The success of a recent Massachusetts program hat provides virtually free access to tobacco cessation treatments has left CDC officials shocked and encouraged lawmakers to look at expanding the approach nationwide.
When the program was launched two years ago, about 38 percent of poor Massachusetts residents smoked. By 2008, the smoking rate for poor residents had dropped to about 28 percent, a decrease of about 30,000 people in two and a half years, or one in six smokers. There are also indications that the drop has lowered rates of hospitalization for heart attacks and emergency room visits for asthma attacks, she said.
Senators Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Bernard Sanders of Vermont have introduced an amendment that would provide similar new Medicaid coverage for tobacco addiction as nationwide, and the Senate could vote on it by the weekend. If the amendment fails, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa said he would try another avenue: seeking an expansion through a conference committee that will ultimately reconcile the House and Senate bills.
"We should be able to find an opening," Mr. Harkin said in an interview. "This is one demonstrable way we can actually bend the cost curve and keep people healthy."
Terry F. Pechacek, associate director for science for the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, told the New York Times that he found the numbers “shocking,” since smoking rates around the nation have barely budged since 2004. He said the U.S. smoking rate has only decreased from 20.9 percent in 2004 to 20.6 percent in 2008, while smoking-related illnesses cost the Medicaid system more than $22 billion a year - or about 11 percent of overall Medicaid expenditures.
Pechacek says if the federal health care overhaul includes smoking-cessation coverage, publicizing it will be as crucial to its success as the cessation tools themselves.
"Even in the some of the states that offer wider coverage,” he said, “there’s been minimal promotion. People have to know about a benefit for it to have an effect.”
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Massachusetts Tobacco Cessation Results "Shocking," Says CDC Expert
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
CO Supreme Court Lowers Curtain on Actors Smoking on Stage
The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday refused to exempt theater actors from a statewide smoking ban during their performances. All but one of the justices voted to uphold lower-court decisions barring cigarette use in performances.
The move ends a three-year state fight in which a coalition of state and national theater groups argued in multiple courts that the ban infringed on free-speech rights and interfered with their abilities to accurately produce plays. Six justices found that regardless of whether onstage smoking is a form of expression, the ban on smoking in public places is constitutional because it aims to promote public health rather than stifle free speech.
No other state supreme court has decided a case involving a free-speech opposition to a state smoking ban, according to attorney A. Bruce Jones, who said his theater-company clients have not ruled out seeking a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the topic.
OK Health Plan, School Lunch Meat Standards Named "Best, Worst Prevention Ideas of the Week"
Oklahoma’s new plan to improve the state’s health system has been named Partnership for Prevention’s “Best Prevention Idea of the Week,” while school lunches that don’t meet the quality or safety standards of many fast-food restaurants was named “Worst Prevention Idea of the Week.”
The Best/Worst Idea awards are a regular feature of Prevention Matters, the blog of Partnership for Prevention. Each week, Partnership for Prevention's staff will choose the designees based on nominations of items in the previous week's news submitted by members, staff and the public at large. To submit a nomination or for more information, contact Damon Thompson at dthompson@prevent.org.
BEST
Oklahoma Unveils Health Improvement Plan
Oklahoma state officials have unveiled a plan to improve its health system, with an emphasis on improving children's health and reducing obesity and tobacco use. The plan identifies four infrastructure areas in the state's health system that need to be improved: financing of public health programs, the effectiveness of the health care system, work force development and access to public health services.WORST
Fast-Food Standards for Meat Top Those for School Lunches
The federal government is providing the nation's schools with millions of pounds of beef and chicken that wouldn't meet the quality or safety standards of many fast-food restaurants. USA TODAY found that, from late November 2008 through January this year, the US Department of Agriculture bought nearly 500,000 pounds of ground beef with unusually high levels of an indicator bacteria known as "generic E. coli." The government also accepts beef with more than double the limit set by many fast-food chains for total coliform, which is used to assess whether a beef producer is minimizing fecal contamination in its meat.Monday, December 14, 2009
Unprecedented Community Prevention Initiatives Included in Reform Bill
Suzanne Bohan and Sandy Kleffman write in the Contra Costa Times about "unprecedented — yet uncontroversial — disease prevention initiatives whose inclusion has been lost in the rancorous debate over health care reform legislation working its way through Congress."
Such initiatives provide federally funded security guards at dangerous neighborhood parks and federal grants to poor neighborhoods to build grocery stores or to keep school gyms open after hours.
"The prevention provisions mark a victory for advocates and federal lawmakers who for years have unsuccessfully sought more federal funding to close the gap in health disparities and life expectancies between richer and poorer Americans," Bohan and Kleffman write.
PBS to Air "Anatomy of a Pandemic"
PBS is airing a special entitled the “Anatomy of a Pandemic” which will explore the science and policy of this year’s swine flu pandemic, from federal vaccination headquarters to big city hospital emergency rooms. Please visit the web site at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/pandemic/ for more information and local listings.
Among those listed who will be interviewed include:
Anthony Fauci
o Fauci, a director at the National Institutes of Health, relates his greatest disease fears, and what health officials are watching for in the future.
· Barbara Ferrer
o Ferrer, head of the Boston Public Health Commission, says minorities and the poor are seeing the worst of H1N1.
· Anne Schuchat
o Schuchat, director of CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, talks about the challenges of the H1N1 pandemic.
· Michael Osterholm
o Flu expert Dr. Michael Osterholm grades the U.S. response to the pandemic so far.
· Barbara Loe Fisher
o Fisher, of the National Vaccine Information Center, urges parents to take an active role in learning about vaccines.
Two of the stories featured on the web site include:
· A pregnant pediatrician who continues to see flu patients.
· Tough choices for the mother of an H1N1 patient.
Delaware Governor Takes His Anti-Obesity Act "On the Roads"
As part of his effort to fight obesity statewide, Delaware Governor Jack Markell has issued an executive order that requires state transportation officials to consider all modes of getting around when planning road improvements. The state also is circulating a handbook that gives municipal officials hands-on advice to create more walkable communities.
The governor is incorporating the state's new five-year strategic plan to make environmental changes that make it easier for people to make healthy choices. At the state Department of Transportation, new road projects won't include just engineering for road design. State officials also look to see if the project can be modified to be more bike- and pedestrian-friendly.
"It sounds so easy," said Jennifer Baldwin, the state pedestrian coordinator-planner. "But historically, departments of transportation ... have focused on motor vehicles."
In Delaware, 36 percent of adults overweight and 28 percent were obese in 2007, while the obesity rate among high school students has climbed from 10.1 percent to 13.2 percent in eight years and 20 percent of those students say they get no physical activity.
Drinking Fat - The Video
The New York City Department of Health and Hygiene raised a lot of eyebrows last summer with a subway advertisement that showed a soda bottle pouring globs of human fat into a drinking glass. The intent was to shock New Yorkers into choosing low calorie beverages over soda and sweetened juices.
They've now returned with a sequel of sorts - a video ad. The video, posted on YouTube and the Department of Health website, shows a smiling man pour a soda can full of fat into a large drinking glass and then chug down very realistic blobs of fat, which drip down his face. It's accompanied by captions indicated that as little as one sugary drink consumed a day can add 10 pounds a year to a person's weight. Then the video shows viewers what ten pounds of fat look like if it were slopped onto a dinner plate.
“Sugary drinks shouldn’t be a part of our everyday diets,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, New York City Health Commissioner. “This video is playful, but its message is serious. Sugar-sweetened beverages are fueling the obesity epidemic, and obesity is disabling millions of New Yorkers."
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