"Health & Medical News"

Washington — The push to prevent impending Medicare physician pay cuts is being advanced by a new bill that would block such reductions for 18 months.

The legislation, called the Save Medicare Act of 2008, would continue a 0.5% physician pay update for the last six months of 2008 and would institute a 1.8% update for 2009. Physicians are slated to receive a 10.6% cut starting July 1 and an additional cut of about 5% in 2009.

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U.S. drug czar John Walters recently warned that Canadian suppliers are shipping ecstasy pills laced with methamphetamine across the border to the U.S., the Windsor Star reported Jan. 4.

“Historic progress against ecstasy availability and use is in jeopardy of being rolled back by Canadian criminal organizations,” said Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). “Desperate to develop their client base, they are dangerously altering a product for which demand by youth and young adults had plummeted and are exploiting vulnerabilities along our shared border. This is alarming for the youth of both Canada and the United States.”

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The president of Great Britain’s Royal College of Physicians said that alcohol education efforts have failed and that the only way to prevent excessive drinking is to raise alcohol prices, ban alcohol advertising, and reduce availability, Reuters reported Dec. 21.

The Royal College’s Ian Gilmore joined liver specialist Nick Sheron of Southampton University Hospital issued a statement saying, “To suggest, as producers and retailers do, that increasing the price of alcohol would not reduce alcohol-related harm goes against the evidence and the fundamental principles of marketing — product, price, promotion, and place.”

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AIDG is a wonderful organization and they are having an event tomorrow in NYC. Please pass this onto your networks:

“The Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG) helps individuals and communities get affordable and environmentally sound access to electricity, sanitation and clean water.?  Through a combination of business incubation, education, and outreach, we help people get technology that will better their health and improve their lives.”
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Women who consume alcoholic drinks daily face an increased risk of breast cancer, Reuters reported Sept. 27.

Researchers found that women who had one or two alcoholic drinks daily had a 10-percent increased risk of breast cancer, while risk of the disease rose 30 percent among those who had three or more drinks daily.

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The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says a drug-interdiction campaign by Mexico’s government has cut cocaine supplies in 26 U.S. cities and resulted in a 29-percent price increase on the streets, USA Today reported Sept. 13.

The DEA said that the crackdown by the Calderon government in Mexico has also resulted in a decline in cocaine purity in the U.S. cities since September 2006. Cocaine prices are the highest since April 2005, when DEA began tracking price and purity.

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Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California say that women who have more than two alcoholic drinks daily face twice the risk of endometrial cancer as those who drink moderately or not at all, the New York Times reported Sept. 18.

Endometrial cancer affects the tissue linking the uterus. It kills about 7,400 women in the U.S. annually.

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Drug trafficking funds 18 of the 42 groups considered terrorist organizations by the U.S. government, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says.

The AFP reported Sept. 9 that DEA chief of operations Michael Braun said that terrorist groups turn to drug revenues because most states have ceased funding their activities, and because drug trafficking is so profitable.

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