Health Services and Research Policy: December 2004 Archives

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Despite critics who say patients' bills of rights laws are actually designed to protect health care providers, new research published in the current issue of the American Journal of Medicine found just the opposite.
"There is little evidence these laws have much impact on providers' economic concerns," said Mark Hall, J.D., professor of law and public health at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Hall reviewed managed care patient protection laws in the 48 states that have enacted them and also surveyed state regulators about law content. Commonly known as patients' bills of rights, these laws are aimed at restraining the perceived excesses of managed care, including "gate-keeping," or denying insurance payment for medically necessary treatment and restricting patients' choice of physicians Critics of the laws, however, say they actually provide protection to providers. Hall's research was designed to assess the validity of these claims by evaluating the laws' impacts.

Read more...EurekAlert.com

Posted By: News-Medical in Healthcare News
Published: Tuesday, 21-Dec-2004
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Australia is one of the first countries in the world to implement new screening technology across all States that will help detect an increased number of diseases in newborns.
Department of Health A/Director General Dr Neale Fong said the technology, tandem mass spectrometry, which was introduced in WA this month, was the biggest step forward in newborn screening in the past 35 years.

"This new innovation has been pioneered in Australia and increases the detection at birth of inheritable disorders from four to over 20," he said.

All babies will be tested for free at birth for the early signs of treatable disorders by the WA Newborn Screening Program at Princess Margaret Hospital for Children.

Read more...News-Medical.Net

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have shown a connection between health and socioeconomic status (SES), demonstrating higher instances of heart disease, cancer and other evidence of poor health in those lower in the economic scale. The question is why, and how early in life these effects begin taking shape.

Eurekalert.com

From Barbara Alving, M.D., Director of the Women's Health Initiative and Acting Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
A Women's Health Initiative (WHI) review of a recent abstract on the effects of oral contraceptive use on cardiovascular disease has found flaws in both the design and interpretation of the WHI data used in the study. The October presentation of the abstract at the annual scientific meeting of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine – and subsequent media coverage – may have created the impression that OC use is linked to lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, the WHI review of the abstract shows no evidence that OC use is linked to lower risk of CVD.

The abstract used information provided by WHI participants at baseline when they first joined the study. Such analyses are limited and considered exploratory and they should not be used to reassure women about OC use. There is a large and reputable body of higher scientific evidence linking current OC use to future increases in risk of stroke and heart attack, especially in older women and in smokers. The abstract bears no relationship to the findings from the WHI clinical trials of hormones, which showed that postmenopausal hormone use clearly does not reduce, and in fact may increase the risk for CVD.

Contact: NHLBI Communications Office
nhlbi_news@nhlbi.nih.gov
301-496-4236
NIH/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Eurekalert.com

Press Release Source: Corporate Accountability International

Tuesday November 30, 12:51 pm ET
Corporate Accountability International (formerly Infact) Applauds Countries That Stood Up to Tobacco Industry; Urges US to Reverse Direction and Ratify Quickly

BOSTON, Nov. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the world's first public health and corporate accountability treaty, has been ratified by 40 countries and is now set to take effect. According to its implementing provisions, the treaty becomes binding international law after the 40th country ratifies. The landmark was reached when Peru ratified the treaty today.

"This is a tremendous victory for corporate accountability and public health that will undoubtedly save millions of lives," says Kathryn Mulvey, Executive Director of the US-based Corporate Accountability International. "This treaty demonstrates that working together, the nations of the world and their NGO allies can limit the influence of giant corporations. Attempts by Philip Morris/Altria and the rest of the tobacco industry to prevent an effective treaty from entering into force have proved futile."

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