Discovery’s Animal Planet has debuted a new television series titled “Monsters Inside Me,” chronicling some of the bacterial and parasitic infections that affect millions around the world, demonstrating how truly devastating and debilitating these infections can be. The show also describes treatments that are available to the billions suffering from these diseases in the developing world. Those studying neglected tropical diseases continue to develop accessible treatments against these tiny “monsters.”
Marion County, Indiana has seen an increase in domestic violence, possibly due to the stress that has accompanied the economic recession. Jacquelyn Campbell, PhD, a Rogers Society Global Health Ambassador, uses her research on domestic violence to make recommendations that could help alleviate this public health threat. A recent article in the Indianapolis Star looks at the stories of abuse victims with protective orders against their abusers.
Another shortcoming, experts say, is that the system often fails to identify subjects of protective orders who are highly dangerous. That’s something Campbell said could be done by evaluating domestic violence offenders or having victims complete a risk assessment.
Join Research!America and support the Rock Stars of Science, a new campaign created by the Geoffrey Beene Foundation in partnership with GQ magazine. It brings rock stars together with some of the nation’s leading medical researchers to advocate for greater research funding and bridge the recognition gap for scientists among the public. The campaign was sparked by a Research!America poll finding (pdf) that 74% of Americans cannot name a living scientist.
Sign the Rock S.O.S Declaration urging stronger research funding. Research!America and the Beene Foundation will deliver all signatures to Congress in the fall to show the public support for science.
Nominate a “rock star of science” to make the public more aware of the outstanding work of our nation’s best scientists.
Dorman then introduced Elias Zerhouni as a “brilliant innovator in the field of radiology, having developed imaging techniques to diagnose cancer and cardiovascular disease, broadened the scope of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and refined computerized axial tomography imaging (CAT scans) to improve cancer cell detection.”
Zerhouni is a radiologist and was director of the US National Institutes of Health from 2002 to 2008. At the National Institutes of Health he helped the passage of several health acts through US Congress. He is currently Johns Hopkins University’s senior adviser in the School of Medicine.
President Obama has called for questions on health care reform that he will address in a Wednesday online town hall meeting, according to a White House blog post.
Submit questions through Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, like Research!America’s President Mary Woolley. Woolley asked President Obama how research to improve health would be made a priority in the discussions about health care reform.
Urge your members of Congress to support robust funding for NIH, CDC, AHRQ and NSF in FY 2010. This Independence Day recess offers an ideal opportunity to speak with your representative and senators and let them know that investing in research is critical to the health of Americans and the economy.
Meet with, call or write to your delegation in support of a funding increase of at least 10% for NIH in FY 2010 with the goal of reaching an annual appropriation of $40 billion as soon as possible. Other essential investments for research to improve health are increasing CDC’s core program budget by $2 billion, establishing a base funding level of $405 million for AHRQ and increasing the NSF budget by 8.5% to $7 billion.
Time is of the essence because the House of Representatives will begin consideration of the appropriations bill for NIH, CDC and AHRQ on July 8. Take action now!
Comparative effectiveness research (CER) received $1.1 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for research to assess the comparative effectiveness of health care treatments and strategies. The Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research was created to coordinate efforts by the National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; conduct public listening sessions and deliver a report to Congress outlining their research priorities. This report (PDF) was released today.
“This essential patient centered research will help give patients and doctors more information so they can make the best decisions,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “The council has produced an important tool that will help us better target our investments in this vital area of health care research. I was impressed by the amount of public input that was incorporated into their report; especially the focus on funding research for populations who have been left behind or left out.”
Research!America Board member Elias Zerhouni, MD, is quoted, as are Dr. Richard D. Klausner, a former director of the National Cancer Institute, and Dr. Raynard S. Kington, acting director of the NIH.
Rock Stars of Science, a new public service campaign, brings rock stars together with some of the nation’s leading medical researchers to advocate for greater research funding. Rock S.O.S aims to bridge the recognition gap for Americans and scientists. A recent Research!America poll found that 74% of Americans couldn’t name a living scientist:
Here are some choices for text to use to promote the site:
Rock Stars of Science – scientists and rock stars band together. Nominate your rock star of science. Sign the declaration urging Congress to make research and science a higher priority.
Rock Stars of Science: Our most brilliant scientific minds are dedicated to finding cures for the diseases that threaten our future, and America’s most celebrated Rock Stars stand behind them.
The National Science Foundation awarded almost $400,000 for two research projects designed study the economic impacts of science initiatives funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
Researchers at the University of Virginia will study the impact of stimulus funding on employment in science and engineering fields, and the University of Michigan will develop a database of the investments in and outcomes of social science projects funded by the ARRA.
The awards are the first of several NSF grants to study aspects of the government’s economic stimulus package. Additional awards will be released shortly. See the NSF press release.
Anne Goldfeld, MD, an infectious disease physician at Harvard Medical School and Ambassador in the Paul G. Rogers Society for Global Health Research, has paired with photographer James Nachtwey to provide an eye-opening picture of tuberculosis in Cambodia. Nachtwey’s photographs and text by Goldfeld are featured in an exhibit at the Max-Planck-Institute for Infection-Biology in Berlin.
“Jim’s photos do many things at once—they show the horror of TB and AIDS and the desperate need for new treatments and vaccines. But ultimately they also show the strength of the human
spirit—the patients’ will to live and fight despite finding themselves in the worst conditions possible—and they show the compassion of countless health workers and family members.”
An article about the exhibit is available here with a subscription.
Geoffrey Beene Gives Back and GQ Magazine have launched Rock Stars of Science (ROCK S.O.S), a public service campaign bringing rock stars together with some of the nation’s leading medical researchers to advocate for greater research funding.
The June issue of GQ Magazine kicks off the initiative with a six-page photo spread, which features Sheryl Crow; former National Human Genome Research Institute Director Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD; Aerosmith’s Joe Perry; presidential adviser Harold Varmus, MD; Josh Groban; Harvard University researcher Rudy Tanzi, PhD; and many others.
“Scientists like to tell ourselves that we are too busy to worry about image,” Collins said in a Rock S.O.S press release. “But the reality is that our work only has a chance of making a difference if we build a much broader base of popular support.”
Meryl Comer, president of the Geoffrey Beene Gives Back Alzheimer’s Initiative and ROCK S.O.S campaign coordinator, said, “ROCK S.O.S will help mobilize Americans in a number of ways to end this moment in history when our greatest minds and dedicated public servants are too often overlooked.”
Geoffrey Beene is a designer menswear brand that donates 100% of its profits to philanthropic causes.
See www.rockstarsofscience.org, launched today, for more information about the project, profiles of the rock star scientists and to sign a declaration calling for more funding for science research. Visitors to the site can also sign up to become a part of Research!America’s advocacy network to receive updates about taking action and contacting Congress to increase federal funding for research.
Seed Magazine and The Council on Competitiveness came together at Washington DC’s Newseum yesterday, inviting leaders from academia, business, government and non-profit organizations to discuss and spark new ideas about how new partnerships in science and innovation can address challenges faced by the U.S. and the world.
The State of Innovation Summit was broken into panels and “show and tell” sessions by individuals doing inspiring work and culminated in a lengthy “town hall” session, in which Twitter users following the summit online were invited to submit their questions via the #sois hashtag to screens visible to all the attendees. The town hall session filled some important holes in the day’s discussions, such as funding innovation through more stable science funding and the current opportunities for innovation in health care.
My favorite panel, titled Watercooler 3.0, included George Campbell, PhD, president of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, David Nicholson, PhD, of the Schering-Plough Corporation, Ray Orbach, PhD, formerly of the U.S. Department of Energy and Geoffrey West, PhD, of the Santa Fe Institute. Their discussion took on the theme of breaking down boundaries that prevented innovation. Campbell believed that literally breaking down walls between academic disciplines would facilitate new partnerships, saying that we needed this collaboration because “problems facing the world cross many boundaries.” Orbach stressed that partnerships between government and business were not about “corporate welfare,” but a two-way relationship.
Everyone at the Summit agreed that innovation was a good thing, but it seemed that one of the challenges of sparking innovation would be to decide what it really means. Occasionally, panelists talked past each other, each relying on a different assumption of what innovation is. Is innovation in the realm of education, entrepreneurship, invention, creativity, delivery, risk-taking, or some combination of these?
The Campaign for Public Health and the Congressional Study Group on Public Health held a briefing today on the provisions for health information technology in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). David Blumenthal, MD, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the Department of Health and Human Services, spoke at the event.
Blumenthal discussed the $45 billion included in ARRA that will provide incentives to health care providers to adopt health information technology and develop standards for meaningful use, the specifics of which are still being determined. Health IT, said Blumenthal, “should make it easier for the clinical side and the public health side to work together as never before.” In his view, the way the government is viewing these technologies is an “important and historic change” that will improve population and individual health through improvements in efficiency and performance in our health care system.
Emphasized throughout the briefing was the role of the states in the adoption of health IT. States already play a critical role in collecting public health data, monitoring public health and public education. At least $300 million of the ARRA funds is required to go to the states, said Blumenthal, and will promote health information exchange and create “extension centers” where health care providers can go to find out the newest information.
Blumenthal described the challenges that his agency is going through to develop not just the definition of “meaningful use” of health IT, but also standards and certifications for meaningful use that will connect it to public health components and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s work in comparative effectiveness research.
In the end, said Blumenthal, the government is only one piece of the solution for creating a more efficient and effective health care system. “Patients have to get involved in asking for a modern form of practice, and [health IT] is part of modern, 21st century health care.”
Blumenthal also spoke about health IT to the Congressional Health Care Caucus this week. A video of his remarks is available here.
And any reform must include a changed approach toward delivering dental care — a move away from the old model of treating decay and disease and toward disease prevention and oral-health promotion, [Allen] Finkelstein [chief dental officer for AmeriChoice, a UnitedHealth Group company] said.
For reform to be most effective, dentists and public-health experts must be active participants in the discussion, said Dushanka Kleinman, a dentist and associate dean for research and academic affairs at the University of Maryland School of Public Health.
While much of the article focuses on delivery of care, it’s important to remember that oral health research must also be addressed as well as health services research on the best ways to deliver care.
Research!America has several members in dental health and research, including some of those quoted in the article.
The National Institutes of Health has made the RePORT Expenditures and Results (RePORTER) system available to the public. It can also be accessed from the RePORT home page. The system provides information on NIH-funded research, including abstracts, publications and patents.
A new feature is the ability to search for grants funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). NIH also created a page for ARRA reports, available from the new Recovery Act icon on the RePORT home page. This includes a map of ARRA awards by state and congressional district.
… NIH research is the primary source of new therapies and treatments for major chronic diseases, many of which were viewed as relatively untreatable in the 1950s. NIH research is also important in developing preventative and screening strategies to support public health interventions. These correlations are examined 1938 to 2004 for 4 major chronic diseases [cardiovascular disease (CVD), stroke, cancer, and diabetes] and the NIH institutes responsible for research for those diseases. This analysis shows consistent non-linear temporal correlations of funding to mortality rates across diseases. The economic implications of this are discussed assuming that improved health at later ages will allow projected declines in the rate of growth of the U.S. labor force to be partly offset by a higher rate of labor force participation in the U.S. elderly population due to reduced chronic disease risks and functional impairment.
For all but diabetes deaths, which have risen recently because of rising rates of obesity, they found an inverse correlation between budgets and age-adjusted death rates 10 years later. And when they plotted the total NIH budget versus overall mortality rates (see graph), they found an “excellent” regression fit. The researchers estimate that from 1950 to 2004, some 35 million deaths were avoided thanks to NIH. That’s a sizable number compared to the 131 million deaths in that period.
Federal funding for biomedical research saves lives. Not only that, but investment in research through the National Institutes of Health stimulates the economy by helping people stay healthy and productive. So says a new report published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (open access).
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The beauty of the NIH is that it supports both critical basic research and applied work on the interventions that help U.S. citizens live healthier lives.
Reach out to your congressional delegation using Research!America’s newest advocacy tool, Porter’s Principles (PDF). Research!America board chair and former member of Congress John Edward Porter shares key principles for a successful meeting in your representative or senator’s office. The resource also includes advocacy messages for making research to improve health a higher national priority.
Members of Congress need to hear from you - their constituent - about issues important to your community, such as research. Take advantage of the annual Independence Day congressional recess (June 29 - July 3) and make an appointment to meet with your elected official in their district office.
For details on how to make an appointment, have a successful meeting and key advocacy messages, check out Porter’s Principles (PDF).
Home Safety Council, a Research!America member, has launched a new Web site, HomeSafetyCouncil.org, to promote home safety month. The council has released results of a national survey about home accidents. Research is an important part of determining safe procedures, what works and what doesn’t.
Parents and caregivers need to take greater action in order to reduce the nearly 20,000 deaths and 21 million medical visits that result from home injuries on average each year. The Home Safety Council’s annual Hands on Home Safety campaign calls on families to take steps to prevent the leading causes of accidental home injury: falls, poisoning, fires/burns, drowning, and choking/suffocation. The new Web site offers simple and easy tips caregivers can follow to keep loved ones of all ages safe at home.
Yesterday, I attended panels at the Cato Institute’s Conference on Health Care Reform on health care delivery system reform and perspectives on reform from two U.S. Congressmen. The panel on reforming the health care delivery system was moderated by Susan Dentzer from Health Affairs and included speakers with business and health policy backgrounds who all agreed that the delivery system is broken and inefficient but differed on which aspects should be changed or rebuilt.
Shannon Brownlee, a fellow of the New American Foundation, and Alain Enthoven, PhD, emeritus professor of Stanford University, agreed that physicians lack the knowledge of how the efficacy of treatments over time. Brownlee pointed to a “lack of evidence” that creates this problem, and Enthoven thought that improved health records and coordinated care would allow the improvement of treatments over time.
Regina Herzlinger, PhD, of Harvard Business School saw the answer to delivery system reform in transitioning from care organized like “mom and pop” firms to a “focused factory” system, in which chronic diseases would be managed by integrated teams of caregivers and personnel. A small number of these “focused factories” in a region would be able to compete and hold each other accountable for quality of care. The general impression of Herzlinger’s solution was that it was innovative, but infeasible.
Kaiser Permanente and the Mayo Clinic were recurring themes in the conversation, both serving as examples of institutions that have cut costs and improved health records.
Representatives Michael Burgess (TX) and Jason Altmire (PA) gave their thoughts on health reform in a lunchtime panel. For Burgess, who was a practicing physician for years before entering Congress, affordability of care is a top priority because it impacts access to care. From his district’s perspective, concerns about the uninsured lead to the immigration debate, which Burgess thinks needs to be solved before solutions are created for health care reform. He wants to find a way to restructure the system without disrupting the people who are already happy with their health care.
Altmire began his remarks with the premise that we have the best health care system anywhere in the world, but it costs too much and the costs are unsustainable. He pointed out that prevention and wellness practices are not reaching the uninsured. Altmire believes that solutions for health care will be found in the middle of the political spectrum. In the discussion period, in which many questions in the audience came from physicians practicing across the country, Altmire said that younger, healthier people need to be driven into the health care system even if they do not need care right away.
Research!America board member and Former NIH Director 
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Reach out to your congressional delegation using Research!America’s newest advocacy tool, 