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Early Childhood Health Interventions Could Save Billions In Health Costs Later In Life
Promoting the health of young children, before five years of age, could save society up to $65 billion in future health care costs, according to an examination of childhood health conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The results are published in the May 15, 2009, issue of Academic Pediatrics.
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CEL-SCI Files Patent Application To Support Company's Treatment For More Virulent Strain Of H1N1 Swine And Other Influenza Viruses
CEL-SCI CORPORATION (NYSE AMEX: CVM) announced that it has filed a provisional U.S. patent application covering its L.E.A.P.S.(TM) immune therapy drugs (vaccines) for the prevention/treatment of H1N1, swine, bird flu, Influenza A and/or evolving mutants or variants of these viruses. Some experts believe that by the next flu season the swine flu virus will have evolved and/or combined with other viruses to create a much more lethal new virus. That is what happened in the case of the Spanish flu pandemic. CEL-SCI"s efforts to fight this virus are focused on using conserved epitopes from essential proteins to be found in the A influenza virus for H1N1, H1N5, swine, bird flu and Spanish influenza to create an effective vaccine/treatment that could potentially fight such a mutant virus.
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Many U.S. Hospitals Fail To Report Physician Disciplinary Cases To National Databank
Many U.S. hospitals do not take sufficient disciplinary action against physicians for poor conduct or medical incompetence and fail to report such cases to the National Practitioner Data Bank, according to a report released Wednesday by Public Citizen, the Contra Costa Times reports. Congress established the databank in 1990 as a central repository for information about physicians whose hospital privileges had been withdrawn or limited for more than 30 days. The bank is closed to the public (Kleffman, Contra Costa Times, 5/27).For the report, Public Citizen"s Health Research Group analyzed studies by the HHS Office of Inspector General and the Citizen Advocacy Center, as well as medical journal articles and recommendations made during an October 1996 meeting on under-reporting by hospitals (Stark/Hallihan, ABCNews.com, 5/27). According to the report, nearly half of U.S. hospitals did not submit one physician"s name in 17 years to the databank. One purpose of the databank is to provide hospitals with background information about physicians they were considering hiring at their facilities. Under the initial expectations of the databank, federal officials estimated that at least 5,000 disciplinary cases would be reported annually. However, on average, about 650 reports have been made annually since the databank was created, the report found (Contra Costa Times, 5/27). The group on Wednesday sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that included recommendations to improve the efficacy of the databank. The letter said that the reporting numbers are "unreasonably low, compared with what would be expected if hospitals pursued disciplinary actions aggressively and reported all such actions." The letter urged Sebelius to ensure that hospitals are conducting necessary peer reviews and oversight of physicians, taking proper disciplinary actions and reporting them to the databank so that physicians" track records are available to all hospital administrators. Penalties also should be established for hospitals that fail to comply with the reporting requirements, the group said.Al Levine, the author of the report, said some hospitals had found ways to avoid their physician reporting responsibilities, such as by limiting restrictions on hospital privileges to fewer than 30 days or giving physicians a "leave of absence" in place of suspending their privileges. Levine said, "Even in states with high levels of reporting," it "seems to be concentrated in a few facilities" (Contra Costa Times, 5/27).In a statement responding to the report, the American Hospital Association said, "The premise that the number of reports received by the National Practitioner Data Bank correlates to jeopardized patient care is inaccurate," adding, "Hospitals are actively involved in a wide variety of efforts to continuously improve care and talk publicly about the care we provide" (ABCNews.com, 5/27).
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California Nurses Statement On The Board Of Registered Nursing

The California Nurses Association concurred on the need for improved enforcement to protect patients affected by the handful of nurses alleged to have found to have committed egregious misconduct that put patients in jeopardy. But, CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro emphasized, "much of the responsibility for the controversy now swirling around the Board of Registered Nursing lies directly at the feet of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who has systematically underfunded the board, tried to erode its authority, and has failed to respond to a known problem for months." "First, it"s important for California families to be reassured. There are 350,000 actively licensed registered nurses in this state who provide extraordinary care, mostly under trying and difficult conditions," said DeMoro. "These reports have highlighted a tiny handful of nurses who are the extremely rare exception, who if guilty, should be disciplined, with due process, in as expedited a manner as possible." However, DeMoro called Gov. Schwarzenegger"s decision today to fire BRN members he himself appointed, "basically showboating, which has long been this governor"s trademark, giving the appearance of action he has long ignored." Schwarzenegger is "largely culpable for an atmosphere of antipathy to regulatory oversight and public protection evident throughout California government, which leads to lax enforcement and also gives a wink and a nod to employers," said DeMoro. She noted, for example, the report this morning of a hospital in Vallejo, a part of one of California"s biggest hospital chains Sutter Health, which is exposing patients and nurses to swine flu by failing to provide nurses who care for swine flu patients with proper safety equipment. Gov. Schwarzenegger, said DeMoro, "personifies the anti-government, anti-regulation, anti-public protection rhetoric that is so pervasive among some politicians. His administration has been lax in numerous areas of public oversight and protection, and proper funding and enforcement to assure public and worker safety." "Firing a handful of his own appointees now will not change that record, especially as he continues to target more state workers for furloughs and layoffs that will further impair the ability of our vital state agencies to assure public safety." "The problem of slow enforcement of discipline cases by the BRN has been known for months. Yet neither the governor nor his Department of Consumer Affairs, which have authority over the BRN, have requested additional funding for investigatory staff to hasten the review and enforcement process. And even now the governor is engaged in a confrontation with state workers, putting employees on work furloughs which will even further slow the ability to assure needed action." Further, she noted, Gov. Schwarzenegger has "repeatedly sought to further impede the work of the BRN itself by proposing first in 2005, and now again, to combine it with a licensing board that oversees licensed vocational nurses, which would limit on the ability of the board and its staff to complete the disciplinary review process." It is instructive, DeMoro added, that the governor"s "most high profile action involving nurses to date was his decision in 2004 to target the ability of registered nurses to properly care for patients by issuing an emergency regulation to suspend portions of the state law requiring minimum safe levels of nurse staffing." That decision, later found by the courts to be illegal, and subjected to more than 100 protests by RNs, "illustrates the failed record of this governor on the most basic issue of public oversight and workplace safety." California Nurses Association


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