Public Health Moment

Whether or not Congress votes to include the hotly debated Public Option plan in its health reform legislation this year, the overall bill will fall short of comprehensive reform, says Lynn Blewett, an associate professor of health policy at the University of Minnesota.

For example, she says, the bill will fall short of providing health insurance for all of the nation's 46 million uninsured.

Blewett believes a bill will definitely pass this year, but it will be the start of ongoing, incremental reform.

Listen to Blewett on Public Health Moment

Posted by Mark Engebretson at 10:52 AM
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October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the United States, aside from skin cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, an estimated 192,370 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed among women in the United States this year. And about 40,170 women are expected to die from the disease in 2009 alone.

Surgical Treatments

For women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, surgery is the typical treatment.

But that surgery can take one of two forms, says University of Minnesota professor Beth Virnig, who studies treatments for breast cancer.

She says it can be either mastectomy or breast-conserving surgery, otherwise known as lumpectomy.

Beginning the early 1990s, a major effort was made by oncologists to reduce the rate of mastectomy by favoring lumpectomy and radiation therapy. The thought was that lumpectomy was less invasive and had equivalent survival results.

Since then, mastectomy rates have dropped, Virnig says.

Rates for double mastectomy rise

But she and other researchers have noticed a recent increase in the number of double mastectomies.

Virnig encourages more research to learn why but also offers advice to women, in this installment of Public Health Moment.

Listen to Virnig on Public Health Moment

Posted by Mark Engebretson at 2:03 PM
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Oct. 8 through 12 is National School Lunch Week, a time to recognize this program that serves 31 million U.S. students each day.

In this installment of Public Health Moment, Jamie Stang, a University of Minnesota assistant professor and nutrition expert, talks about the program's origins.

She also discusses the relatively new Farm-to-Schools movement, under which many schools are starting to buy foods locally. Stang says that Minnesota is a leader in this area.

Listen to Stang on Public Health Moment

Posted by Mark Engebretson at 9:54 AM
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