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Lobbyists Strike At Wellness Programs
Wellness programs are not faring well as a campaign is mounting to strike a provision for them from reform legislation. Roll Call reports that "innocuous sounding "wellness programs" that many employers would like to see included as part of health care reform legislation have sparked a lobbying campaign by disease groups, consumer organizations and unions. They argue that the programs could potentially make health insurance unaffordable for some people and could compromise workers" privacy" (Ackley, 6/17).
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PEPFAR Funds Used To Encourage Swaziland Couples To Get Tested Together
CNN examines the success of an HIV testing campaign in Swaziland that urges couples to get tested together. "The nationwide initiative - funded by the United States government and implemented by global charity "Population Services International" (PSI) - is aimed at couples because tests can be useless if partners are not aware of the others" HIV status," CNN writes.
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Parasites Ready To Jump
Transposons are mobile genetic elements found in the hereditary material of humans and other organisms. They can replicate and the new copies can insert at novel sites in the genome. Because this threatens the whole organism, molecular mechanisms have evolved which can repress transposon activity. Professor Klaus Förstemann of the Gene Center of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich and a team of researchers working with the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster have now uncovered a new type of cellular defence that acts against DNA sequences present in high copy numbers inside the cell, even if they have not integrated into the genome. Small molecules of RNA (a class of nucleic acid closely related to the genetic material DNA) play the central role. "Transposons are genomic parasites, so to speak", says Förstemann. "If they are allowed to proliferate, the genome can become unstable or cancers can develop. We now want to find out whether mammalian cells possess this newly discovered defence mechanism and to elucidate precisely how it works." (EMBO Journal online, 30 July 2009.)
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H1N1 Spread Continues Worldwide; First Death In Asia Confirmed

The H1N1 (swine flu) virus has now infected more than 52,000 people, leaving 231 dead, the WHO said Monday, AFP/Washington Post reports. "Swine flu has now been reported in 100 countries and territories, and figures yet to be incorporated into the U.N. health agency"s official figures indicate an even higher toll," AFP/Washington Post writes, adding, "The WHO said, however, that its figures could not be considered reliable because some countries were no longer keeping total figures while other poor countries did not have the means to reliably detect cases." Since Friday, the number of cases has grown by more than 7,873 cases and 51 deaths, "highlighting the steady spread of the virus," the newspaper writes (AFP/Washington Post, 6/23). The confirmation of H1N1 in a Filipino woman who recently died led a top legislator to order the temporary closure of the House of Representatives building where she worked "to allow safety and preventive measures to be implemented," Xinhua reports (Xinhua, 6/23). Health authorities said that the death of the 49-year-old woman on June 19 was Asia"s first confirmed death from H1N1 (AFP/Washington Post, 6/23). The WHO recently presented Botswana"s Ministry of Health with supplies to help prevent the spread of H1N1 in the country, including doses of the antiviral Tamiflu, face masks, and lab equipment, Mmegi reports. "As the pandemic unfolds, we must work even more closely than we have done before and we will keep on updating each other on what steps are being taken," said permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health, Newman Kahiya (Baputaki. Mmegi, 6/23). Bloomberg examines the devastating impact H1N1 could have on the global economy, as predicted in a World Bank report released Monday. As H1N1 circles the world, it could cause 1.4 million deaths in addition to the 1.5 million people who die annually from the seasonal flu, according to the report. "Developing countries would be hardest hit because higher population densities, relatively weak health care systems and poverty accentuate the economic impacts in some countries," according to the World Bank report. "Simulations of the potential economic and human costs of a pandemic based on avian flu that was undertaken for a 2006 report suggested that the costs of a global outbreak could range from 0.7 percent to 4.8 percent of global GDP, depending on the severity of the outbreak, the lender said," Bloomberg reports (Gale, Bloomberg, 6/23). 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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