Public Health
Schwarzenegger welcomes debate over legalizing pot
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California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Tuesday he welcomes a public debate on proposals to legalize and tax marijuana, which some suggest could provide a lucrative new revenue source for the cash-strapped state.
The Republican governor, whose term in office expires at the end of next year, was asked about the idea of treating pot like alcohol at an appearance in northern California to promote wildfire preparedness.
“No, I don’t think it’s time for that, but I think it’s time for a debate,” he said. “And I think we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana and other drugs, what affect it had on those countries, and are they happy with that decision.”
Stay Safe at Summer Camp!
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Whether it’s a day camp or long-term stay, a summer camp experience usually makes for fond memories for everyone involved. Parents and guardians can make the most out of the experience by preparing in advance.
“Parents should ask camp organizers basic questions about what plans they have in place to keep kids safe, handle medical emergencies, and deal with routine health needs,” says Dr. Patricia Hametz, director of the Injury and Violence Prevention Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.
“Camp staff should be trained in first-aid/CPR and also be thoroughly familiar with the facility’s protocol in case of a medical emergency. Parents should receive a copy of those guidelines or have access to them through a posting on the Web site or on a bulletin board at the facility.”
IAEA urges scheme to track radiation in patients
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A scheme to track the amount of radiation patients are exposed to from scans is urgently needed to help guard them against the risk of cancer, the United Nations nuclear body said on Wednesday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said that although technical advances in medical scans had improved diagnoses, overuse could expose patients to excessive radiation.
The IAEA is working on a smart card which would record radiation levels in patients in developed countries and which it hopes could be launched in the next three to five years as more medical records are digitized. This would help doctors weigh up whether scanning procedures were medically advisable.
Expert Available to Discuss Pandemic Flu
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RTI International’s Dr. Christine Layton is a public health expert who specializes in influenza (annual and pandemic), pandemic influenza preparations, vaccines and immunization infrastructure.
She has more than 15 years of professional experience. She is especially interested in the evaluation and implementation of public health programs at the community level. Most recently, Dr. Layton’s work has focused on issues related to immunization and vaccine policy.
About RTI International:
U.S. lawmakers eye Medicare in health reform drive
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The Medicare program for the elderly may offer ways to encourage better care at a lower cost as a big part of reforming the U.S. healthcare system, a leading Senate Democrat said on Tuesday.
“Medicare is the big driver here,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus told reporters following a committee discussion with industry groups on ways to change the payment system.
Politicians and experts agree it is important to reward doctors and hospitals for better quality of care and move away from a system that pays them based on the number of procedures and treatments.
Expert Available to Discuss Malaria Control Efforts in Africa
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World Malaria Day is Saturday, April 25. If you’re looking for experts to speak about malaria control efforst in Africa, Dr. John Chimumbwa is available.
Dr. John Chimumbwa is a leading authority in malaria control efforts throughout Africa. A Zambian national with a Ph.D. in Malaria Epidemiology from the University of Natal, he has more than 15 years experience working to combat malaria in many parts of Africa. Dr. Chimumbwa worked with UNICEF’s Eastern and Southern Africa Office on the Roll Back Malaria project and as national malaria program coordinator in the Zambia Ministry of Health.
Get in step with your fitness personality: expert
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Having trouble sticking to your exercise regimen? Maybe you’re not doing the right exercises for your “fitness personality,” suggests Linda Shelton, a fitness expert who spoke at this year’s American College of Sports Medicine’s Health and Fitness Summit held last weekend in Atlanta.
“Everyone has a fitness personality; their own exercise needs,” Shelton told Reuters Health. Most people fail to stick with an exercise regimen, she said, because they are not exercising according to their fitness personality.
In her work, Shelton has identified five distinct fitness personality types, which she labels squares, rectangles, triangles, circles and squigglies—each has its own pitfalls.
‘Natasha Richardson Effect’ Leads to Increase in Emergency Department Visits
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The recent death of actress Natasha Richardson, after what initially seemed just a minor bump on the head, was tragically sad.
However, researchers are seeing evidence now that her untimely passing at the age of 45 has provided a valuable public health lesson.
For example, CNN reported a story about a 7-year-old girl in Ohio who was hit in the head while playing baseball with her father. Two days later, she complained of a headache. Her parents, who had just learned what caused Natasha Richardson’s death, immediately called their pediatrician and took their daughter to the hospital. Doctors now say the girl would have died in her sleep that night if her parents had not sought treatment when they did.
Lay health workers boost cancer screening rates
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Home visits from peers trained as health workers may encourage more low-income Hispanic women to get screened for breast and cervical cancers, a new study suggests.
In the U.S., Hispanic women are generally diagnosed with breast and cervical cancers at a later stage and have poorer survival rates than non-Hispanic women. Lower screening rates are thought to be partly to blame.
The current study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, tested the effectiveness of a program that trains lay people to educate low-income Hispanic women about the importance of mammography for detecting breast cancer early and Pap screening for cervical cancer detection.
Egyptian woman contracts bird flu: WHO
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A 38-year-old Egyptian woman has contracted the H5N1 strain of bird flu and is in a stable condition, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.
The woman, from Elfath in central Egypt, developed a fever and headache on March 14 and was admitted to hospital where she is being given the antiviral drug Tamivir, it said.
The Geneva-based U.N. agency said she fell ill after coming into contact with dead and sick poultry. She is the 59th case of bird flu in the Arab country.
U.S. names healthcare spending strategy advisers
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The Health and Human Services Department named a panel of 15 experts on Thursday to advise the government on how to spend $1.1 billion set aside to study which medical treatments work best.
The effort is part of President Barack Obama’s plan to cut excess spending from the U.S. health system.
Experts on the panel include officials at the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The $787 billion stimulus package passed in February provides $300 million for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, $400 million for the National Institutes of Health, and $400 million for HHS to support comparative effectiveness research.
Pilot study shows effectiveness of new, low-cost method for monitoring hand hygiene compliance
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Epidemiologists and computer scientists at the University of Iowa have collaborated to create a new low-cost, green technology for automatically tracking the use of hand hygiene dispensers before healthcare workers enter and after they exit patient rooms. This novel method of monitoring hand hygiene compliance, which is essential for infection control in hospitals, was released today at the annual meeting of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA).
“We know that a range of pathogens are spread from healthcare workers to patients by direct touch and that the current rates of hand hygiene compliance are suboptimal,” said Philip Polgreen, MD, University of Iowa Health Care. “Our new low-cost method of monitoring could potentially reduce cost while increasing compliance rates.” The failure of healthcare workers to perform appropriate hand hygiene is one of the leading preventable causes of healthcare-associated infections.
This new technology marks a major shift from the current method of monitoring hand hygiene compliance that involves direct human observation, which is both costly and labor intensive. With human observation there is also the potential for a “Hawthorne Effect,” which means workers will only clean their hands when being actively observed. Older automated monitoring technology, called radio-frequency identification (RFID) infrastructure, is available, but can be prohibitively costly and consumes far more power than Polgreen’s method.
Congress moves as stem cell limits lifted
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President Barack Obama signed an order lifting eight years of restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research on Monday as scientists gushed, activists cheered and shares in stem cell companies rose.
Members of Congress and executives at the National Institutes of Health said they would act swiftly to turn the new policy into law and into cash for laboratories.
Obama’s executive order reversed and repudiated restrictions placed on the research by his predecessor, George W. Bush, freeing labs across the country to start working with the valued cells, which give birth to all cells and tissues in the body.
Body Clocks Take a Hit This Weekend with Daylight-Saving Time
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Tick Tock. It’s that time of year. Daylight-saving time begins at 2 a.m. this Sunday.
Officially, it’s when clocks indeed spring forward, converting CST (Central Standard Time) into CDT (Central Daylight Time).
With it comes the delightful delusion that each day offers an extra hour of sunlight, a chance to get home and get a few things done before the sun sets.
“It sounds good, but it is really hard on children,” said Richard Castriotta, M.D., director of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston. “The time change is even hard on parents. Moms and Dads will have to wake up children while it is still dark outside, plus, they will have to try and get their children to go to sleep when the sun is still up.”
White House names new head of AIDS policy office
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President Barack Obama named a Georgetown University health policy expert to head the White House AIDS policy office and coordinate efforts to reduce new HIV infections in the United States, officials said on Thursday.
Jeffrey Cowley, who previously worked for the National Association of People with AIDS activist group, was appointed to head the Office of National AIDS Policy, the White House said.
About 1.1 million Americans are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
