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THIS ISSUE AVAILABLE ONLINE WITH EXPANDED INFORMATION AND PHOTOS
AT:
http://www.hhs.gov/news/newsletter/weekly
IN THIS ISSUE:
1) Secretary Thompson announces $539 billion budget
2) President announces Project BioShield: New $6 billion effort
to Americans from bioterror attack
3) Secretary Thompson announces proposed Medicaid reforms
4) HHS to spend $150 million to mentor children
5) HHS to propose increased funding for cancer screening
6) Surgeon General Carmona leads Medical Reserve Corps discussion
on standards
7) Study finds no link between taking folic acid and having twins
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Secretary Thompson announces $539 billion budget
Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced President's Bush's $539 billion fiscal year 2004 budget proposal for the Department of Health and Human Services designed to increase preparedness, expand access to health care, and open the doors of opportunity to all Americans.
"President Bush laid out an ambitious agenda for HHS in his FY 2004 budget proposal," Secretary Thompson said. "One that will expand access to health coverage, strengthen our public health infrastructure, encourage healthier lifestyles, and better prepare current and former welfare recipients to climb the career ladder."
Secretary Thompson unveiled this bold budget that focuses on prevention, increased access to Medicare and Medicaid, and protection against bioterorrism. And by assuring high quality, affordable health care to millions of Americans that are in need, Secretary Thompson continues to advance President Bush's goal to strengthen the health care safety net for all Americans.
The HHS budget is $36.8 billion more than last year's budget and builds on a number of Presidential Bush's priorities by providing increases for the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, prevention, the National Health Service Corps, the Indian Health Service, and HHS' work in Afghanistan.
One of President Bush's top priorities is to provide a prescription drug package for America's seniors through Medicare. To accomplish that, President Bush proposed an increase of $400 billion over ten years to modernize Medicare and provide high quality health care for all seniors.
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President announces Project BioShield: New $6 billion effort to Americans from bioterror attack
HHS, in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, will spearhead the development of Project BioShield. The project will bring together the resources of the United States government in an innovative effort to develop defenses against bioterror before they are ever needed.
"By bringing researchers, medical experts, and the biomedical industry together in a new and focused way, our nation can achieve the same kind of treatment breakthroughs for bio-terrorism and other threats that have significantly reduced the threat of heart disease, cancer, and many other serious illnesses," Secretary Thompson said.
BioShield was announced by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address on January 28. The project will have three major goals:
· Ensure resources to develop next-generation countermeasures: BioShield would create a special secure spending authority to pay for the delivery of "next-generation" medical countermeasures. Over the next 10 years, almost $6 billion will be available to purchase new countermeasures for smallpox, anthrax, and botulinum toxin. Additional funds will be available to produce and purchase countermeasures for other dangerous agents, such as Ebola and plague, once safe and effective treatments are developed.
· Expand research and development: BioShield would expand the ability of the National Institutes of Health to speed research and development on medical countermeasures based on the most promising recent scientific discoveries.
· Make promising treatments available quickly for emergencies: Under Project BioShield, the Food and Drug Administration would have the ability to make new and promising treatments under development available quickly in emergency situations - potentially saving many more lives than treatments otherwise available today.
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Secretary Thompson announces proposed Medicaid reforms
Secretary Thompson announced that the President will propose a sweeping new plan to enable states to improve health insurance coverage for low-income Americans.
"The time is right to modernize Medicaid and strengthen how it works. Simply pouring more money into an outdated system isn't going to provide for better health care or fix states' problems. To the contrary, it is putting the health coverage of thousands of Americans at risk because states can no longer afford to provide it," Secretary Thompson said.
The proposal, to be developed in full consultation with governors and Congress, would be optional for states. The President's proposal would accomplish several Medicaid reform goals:
First, it would invest more money immediately to protect recipients from losing health coverage and create opportunities for expanding coverage. To help states get through their budget crises, the proposal increases the federal share of the overall Medicaid budget by an estimated $3.25 billion in 2004 and $12.7 billion over five years. This investment will help prevent struggling states from reducing Medicaid coverage. In the past year, 38 states have either trimmed benefits, cut payments to providers or reduced eligibility. A total of 78,504 individuals have lost eligibility. This investment will help stem and reverse that trend.
Second, it will provide flexibility for states to develop innovative programs to expand coverage to more people. The proposal seeks to reduce rules and regulations so states can target funds to areas of greatest need and provide quality benefit packages that help more people. They can do so without seeking federal waivers. This will allow states to create programs to cover the mentally ill, the chronically ill, and specific populations such as those with HIV/AIDS, according to their needs. It will also facilitate tailored long-term care benefits to meet the unique needs of each senior citizen, providing seniors and their families a greater array of choices in services.
Third, it will emphasize covering entire families, children and parents. The President wants to promote family coverage and continuity of care so family members can see the same doctors and participate in same health plan. Often, low-income parents and children can be part of three or more health care plans, each with their own doctors and own rules. The proposal seeks to build on studies that show the best way to increase health coverage for children is to make coverage available to parents as well.
With 44.3 million Medicaid beneficiaries (22.7 million of them children), the Medicaid program is bigger and expanding more rapidly than Medicare. It is therefore crucial that effective, common sense reform is enacted for the health of the program.
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HHS to spend $150 million to mentor children
Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced that HHS will fund $150 million over the next three years to help more than 100,000 adolescent children of prisoners find an adult mentor.
The $150 million is part of a $450 million aid package announced by President George W. Bush in the State of the Union Address. It represents $50 million in HHS' budget for fiscal year 2004, double the fiscal year 2003 president's budget request of $25 million for HHS' Mentoring Children of Prisoners Program. In addition, the proposal includes nearly $300 million through the Department of Education over the next three years to support the development, expansion and strengthening of mentoring programs targeted at disadvantaged middle school students.
"We all know that growing up through adolescence is tough enough. Add to that the burden of having a parent in jail and these kids are really hurting," Secretary Thompson said. "This down payment on compassion will help a million kids get some guidance, have positive role models and give them a fighting chance to succeed."
Through the mentoring initiative, federal agencies will work with nonprofit,
community, and faith-based organizations that train volunteer mentors and pair
them with children in need. These programs will further the goals of the Promoting
Safe and Stable Families Amendments of 2001 and the No Child Left Behind Act
of 2001, which called for the expansion of services to strengthen families,
including creating and expanding mentoring programs for children through networks
of community organizations, including religious organizations.
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HHS to propose increased funding for cancer screening
President Bush will propose a $10 million increase in funding for breast and cervical cancer screening to help low-income and underserved women.
The proposed increase is for the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program, administered by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which provides screening services, including clinical breast examinations, mammograms, pelvic examinations and Pap tests, to underserved women. It also funds post-screening diagnostic services, such as surgical consultation and biopsy, to ensure that women with abnormal results receive timely and adequate referrals.
"Together, breast and cervical cancer take the lives of more than 40,000 American women each year," Secretary Thompson said. "These deaths occurred disproportionately among low-income women and women who belong to racial or ethnic minorities. By increasing screening rates for at-risk women, we can save lives."
HHS' fiscal year 2004 budget will request an additional $10 million for this program, bringing the total requested funding to $211 million. The additional funding would allow the program to provide an additional 32,000 procedures, for a total of 562,000 procedures. The increase also will support efforts to increase education and outreach programs for women and health care providers, to improve quality assurance measures for screening and to improve access to screening and follow-up services.
In addition, HHS has approved Medicaid plan amendments for 49 states and the District of Columbia that allow their state Medicaid programs to provide health coverage to women without health insurance who are diagnosed with cancer through the free CDC screening program. This coverage helps to ensure that women receive appropriate care and treatment as quickly as possible, when the odds for a successful recovery are greatest.
The National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program was established by the Breast and Cervical Cancer Mortality Prevention Act of 1990. Since its creation, the program has provided more than 3 million screening examinations and diagnosed more than 12,000 breast cancers and 800 invasive cervical cancers. The program operates in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, six U.S. territories and 12 American Indian and Alaska Native organizations.
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Surgeon General Carmona leads Medical Reserve Corps discussion on standards
United States Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona challenged members of the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) to work together to find common ground on priorities and guidelines for the MRC.
"By bringing local MRC leaders together we can discuss what works and what doesn't work," VADM Carmona said. "Then we can devise a best practices and hopefully recognize a foundation that all MRC responders and volunteers will have."
Last year the Office of the Surgeon General awarded a total of $2 million to 42 communities to help jump-start their local MRC unit. President Bush requested $10 million for fiscal year 2003 to help sustain these 42 units and provide funding to over 100 more.
President Bush, in his State of the Union address in January 2001, announced that he was launching the USA Freedom Corps to foster an American culture of citizenship, service and responsibility. He formed the Citizen Corps initiative, of which the MRC is a part, to give individuals the opportunity to serve their neighbors by making our communities safe from threats of all kinds.
The MRC is led by the Office of the Surgeon General in HHS. For more information including, the MRC guidance document "Medical Reserve Corps -- A Guide for Local Leaders," information on training resources, and the monthly MRC newsletter please log onto www.medicalreservecorps..gov or call the Office of the Surgeon General at (301) 443-4000.
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Study finds no link between taking folic acid and having twins
New results from a study involving almost a quarter of a million women in China show that taking folic acid to reduce the risk of neural tube birth defects does not increase a woman's chances of giving birth to twins. The study, which appears in the February 1 issue of Lancet, was conducted by HHS' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Peking University Health Sciences Center in China.
Multiple studies conducted during the past several decades have shown the consumption of folic acid before conception and during pregnancy can reduce the incidence of spina bifida and other neural tube defects. However, the results of some earlier, smaller studies raised the question of whether an increase in multiple births can be associated with the consumption of vitamin supplements containing folic acid during pregnancy.
This is the first scientific study of its kind done on a large population of young women with accurate records of their folic acid use before conception and during the early months of pregnancy.
Twin pregnancies often result in premature birth, leading to complications and long-term health problems for the children. But this new study finds no evidence of a link between folic acid consumption and multiple births.
"This is good news for women in the United States, in China, and around the world," said Dr. José Cordero, the director of the CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. "Taking folic acid before and during early pregnancy to prevent some serious birth defects in their babies should not increase a woman's chances of having a twin pregnancy."
Among the 242,015 women in the study, there was no difference in the rates of twin births for women who took a folic acid pill daily and those who did not take any.
Folic acid has been shown to reduce the number of infants afflicted with spina bifida. Following the Public Health Service's 1992 recommendation urging women to increase their levels of folic acid prior to becoming pregnant, the incidence of spina bifida has been reduced by 32 percent in the United States.
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