Global Economic Crisis Threatens Public Health

[sharon sanders]

As the economic situation deepens, government tax revenues are plummeting and putting public health dollars at risk. Also, insurance companies are experiencing financial pressures too.

As dollars are used to maintain critical services, programs like stockpiling masks may be negatively affected.


Ga. gov proposes new fees on hospitals, insurers

By GREG BLUESTEIN

Opening a political rift within his own party Wednesday, Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue proposed filling a $208 million Medicaid funding deficit with new fees on hospitals and health insurance plans.

The governor's plan would impose the 1.6 percent fee - which critics deride as a tax - on revenues from the hospitals and insurers. Without the fee, he said, the state will be forced to slash funding for a range of programs that help Georgia's poor and needy.


"To ensure these needed services continue, I had to choose between some tough options," he said at the annual State of the State address, where he announced a range of other cuts to meet Georgia's $2.2 billion budget gap

more.......

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/01/14/ap5921392.html

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: Global Economic Crisis Threatens Public Health

Global HIV/AIDS: Five Leadership Issues

Chinua Akukwe
January 16, 2009



"...The fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic has been ongoing for at least two decades. Significant strides have been made, especially in the last ten years, with more funding available and more individuals on life saving medicines. However, the future looks uncertain as the global financial crisis bites. The scenario of more than six million people unable to access lifesaving medicines, and 7,500 people infected with HIV everyday despite widespread preventive programs, is unsettling. The 2008 World AIDS Day appropriately focused on leadership. The future of the global fight against HIV/AIDS will depend on strong leadership at all levels. In this article, I discussed five important global leadership issues in the fight against HIV/AIDS...."


http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/3293.cfm

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: Global Economic Crisis Threatens Public Health

Food Crisis: A Regulatory Meltdown No Bailout Can Save




In the wake of the mortgage crisis, there's no doubt that the Bush Administration's lack of a coherent regulatory plan and its subsequent mishandling of events paved the way for a dramatic, and deeper, economic collapse. Acute observers noted that the President's laissez faire approach to regulation extended to nearly every federal agency and program. Foremost among these is management of our nation's food supply, but unlike the fiscal crisis we are witnessing, when the inevitable food safety disaster strikes, the losses won't be measured in dollars, but in human lives.


The problems we face in food safety are familiar when viewing the unfolding financial crisis. We see cuts in agency budgets, weakening of regulations, and the fox being put in charge of the henhouse.

Tax dollars are nowhere better spent than on ensuring that the food we eat is safe, but oversight agencies have faced deep cuts, prohibiting them from adequately protecting the public. For two years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - reduced to a shell - has been beleaguered by one food safety failure after another. An examination of government records earlier this year showed FDA inspections down by more than 75 percent. In 2006, FDA estimated that it had inspected only one percent of 8.9 million incoming foreign food shipments. During this summer's tainted-tomato scare, Dr. David Acheson cited his agency's shortage of manpower, inspections, and resources as the reason the FDA couldn't be held accountable, a remarkable admission.


snip



Loose regulatory policies have failed us in the financial world: the same can be said for public health. Food-borne illness sickens one in six Americans each year. Resultant hospitalization, medication, and missed work days costs tens of millions. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 5,000 people die annually from food-borne diseases; fatalities in large part attributable to illness caused by tainted produce.
Those concerned with the purity of their food have invested their hopes in President-Elect Obama. They hoped he would be a staunch advocate for reform based on his sponsorship of new food safety measures while a Senator. However, Obama's appointment of Tom Vilsack at USDA has shown food advocates that they may have misread his level of commitment to their concerns. Those who care about testing, transparency, and truth shouldn't hope for the best; now's the time for us to make our concerns clearly known.


When moving trucks pull up at the White House and our new President settles into the Oval Office, we must demand that one of his first orders of business is taking a good, hard look at the agencies in charge of our food safety. The only way to prevent the looming food crisis is to act quickly, clean house, and begin thinking more about public safety than corporate bottom lines. It's bad enough that many have lost their shirts in the financial crisis; a food crisis would see too many people losing their lives.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kimbrell/food-crisis-a-regulatory_b_158319.html

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: Global Economic Crisis Threatens Public Health

Financial crisis could increase child deaths in E. Asia - UNICEF


16 Jan 2009 14:30:00 GMT


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Children wait for meal ration from a non-government organisation providing food to slum communities in the Philippine capital Manila September 2008. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco (PHILIPPINES)

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Tens of thousands of young children in large parts of Asia could die as a result of the food and economic crisis, the U.N. children's agency UNICEF has warned. Under-five mortality in East Asia and the Pacific could increase by up to 11 percent in countries severely affected by the crisis, if the issue is left addressed, a UNICEF-commissioned paper says.

The figures were derived using historical data from the 1997 Asian economic crisis, when countries such as Thailand and Indonesia saw their GDP shrink by over 20 percent and child and maternal anaemia, caused by iron deficiency, increased significantly.

Already around 1.4 million East Asian children die before their fifth birthday every year, with over half the deaths attributable to malnutrition, according to UNICEF. The paper adds there could be an increase of up to 7 percent in stunting (too short), 8 to 16 percent in wasting (too skinny), and up to 10 percent more children with low birth weight as mothers bear the brunt of food shortages. It also says there could be a 10-20 percent increase in maternal anaemia. Already under pressure from rising food prices, families' ability to feed themselves is compounded by the deepening financial crisis.

With fewer chances of bailouts this time from the world's super powers, the paper says the situation will be particularly challenging for developing countries in the region. "We're not encouraged by the situation," said Dr Zulfiqar Bhutta, professor of paediatrics and child health at The Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi, who wrote the paper, "The Impact of the Food and Economic Crisis on Child Health and Nutrition". He voiced his worries that current health and nutrition safety nets won't be adequate buffers against the expected deterioration in child and maternal health.

Working within a budget It is not all doom and gloom however. The paper says simple measures such as exclusive breastfeeding can address child health, and preliminary calculations show an increase in such steps can reduce child deaths by close to 20 percent. Bhutta also suggests exploring the use of health vouchers to encourage the poor to seek medical help. "In Latin America, there's a component where families received micronutrient supplements in exchange for vouchers," said Bhutta. However, malnutrition is an often ignored topic in the region, partly because it affects the poor and marginalised most and partly because of a general perception that the region's rapid growth in the past decade has lead to a more equitable society. Unfortunately, the numbers tell a different story. Of the 55 million under-fives in East Asia, over 35 percent are stunted and more than 20 percent are underweight, according to The Lancet medical journal. Stunting is largely irreversible, and stunted children complete fewer years of schooling and earn less income as adults, hindering their cognitive growth and economic potential. Also, a 2008 UNICEF report found that malnutrition figures in the region are barely better than sub-Saharan Africa (24 percent versus 28 percent). And this is without taking into consideration India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, which together account for half the world's underweight children. Yet, according to Bhutta, even major powers have been slow to realise the existence of inequities within their countries. "The emphasis on nutrition in many Asian and South East Asian countries has been on the converse - the rise of obesity," he said. If nutrition is not addressed when the countries have the means to do so, what chance does it have when the going gets tough? What is needed, according to Bhutta, is to translate the numbers into long-term impacts -

to make clear that a 5 percent increase in low birth weight has wider penalties. "The impact is for the entire life of that individual," he said. "That child will remain stunted, will grow up to be less productive, possibly have educational impairment, and possibly have premature disease. All of this has a dollar cost." "Sometimes people don't realise that nutrition is the fundamental underpinning of health."


http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/52132/2009/00/16-143047-1.htm