Prevention Matters

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued updated Sexually Transmitted Diseases Treatment Guidelines—2010. The guidelines appear in the December 17, 2010 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Recommendations and Reports.

The Guidelines, which were previously issued in 2006, are based on newly available evidence and serve as a source of clinical guidance and advise health care providers on the most effective treatment regimens, screening procedures, and prevention and vaccination strategies for STDs. The new guidelines include expanded STD prevention recommendations, including HPV vaccination; revised guidance on the diagnostic evaluation and management of syphilis; revised gonorrhea treatment regimens; and other topics.

Over 19 million cases of STDs occur in the United States each year, with a disproportionate share among young people and racial and ethnic minority populations. The estimated annual direct medical costs of treating STDs and their sequelae are $16.4 billion. Left untreated, STDs can cause serious health problems ranging from infertility to increased risk of HIV infection. Partnership for Prevention is working through the National Chlamydia Coalition (NCC) to address the continued high burden of chlamydia infection, especially among women age 25 and under. For more information on the NCC, visit www.prevent.org/ncc.

The Guidelines are available at www.cdc.gov/std/treatment/2010/. For more information, contact 800-CDC-INFO (800-232-4636) or e-mail cdcinfo@cdc.gov.


Susan K. Maloney, MHS
Managing Senior Fellow and Senior Program Officer

"Best and Worst News for Prevention” is based on a purposive sample consisting of expert staff members who each week choose to share their opinions on the best and worst news for prevention.

BEST

Drinking Beet Juice Increases Blood Flow to Brain and May Fight Dementia

Drinking beet juice increases blood flow to the brain in older people, a finding that suggests the dark red vegetable may fight the progression of dementia, a new study shows.

Beet roots contain high concentrations of nitrates, which are converted into nitrites by bacteria in the mouth. And nitrites help open blood vessels in the body, increasing blood flow and oxygen to places lacking in oxygen.


WORST

Many Higher-Income Parents Forgoing Kids' Vaccinations: Report


Vaccination rates for children insured by commercial plans dropped almost four percentage points between 2008 and 2009, even though the rate of children on Medicaid getting vaccinated is rising.

"Rates had been gradually improving in the commercial plans. This was the first time we'd seen a drop -- and it was a pretty big drop," said Sarah Thomas, vice president of public policy and communication for the National Committee for Quality Assurance, which recently released its annual State of Health Care Quality report.


The “Best and Worst” awards are announced each week in “Prevention Matters,” the blog of Partnership for Prevention. "Best and Worst News for Prevention” is based on a purposive sample of expert staff members who each week choose to share their opinions on the best and worst news for prevention. More information is available at http://www.prevent.org/.

Robert J. Gould, PhD, President and CEO and Jason M.M. Spangler, MD, MPH, Senior Program Officer were interviewed this morning by Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a cardiologist and women's health expert at NYU Medical Center, on her radio show, "Doctor Radio", carried by Sirius XM Radio. The broadcast garnered interest from the public, as several people called/emailed in with specific screening questions.

In addition to fielding questions, Dr. Gould and Dr. Spangler discussed Partnership’s mission and stressed the importance of prevention. Dr. Gould and Dr. Spangler highlighted the critical work Partnership is accomplishing in the areas of tobacco cessation and control, vaccines, and aspirin use. Dr. Goldberg is a member of Partnership’s Aspirin Task Force, an advisory group tasked with increasing aspirin counseling and aspirin use for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Gould and Dr. Spangler also touched on the new regulations that require insurance plans to provide United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) A and B recommended preventive services without cost sharing. These regulations will begin to remove barriers to access to preventive care.

The interview will be re-broadcast today at 5 pm Eastern, Friday July 16 at 5 am Eastern and Sunday July 18 at 5 am Eastern on Sirius channel 114 and XM channel 119.

If you don't have a Sirius or XM subscription, you can sign up for a 7-day free trial period by visiting this website: www.sirius.com/freetrial/register. We hope you will tune in.

As the decade of the "oughts" is ending and the decades of the "teens" is about to begin, the media will no doubt be full of retrospective looks back over the past 10 years. The Daily Beast's Max Read has jumped into the fray, assembling a list of what he deemed to be the decade'[s 21 biggest medical breakthroughs. Prevention accounted for five of them. Those five are as follows:

• HPV Vaccine
• Human Vaccine against Bird Flu
• Discrediting the link between Autism and Childhood Vaccination
• Circumcision Discovered to Help Prevent HIV
• Pentacel - the 5-in-1 Childhood Vaccine

Anybody  have other ideas? Share them with us.