Bush seeks 3630 billion for AIDS program
Wed, 30 May 2007 19:52:52 GMTWASHINGTON - President Bush urged Congress on Wednesday to authorize an additional $30 billion to fight AIDS in Africa over five years, doubling the current U.S. commitment.
The money would provide treatment for 2.5 million people under the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, Bush said.
Through March 31, the program has supported treatment for 1.1 million people in 15 countries, including more than 1 million in Africa, he said. The program's original five-year mandate, which called for spending $15 billion, expires in September 2008 and Bush asked Congress to renew it.
"When I took office, an HIV diagnosis in Africa's poorest communities was usually a death sentence. Parents watched their babies die needlessly because local clinics lacked effective treatments," the president said. "Once again, the generosity of the American people is one of the great untold stories of our time."
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the specific goals for the next five years — after Bush leaves office — call for treatment of 2.5 million people, prevention of more than 12 million new infections and the care of more than 12 million people, including 5 million orphans and children.
The president said the money "this money will be spent wisely," in nations where it can have the greatest possible impact and be sustainable.
Bush also announced that his wife, Laura, will visit four African countries — Zambia, Mali, Mozambique and Senegal — that have benefited from the U.S. program and report back to him on her findings. The trip will take place June 25-29.
The president's announcement comes before next week's annual summit of industrialized nations in Heiligendamm, Germany. Germany is pledging to make Africa a central issue and is calling for more aid, further debt relief and improved financial oversight.
NJ starting agency to battle obesity
Wed, 30 May 2007 14:14:59 GMTBy LINDA A. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey's health department is escalating the battle against the bulge by starting a new Office of Nutrition and Fitness to better coordinate programs to prevent obesity.
The agency is particularly needed in New Jersey — possibly the first state to create such a government body.
The Garden State has the highest percentage of overweight and obese children under age 5, at 17.7 percent, according to a 2004 survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Fred M. Jacobs, commissioner of the state Department of Health and Senior Services, said young people are a crucial target for the new agency because it's easier to instill good diet and exercise habits to prevent obesity in the young than to reverse weight problems later; adults almost always gain back any weight they lose — and then some.
Jacobs says he wants to tackle the obesity problem through education, support groups and encouraging physical activity, rather than by banning particular foods. One goal is to "de-normalize" the massive portions served in restaurants.
"I want to do that without creating a further stigma on individual people," Jacobs said. "It's bad enough when you're fat that people think less of you. I don't want the government piling on."
He is mulling the idea of having schools notify parents, via report cards, about children with weight problems.
Morton Downey, spokesman for The Obesity Society, which represents doctors, researchers and others in the field, said he knows of no other state with a dedicated agency fighting obesity, although federal grants in recent years have helped numerous states develop plans to fight obesity. He called New Jersey's initiative a very encouraging step that could become a national model.
"There's not really been an institutional base for people with ideas to go to gain support for their ideas" and funding for new programs, Downey said.
Obesity has become the country's No. 2 cause of preventable death, after smoking. Excess weight raises risk of heart disease and stroke, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, asthma, depression, arthritis and several types of cancer.
In New Jersey, almost 23 percent of residents are considered obese and another 37 percent are overweight, according to the http://www.nj.gov/health/fhs/documents/obesity_prevention.pdf
The Obesity Society: http://www.naaso.org/
UN offers new HIV testing guidance
Wed, 30 May 2007 12:06:34 GMTBy MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer
LONDON - Health professionals should routinely offer to test people for HIV instead of waiting for patients to request it, according to new advice from the United Nations Wednesday.
In making the recommendations, the World Health Organization and UNAIDS are underlining the need to identify the millions worldwide who need treatment. WHO estimates that approximately 80 percent of HIV-positive people in developing countries are currently unaware of their status.
"If we are serious about ensuring universal access to drugs, there has to be a fundamental change in the approach to HIV testing," said Dr. Kevin De Cock, director of WHO's AIDS department.
The UN now advises health workers to test patients for HIV as part of standard medical care, but only with the patient's informed consent.
Yet there are questions about how the cash-strapped countries in Africa might adopt these guidelines. Of the estimated 40 million people living worldwide with HIV/AIDS, nearly 65 percent are in Africa.
Because current estimates of the number of HIV/AIDS patients include people who don't know their status, experts do not expect the numbers to rise dramatically if more people are tested.
Though universal testing will certainly identify more HIV-positive people needing lifesaving anti-retrovirals, there is already a long waiting list: Nearly 5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are still without treatment.
Identifying more AIDS patients whom countries cannot afford to treat threatens to create an even bigger backlog of people who know they are sick, but have no access to care.
Most AIDS experts believe that increased HIV testing will help, even if the conditions are not perfect.
"No one wants a situation where people find out they're HIV-positive and can't get anti-retroviral treatment," said Jennifer Kates, vice president and director of HIV policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation. "But if we waited until everything was perfectly aligned, we would never respond."
Another benefit of testing: Past studies also have shown that once people are aware that they are HIV-positive, they tend to practice safer sex — which could give prevention efforts a boost.
Africa's weak health infrastructure, though, is a huge stumbling block. The continent urgently needs at least another 4 million health workers to fill the gap, according to WHO. Without doctors and nurses to administer the HIV tests or to provide the necessary treatment when patients are identified, such guidance will create even more stress for Africa's already fragile health systems.
Still, the new testing procedures should mean that HIV patients are found earlier.
"The biggest problem we have now is that our health care systems are overburdened with very sick people who come in too late," said Zackie Achmat, chairman of South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign.
"These new guidelines are long overdue," said Achmat. "We cannot deal with the burden on the health care service if we don't prevent people from becoming so sick that they become a supreme burden on it," he said.
Increased HIV testing and the treatment and infrastructure it ultimately entails will require more money, yet no new funds have been announced to help countries implement these policies.
The UN estimates that the fight against AIDS in 2007-2008 requires $22 billion, and there is still a considerable shortfall. Last year, the deficit for global AIDS programs was about $6 billion.
While health authorities would like to see the new UN recommendations adopted as soon as possible, much will depend on whether countries decide to follow their advice.
"I hope that countries start implementing this immediately," said WHO's De Cock. "But we know you can't just flip the switch and change everything in one day."
EU says Europeans are getting fatter
Wed, 30 May 2007 12:58:53 GMTBy RAF CASERT, Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS, Belgium - A majority of adults are obese or overweight in most European Union nations and kids increasingly contributing to make Europe a fat continent, the EU's top public health official said Wednesday.
"The numbers are frightening," said EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou.
Bad diets based on fatty and sweet ingredients combined with physical laziness by now account for six of the seven top factors leading to bad health, Kyprianou said.
The EU Commission has warned governments for years to do something about the culture of flab, but the situation is getting worse. "Everybody has to be blamed — including the authorities, including the industry, including the consumers."
His biggest worry at the moment is the increasing girth of kids. "If we don't act, today's overweight children will be tomorrow's heart attack victims," he said.
In the 27-nation bloc, the EU says that over 21 million children are overweight. "Even more worrying is that the rate of increase of that number is more than 400,000 children a year."
To counter the trend, the EU has already asked food multinationals to promote more healthy foods and says it has already obtained commitments to make many popular products.
But consumers consciously make bad choices too. Around the Mediterranean, a healthy diet based on olive oil and fresh fish is on the wane.
"Now the biggest problem of obesity is in the Southern member states who have abandoned the Mediterranean diet and go for same kind of nutrition of fast food as elsewhere," Kyprianou said.
Overall, the consumption of fruit and vegetables is lower than medical recommendations. The intake of fat and saturated fats is high throughout the continent. The consumption of cereals has fallen by a quarter since the 1960s in Europe.
It has contributed to a situation "in which the majority of the member states more than 50 percent of the adult population is overweight or obese."
On Wednesday, the Commission proposed to tighten advertising standards on unhealthy processed food. It called on the food industry to make greater effort in reformulating products by cutting sugar, fat and salt. And the Commission wants sports organizations to do more to draw kids into physical exercise.
Nowadays, even the best sports are missing their sweat he said. "A parent said that his son would go home and play basketball on the computer. They like the game but they won't play it."
"They sit in front of a television, the computer screen or play video games," he said. "It is a reality of life."
EU mulling tougher food ad labelling rules to fight obesity
Wed, 30 May 2007 17:43:01 GMTBRUSSELS - The European Commission said Wednesday it was considering tightening food advertising and nutrition labelling rules if companies failed to improve consumer awareness about unhealthy foods.
In a new drive against obesity, EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said he wanted to &;encourage&; food companies to provide consumers with full information about the health risks associated with their products.
But if they failed to improve the information available to consumers, he said &;we cannot exclude the possibility&; of setting tougher advertising and labelling rules on companies.
&;What consumers eat is up to them, but they should be able to make informed choices, and have a range of healthy options to choose from,&; said Kyprianou.
&;That is why the Commission is reviewing the options for nutrition labelling, and calling on industry to advertise responsibly and reduce levels of salt, fats and sugar in food products,&; he added.
The European Commission's new anti-obesity push is a response to growing evidence that Europeans, including a rising number of children, are too fat with over half estimated to be obese or overweight.
According to the World Health Organisation, obesity rates have more than trebled since the 1980s in many European countries as the average daily intake of calories has risen.
Of particular concern, was the growing prevalence of obesity among children, with over 21 million classified as obese across Europe.
&;We have to acknowledge the fact that children don't entertain themselves any more through physical activity,&; said Kyprianou, adding that they needed to be &;reintroduced&; to physical games.
