By Lyndsey Layton – Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Two members of Congress urged the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday to move quickly to limit the amount of salt in processed foods, calling the matter a “public health crisis” that demanded a swift response from government.
“I understand they want to do it in a phased kind of a deal, but I don’t want it to be too long,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “This is crying out for change that’s long overdue.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) agreed, saying in a conference call with Harkin and reporters: “I don’t want this to take 10 years. . . . This is a public health crisis.”
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Tags: A Threat To America·Another Dem Reform Bill·Disillusioned Government·Government Incompetence·More Government Reform (Control)·Power Hungry·Wasteful Spending
By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 25, 2010
In early 2006, a mysterious cosmetics trader named Rakhman began showing up at salons in St. Petersburg, Russia, hawking a popular anti-aging drug at suspiciously low prices. He flashed a briefcase filled with vials and promised he could deliver more — “as many as you want,” he told buyers — from a supplier somewhere in Chechnya.
Rakhman’s “Botox” was found to be a potent clone of the real thing, but investigators soon turned to a far bigger worry: the prospect of an illegal factory in Chechnya churning out raw botulinum toxin, the key ingredient in the beauty drug and one of world’s deadliest poisons. A speck of toxin smaller than a grain of sand can kill a 150-pound adult.
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Tags: Terrorism
By Ed O’Keefe Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Americans direct their ire at the Internal Revenue Service during tax season and might critique the Transportation Security Administration while passing through airport security. This time of year, however, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is the agency drawing additional scrutiny as holiday shoppers buy toys and other household goods.
“CPSC always have problems around Christmas, because that’s when people remember who they are,” said Michael Brown, a former general counsel for the commission who now specializes in federal regulatory issues. “Eleven months of the year, people forget about them.”
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Tags: All About the Money·Destroying the American People·Government Incompetence
By Rob Stein Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 20, 2009
Women can delay having their first Pap test for cervical cancer until they turn 21 and many can wait longer to go back for follow-up screenings, according to new guidelines released Friday by a major medical group.
The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommended the change after concluding that more frequent testing did not catch significantly more cancers and often resulted in girls and young women experiencing unnecessary stress, anxiety and sometimes harmful treatments because of suspicious growths that would not cause problems.
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Tags: Reality Check
By Amy Goldstein Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 16, 2009; 12:04 PM
The number of Americans who lack dependable access to adequate food shot up last year to 49 million, the largest number since the government has been keeping track, according to a government report released Monday that shows particularly steep increases in food scarcity among families with children.
In 2008, the report found, nearly 17 million children — more than one in five across the United States — were living in households in which food at times ran short, up from slightly more than 12 million children the year before. And the number of children who sometimes were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million.
Among people of of all ages, nearly 15 percent last year did not consistently have adequate food, compared with about 11 percent in 2007, the greatest deterioration in access to food during a single year in the history of the report.
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Tags: Fix US First then others
By Lois Romano Monday, November 2, 2009
Drew Altman landed at the Kaiser Family Foundation in 1990 with a huge mandate: Rebuild the sleepy grant-making organization, shake up its staff, and revitalize its mission. Two decades later, the chief executive and president has positioned the nonpartisan operation as a leading voice and vast repository for facts and figures on health-care issues and the reform debate.
What Altman doesn’t do anymore is give out money — but instead spends it on independent research.
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As White House pushes expansion, critics cite errors, drop-off in care
By Alexi Mostrous Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 25, 2009
In a health-care debate characterized by partisan bickering, most lawmakers agree on one thing: American medicine needs to go digital.
When President Obama designated $19.5 billion to expand the use of electronic medical records, former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said it was one of only “two good things” in February’s stimulus package.
But such bipartisan enthusiasm has obscured questions about the effectiveness of health information technology products, critics say. Interviews with more than two dozen doctors, academics, patients and computer programmers suggest that computer systems can increase errors, add hours to doctors’ workloads and compromise patient care.
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The following has been added to CBO’s Web site (www.cbo.gov):
- H.R. 3596, Health Insurance Industry Antitrust Enforcement Act of 2009
Cost estimate for the bill as ordered reported by the House Committee on the Judiciary on October 21, 2009
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=10673
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By Spencer S. Hsu
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The United States is failing to address the threat of bioterrorism, according to leaders of a bipartisan panel that warns that an attack worldwide is more likely than not by the end of 2013.
The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, created by Congress in 2007, said in an interim report Wednesday that the administration and lawmakers have underfunded efforts to develop vaccines and drugs and have not named a high-level National Security Council appointee to improve biodefenses.
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By Lori Montgomery
October 21, 2009
House leaders have cut the cost of their health-care overhaul to around $871 billion over the next decade, Democratic sources said Tuesday night, and were working to line up votes for the package with the aim of bringing it before the full House early next month.
The $871 billion estimate — well under the $900 billion limit set by President Obama — is the latest of several versions scored by congressional budget analysts, according to a Democratic aide, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private talks. The measure would include a government-run insurance plan that pays providers at rates tied to Medicare, the aide added. That so-called “robust” public option is preferred by liberals because it would save the government money and could force private insurers to lower their own reimbursement rates, driving down the cost of health care overall.
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