CDC: U.S. teens not eating enough fruits, vegetables

November 29, 2011 · Posted in mattress reviews · Comment

Diane Alter – AHN News Reporter

Atlanta, GA, United States (AHN) – U.S. teens are not eating enough fruits and vegetables, according to a new study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The findings, based on data complied from nearly 10,800 students in grades nine through 12 who took part in the National Youth Physical Activity and Nutrition Study 2010, found median consumption was 1.2 times per day for both fruits and vegetables.

Median fruit consumption was much higher among males than females, and much higher among grade nine students than among students in grades 10 and 12.

A little more than 28.5 percent, or one in four, of the high school students ate fruit less than once a day, and 33.2 percent ate vegetables less than once a day.

Only 16.8 percent of students ate fruit at least four times a day, and only 11.2 percent ate vegetables at least four times a day.

Vegetable consumption was lowest among Hispanic and black students, the study found.

Researchers said the findings show that most high school students do not meet the daily fruit and vegetable recommendations, and more needs to be done to see the recommendations are met.

The researchers wrote in the Nov. 25 issue of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, “The infrequent fruit and vegetable consumption by high school student highlights the need for effective strategies to increase consumption.”

Steps have already been taken at schools throughout the country to remove sugary snacks, sodas, high fat, high salt and low nutrient dense foods. New programs such as farm-to-school initiatives, school gardens and salad bars aim to improve access to both fruits and vegetables.

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Analysis: Keys To The Supreme Court’s Health Law Review

November 15, 2011 · Posted in mattress reviews · Comment

Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – By agreeing today to hear challenges to President Obama’s 2010 health care law, the Supreme Court set the stage for a decision — probably in late June and in the midst of the presidential campaign — that could be among its most important in decades.

The case, which will probably be argued in March on a date still to be announced, is especially momentous because it not only will determine the fate of President Barack Obama’s biggest legislative achievement but also will cast important light on the Supreme Court’s future course under Chief Justice John Roberts on issues of federal government power.

The central issue — but not the only important one — is whether Congress exceeded its constitutional powers to regulate interstate commerce and to levy taxes when it adopted the so-called “individual mandate” at the heart of the health care law.

That provision would require millions of people starting in 2014 to buy commercial health insurance policies or pay financial penalties for failing to do so.

The court also agreed to decide a challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s provision essentially requiring states greatly to expand their Medicaid spending.

The court made clear that if it decides to strike down the individual mandate or Medicaid provision, it will also decide which of the 975-page law’s hundreds of other provisions should go down too, by divining whether Congress would have wanted some or all of them to be effective even without the voided provision or provisions.

Finally, the court agreed to decide whether — as one federal appeals court ruled — the litigation surrounding the individual mandate must be deferred until 2015 because of the 1867 “Anti-Injunction Act,” which bars courts from striking down tax laws before they take effect.

The court allocated an extraordinary five and one-half hours — the most time in many decades for related challenges to a single new law — for argument on all these issues combined.

How The Case Got Here

The court’s announcement Monday centered on a challenge to the law by 26 state governments. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta voted in August to strike down the individual mandate but to leave standing the rest of the health law, including the Medicaid expansion. All three of the petitions granted today involve that case.

In other action, though, the D.C. Circuit and the 6th Circuit, centered in Cincinnati, have upheld the individual mandate, with opinions supporting the Obama position by two of the nation’s leading conservative judges, the D.C. Circuit’s Laurence Silberman and the 6th Circuit’s Jeffrey Sutton.

Another appeals court, the 4th Circuit, said courts have no power to decide the individual mandate issue until 2015, when the first monetary penalties will be due for failing to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance. This decision held that the penalty provision is a “tax” within the meaning of the Anti-Injunction Act, as described above.

If the justices agree that the Anti-Injunction Act applies, this year’s case will be perhaps the greatest anticlimax in Supreme Court history. And, the justices’ assignment of a full hour of oral argument to this question suggests that some take this issue very seriously.

Meanwhile, the purpose of the individual mandate is to force millions of Americans to obtain health insurance — whether they want to or not — in order to offset the costs that health insurers would bear under the health care law’s requirement that they sell insurance to everyone without charging those with especially costly health problems more than healthy people.

The lower court judges who have struck down the mandate have cited as their reasoning the lack of any precedent for Congress to require people to buy a commercial product they don’t want and the government’s failure to show how — if the individual mandate is upheld — a limit enforceable by the courts could be applied to this exercise of congressional power.

As background, the two Supreme Court decisions since’37 that have struck down acts of Congress as exceeding the commerce power, one in’95 and one in 2000, stressed that Congress’ commerce power must be restrained by some principle that could be enforced by the judicial branch of government.

Defenders of the individual mandate stress other Supreme Court precedents suggesting that even economic decisions that have a tiny direct effect on interstate commerce — such as a person’s decision not to buy health insurance — cumulatively have major effects on interstate commerce and thus can be regulated by Congress.

With the court’s announcement today, none of the justices recused themselves from hearing the case. Some conservative opponents of the health care law have suggested that Justice Elena Kagan should recuse herself because of her prior work as President Obama’s Solicitor General. And some liberals have suggested that Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself because of his wife Virginia Thomas’s political activities opposing the health care law. But the decision on recusal is left to each individual justice and it would have been announced with today’s order.

Meanwhile, as is customary, the Court announced the grants of review with no comment or indication of the vote. Any four justices can agree to review a case. And, given the importance of the issues, with federal appeals courts divided, today’s announcement was widely expected.

Most but not all Supreme Court experts predict — some very confidently, some cautiously — that the Court will uphold the law. The Supreme Court’s four liberals are certain to uphold the law. They would need only one more vote to prevail. While Justice Clarence Thomas seems a sure vote to strike the law down, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito are harder to call.

A decision in June — or before — would help make the future of health care law a central issue in the 2012 presidential campaign.

Taylor, an author and journalist, is a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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Thailand hospitals fear floods will disrupt drug supplies

November 1, 2011 · Posted in mattress reviews · Comment

Bangkok, Thailand (IRIN) – Hospitals warn of possible drug shortages as prolonged flooding in Thailand has disrupted local production and delivery of medical supplies.

“Hospitals are panicking now, though they are not necessarily running out of supplies,” Pongpan Wongmanee, deputy secretary-general of the government’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told IRIN, adding that most hospital stocks could last for at least a month.

Official predictions for how long it will take to drain waterlogged areas vary from 10 days to weeks.

Though flooding has disrupted the production of 393 registered medicines in more than 10 factories in Bangkok and neighbouring provinces, there is no report of drug shortages yet, according to the Health Ministry on 31 October.

But some hospital officials are concerned their supplies will dwindle quickly as operations at these pharmaceutical plants are suspended, and demand for scarce medicines is expected to increase.

“At this point, the biggest limitation is medication. There are lots of volunteers and nurses, but very little medication,” said Pranya Sakiyalak, assistant dean of public relations at Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok. The hospital is sending a mobile medical team daily to one of the most hard-hit provinces 70km north of the capital, Ayutthaya.

Most urgently needed are aspirin, antibiotics and saline solution as patients in flood-affected areas report common minor illness and injuries, he added.

Delivery of medicines is difficult as some main roads are inaccessible, forcing operators to use indirect routes for transportation, said Pongpan from the FDA.

As of 31 October, 73 highways in 15 provinces were unusable and 223 roads in 30 provinces impassable, says the government.

The Ministry of Public Health is proposing three options for stockpiling medicines to the government on 1 November, which includes recruiting new local drug manufacturers, importing drugs and speeding up the distribution of undelivered medicines still sitting in flooded factories.

Drug manufacturers hit by flooding were providing less than 10 percent of the country’s drugs, according to the FDA.

As of 26 October, the Health Ministry has begun coordinating drug imports from Malaysia and Japan.

Authorities are also looking for new ways to deliver drugs through the deluge, said Pongpan.

sh/pt/mw

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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