food with a high glycemic index... is associated with the development of the disorder."
Free registration required.
Hilary Waldman
(The Hartford Courant, July 16, 2007)
"It has long been believed that MS strikes people when they reach their 20s and 30s. But with greater understanding and new diagnostic techniques, doctors are increasingly recognizing that the disease can start in childhood...It is important for doctors to know because medications approved for use in adults can slow the progression of the disease in children, especially when MS is diagnosed early..."
See also:
How Curry Could Help Fight Alzheimer’s
(The Guardian, London, July 17, 2007)
With Diabetes Drugs, Newer May Not Be Better
(The Boston Globe, July 17, 2007)
Free registration required.
(The New York Times, July 18, 2007)
"More than a year after President Bush unveiled a plan for coping with a pandemic flu outbreak, the federal government still has limited capacity to detect a disease outbreak and track its progress across the country."
(The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 17, 2007)
"Local health officials appear to have repeatedly violated Georgia health policies in their management of Andrew Speaker's tuberculosis case, failing to sequester him in home isolation nearly two weeks before he left the United States for Greece and allowing Speaker's fiancée to oversee his medication-taking before that."
(Associated Press , July 16, 2007)
"One in 12 full-time workers in the United States acknowledges having used illegal drugs in the past month, the government reports."
(Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 16, 2007)
"The reason why height matters is that it correlates with measures of a population's well-being...So how could the wealthiest country in the world, during the most robust economic expansion in its history, simply stop growing?"
(The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 16, 2007)
"The state legislature [on Sunday] passed a gun-control bill advocated by Philadelphia lawmakers, a notable feat in a state so strong on the right to bear arms and so hostile to the city's efforts to regulate them."
Free registration required.
(The Globe and Mail, Toronto, July 13, 2007)
"Heart transplants are no longer heroic medicine. In Canada they take place more than 150 times a year... But there are more candidates than hearts."
Free registration required.
(The Independent, London, July 18, 2007)
"...[T]he landowners and businessmen the length of the border with Zimbabwe... say they are witnessing a dramatic upsurge in illegal immigration as their northern neighbour's economic collapse has accelerated in recent weeks...According to their estimates, 4,000 are crossing into South Africa every night. That represents at least 100,000 people a month, far more than official estimates of 20,000."
(The Charlotte Observer, July 15, 2007)
"The account of the clashes around Songa village on June 9 and 10, given by African Union peacekeepers manning a small mountain outpost here in central Darfur, illustrates part of an increasingly upside-down security picture in Darfur. With some janjaweed now fighting alongside rebels they once tried to kill -- and with the rebels riven by disputes and attacking peacekeepers and aid workers -- this is hardly the same conflict of four years ago."
(The New York Times, July 17, 2007)
"Japanese authorities today suspended the operation of a nuclear power plant after a radiation leak and other damage from a deadly earthquake on the nation’s northwestern coast raised new concerns about the safety of Japan’s accident-plagued nuclear industry."
Free registration required.
(The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, July 17, 2007)
"Health authorities hope to contact by today virtually all the 249 passengers on a flight from Bangkok that carried a man with the polio virus."
(The Guardian, London, July 18, 2007)
"The government will ensure that the 'fathers, brothers and husbands' who have sex with trafficked girls are prosecuted, Harriet Harman [women's minister and leader of the Commons] vowed yesterday... According to the government, 85% of women in brothels now come from outside the UK, while 10 years ago, 85% were British."
(BBC News Online, July 16, 2007)
"The 'sacred' bullock due to be slaughtered after it tested positive for TB, has been saved after a High Court judge quashed a government order."
(The Sunday Times, London, July 15, 2007)
"The electronic 'smog' generated by computers, printers and other office equipment may be exposing workers to raised levels of pollutants and bacteria, a study has found."
Return to Index
|
