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IRIN Examines PEPFAR Funding Of IDU Programs
IRIN examines a recent comment piece in the journal Lancet that argues PEPFAR can do more to prevent the spread of HIV among injecting drug users (IDUs) in Africa (IRIN, 6/24). Although PEPFAR has helped to provide "antiretroviral therapy to 2.1 million people with HIV, almost all of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa, and has spent more than $18 billion on the continent," it has failed to reach "thousands of injecting drug users in PEPFAR countries in Africa, many of whom have HIV," according to the authors of the Lancet article (Kaiser Global Health Policy Report, 6/19).

Swine Flu Pandemic Weekly Report, Wales
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FDA Approves Multaq(R) For Patients With Atrial Fibrillation Or Atrial Flutter
Sanofi-aventis (EURONEXT: SAN and NYSE: SNY) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Multaq(R) (dronedarone) 400 mg Tablets. Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) or atrial flutter (AFL) soon will have a new treatment option to help improve current management of their disease. Multaq(R) is the first drug approved in the United States that has shown a clinical benefit to reduce cardiovascular hospitalization in patients with AF/AFL.
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Do Prevention Programs Save Money? CBO Says 'No'

The Congressional Budget Office has so far "failed to attribute any savings to increased efforts to provide preventive efforts like stop-smoking programs," challenging the notion that preventive care saves money for the health care system, NPR reports. "Former CBO health analyst Joe Antos, now at the American Enterprise Institute, says preventive services often cost more than they save. In screening people for cancer, for example, he says, "you screen literally millions of people, sometimes at fairly high cost per screen. You"ll pick up some true positives, people who really have the disease. You"ll pick up some false positives." Then all those people have to be followed up by the medical system, which costs even more money." But Rob Gould, president and CEO of the Partnership for Prevention, "says his group looked at 25 clinical preventive services that were recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force," and found that six of them saved money. Another 12 were highly cost-effective, meaning "the intervention cost less than $50,000 per added year of life." Ken Thorpe of Emory University adds: ""On the prevention side, at least in the congressional proposals, there is not a coherent, effective prevention strategy really designed to prevent disease in the first place."" (Rovner, 7/28). This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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