"Health & Medical News"

U.S. anti-drug officials say that corrupt military leaders and others in Venezuela are working with Colombian drug cartels to smuggle cocaine into the U.S., the Washington Post reported Oct. 27.

No cocaine is cultivated in Venezuela, but about 220 tons of the drug are funneled through the country each year, bound for the U.S. and Europe, experts said. The Bush administration has treated the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a pariah, meaning there has been little cooperation between the governments to stop the flow of drugs. “The problem of drugs has gotten out of the hands of Venezuela,” said Mildred Camero, a former drug czar for Chavez. “Now the situation in Venezuela is grave, grave, grave. At some moment, we’re going to collapse.”

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Lawmakers have touted restrictions on sales of cold medicines containing ephedrine as a necessary price for preventing homegrown methamphetamine labs, but Texas officials say police aren’t following through on monitoring sales of medications that could be used to make meth.

The Austin American-Statesman reported Nov. 4 that Texas and federal law requires that buyers of drugs containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine — which can be used to make meth — must sign a log detailing their purchase. The log is intended to prevent multiple purchases of the drug, but many police and sheriffs agencies now say they don’t have time to review the records, blaming the absence of a centralized database of the information.

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Washington — Hopes that a two-year Medicare physician payment increase would head to the White House on the back of a popular children’s health insurance measure were dashed late last month. Lawmakers decided to remove the Medicare language from the bill.

The House and the Senate in early August passed legislation that would reauthorize and expand the expiring State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Unlike the Senate bill, the House version also included provisions that would raise Medicare physician payments by 0.5% in both 2008 and 2009 to prevent annual cuts required by law.

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