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UnitedHealth Group Offers 15 Recommendations To Reduce Federal Health Spending By $540B Over 10 Years
UnitedHealth Group"s Center for Health Reform and Modernization on Wednesday suggested 15 steps that could be taken to save $540 billion in federal in health care costs over the next 10 years, the AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports (Werner, AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5/27). Simon Stevens, head of the center, said that the report "puts some flesh on the bones" of the pledge made by health care industry groups earlier this month to cut health care costs, noting that the recommendations already are being used by UnitedHealth to reduce costs and can be applied to Medicare (Reuters, 5/27).The recommended steps include:

Daily Sex Helps To Reduce Sperm DNA Damage And Improve Fertility
Daily sex (or ejaculating daily) for seven days improves men"s sperm quality by reducing the amount of DNA damage, according to an Australian study presented to the 25th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Amsterdam.
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California Govenor Outlines Cuts To Address State's Budget Deficit Problems
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) outlined two budget proposals to address the state"s budget problems, and both plans would affect health care, the Los Angeles Times reports. The first proposal addresses the situation if California voters approve a set of special ballot measures intended to provide funds for fiscal year 2009-2010. The state would still face a $15.4 billion budget deficit even if voters approve the measures, and the second proposal addresses that scenario (Rothfeld, Los Angeles Times, 5/15). The governor proposed $750 million in cuts to Medi-Cal, the state"s Medicaid program, that would reduce eligibility and provider rates. The state would need to seek a federal waiver to implement the cuts. The governor also proposed eliminating eligibility for non-emergency Medi-Cal benefits for documented immigrants (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 5/15). Spending for centers that provide services to people with developmental disabilities would be cut by $234 million (Zapler, San Jose Mercury News, 5/14).If voters do not approve three ballot measures, Schwarzenegger outlined $800 million in additional cuts to health and human services programs, including a proposal to eliminate Healthy Families coverage for about 225,000 children. Healthy Families is California"s CHIP (Yi et al., San Francisco Chronicle, 5/15).
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Influenza Monitoring By The US Military

The recent global swine flu outbreak has underscored the critical need for good surveillance and access to rapid epidemiological data. The US military, starting with early monitoring efforts in the 1970s, has developed a broad-based influenza monitoring system. In an article published in the September 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers describe this little-known national jewel that has repeatedly made notable contributions to global influenza control through close collaboration with CDC, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the WHO, and many other partners. National concerns about emerging infectious diseases led to the creation of the Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (DoD-GEIS) in 1997. This program has 6 objectives relevant to influenza: (1) To isolate and identify circulating influenza viruses, (2) To detect new virus variants or subtypes for possible vaccine modification, (3) To identify influenza outbreaks, (4) To determine the incidence of influenza-like illness among sentinel military populations at high risk, such as basic training populations, (5) To prevent or control endemic and pandemic influenza outbreaks, and (6) To conduct global, operationally relevant, laboratory-based influenza surveillance. According to the Institute of Medicine, "The DoD - Global Emerging Infections System, through its avian influenza/pandemic influenza activities at the [DoD] overseas laboratories and headquarters, has contributed greatly to the development of laboratory and communications infrastructures within partner countries. Beneficial effects can be seen from current DoD-GEIS efforts in 56 countries to assist its public health partners in building capacity through training and support of laboratory and communications infrastructures." Writing in the article, Col. James Neville, MD, MPH, of the US Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, Brooks City-Base, Texas, and colleagues state, "During seven complete influenza seasons, the DoD Global Laboratory-Based Influenza Surveillance Programò€¦coordinated and expanded influenza surveillance efforts among the uniformed services and with DoD partner nations overseas, and operated in concert with WHO and CDC programs. As a result, the DoD and other global communities benefited from improved surveillance and expanded influenza laboratory and epidemiologic capability. The generated data and information supported timely, informed decision making in response to threats, expanded the data set used to select the components for seasonal influenza vaccines, and provided candidate seed viruses for possible use in influenza vaccines used worldwide." In a commentary in the same issue, Dr. Patrick W. Kelley, MD, DrPH, of the Institute of Medicine, The National Academies, notes that, "The somewhat unexpected emergence of novel H1N1 in Mexico, rather than in the anticipated Asian setting, highlights a lesson learned about the need for comprehensive global influenza surveillance. This is a lesson that geographically diverse foreign military health systems may be well-positioned to help address." He continues, "The success of the US DoD system, and the particular epidemiologic characteristics of military populations and military health systems, suggest that global influenza surveillance and response could be more comprehensive and informative if other military organizations around the world took advantage of their comparative organizational advantages to emulate, extend, and institutionalize the US DoD approach." The article is "Department of Defense Global Laboratory-Based Influenza Surveillance: 1998-2005" by Angela B Owens, MPH; Linda C Canas, BS; Kevin L Russell, MD, MTM&H; James Neville, MD, MPH; Julie A Pavlin, MD, PhD, MPH; Victor H MacIntosh, MD, MPH; Gregory C Gray, MD, MPH; and Joel C Gaydos, MD, MPH. The commentary is "A Commentary on the Military Role in Global Influenza Surveillance" by Dr. Patrick W. Kelley, MD, DrPH. Both appear in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume 37, Issue 3 (September 2009) published by Elsevier. The American Journal of Preventive Medicine


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