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L.A. Times, NYT Opinion Pieces Discuss International Women's Health Issues
The Los Angeles Times and the New York Times recently published opinion pieces examining issues related to international women"s health. Summaries appear below.~ Michelle Goldberg, Los Angeles Times: The solution to addressing issues of over-population and under-population in various parts of the world is "giving women more control over their fertility and their lives," Goldberg, author of "The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World," writes in a Times opinion piece. Goldberg says that both problems are "symptoms of countries" failures to meet women"s needs." Citing United Nations data, Goldberg writes that the world"s population is growing at an "unsustainable" rate of 78 million people annually, and it will probably continue to increase by 70 million or 75 million annually through 2020. Almost all of that growth will occur in developing countries, she says. "The ethical and effective way to counter rapid population growth is to bolster women"s rights and improve their access to family planning," as well as access to education, Goldberg writes, adding that "study after study has found that girls who go to school marry later and have fewer, healthier children." Meanwhile, some developed countries -- including Japan, Russia, Italy and Spain -- are seeing a decline in birth rates, a fact that some social conservatives are using "to argue for restrictions on women"s rights." According to Goldberg, "Fertility is reaching dangerously low levels in countries where social attitudes and institutions haven"t caught up with women"s desire to combine work and family. When faced with men who are unwilling to share domestic burdens, inflexible workplaces and day-care shortages, many women respond by having fewer children." However, "when societies make it possible for women to combine having children with pursuing their other ambitions, fertility rates are fine," Goldberg says. She adds, "Give women freedom and support, and they will find reproductive equilibrium, so that when societies do shrink or grow, they do so in a manageable way" (Goldberg, Los Angeles Times, 5/17).~ Nicholas Kristof, New York Times: About 500,000 women "die annually from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth without attracting much interest because the victims are typically among the most voiceless people in the world: impoverished, rural, uneducated and female," Kristof writes in a Times opinion piece. He adds, "It"s no mystery how to save the lives of pregnant women; what"s lacking is the will and res." Kristof writes that Sierra Leone, which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, "is now making progress with the help of the United Nations Population Fund." Former President George W. Bush cut off U.S. funding for UNFPA, but President Obama has restored the funding. Kristof adds that a bill (H.R. 1410) that would "establish American leadership in this area ... has attracted pathetically little attention." He continues that if the lives of women in West Africa "were a priority, there would be many simple ways to keep them alive," such as providing them with bed nets to help protect against malaria or iron tablets to fight anemia at a cost of "just a few dollars" (Kristof, New York Times, 5/17).
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Another JDRF Partner Moves Research Forward With Collaboration Agreement For Diabetes Treatment
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation said recently that for the fourth time in 18 months, one of its biotech partners has signed a collaboration agreement with a large pharmaceutical company to move research on type 1 diabetes into the final phases of trials.
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HHS Rescinds Medicaid Regulations
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the administration will rescind all or part of three Medicaid regulations that were previously issued and delay the enforcement of a fourth regulation. Each of these rules, in whole or in part, had been subject to Congressional moratoria set to expire on July 1, 2009.
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University Of Florida Gets Nearly $26 Million To Speed Scientific Discoveries To Patient Care

The University of Florida will receive nearly $26 million over five years to speed the transformation of scientific discoveries into medical advances for patients. In winning the competitive National Institutes of Health"s Clinical and Translational Science Award, UF joins a prestigious national consortium of medical research institutions, whose membership will be capped at 60 by 2012. UF is the only university in Florida to get the award, which will be geared toward accelerating scientific discovery, enhancing medical care, producing highly skilled scientists and physicians and fostering partnerships with industry, university officials said. The grant will support multidisciplinary research in a wide range of fields such as biomedical informatics, gene therapy, aging, nanotechnology and infectious diseases. Awardees are poised to become much more competitive than other institutions by offering stronger research programs in addition to basic medical training, securing more NIH funding and attracting and retaining skilled faculty. And the community benefits - every $5 million in annual research funding leads to about 100 new jobs and $20 million in incremental business activity, according to estimates from the nonprofit Families USA organization. "Lots of things can happen with this grant that might not have happened - or happened as well - without it," said Peter Stacpoole, M.D., Ph.D., director of UF"s Clinical and Translational Science Institute and the grant"s principal investigator. The CTSI, a partnership of several entities both within the university and in the wider community, will coordinate the grant, administered through the NIH"s National Center for Research Res. The CTSI also is supported by $23 million from the UF Office of Research and $70 million in commitments from the College of Medicine. "This award is an endorsement of UF"s leading-edge research efforts and its contributions to health-related fields," said Win Phillips, UF"s vice president for research. "The strong research efforts of UF faculty will provide the foundation for enhanced translational and bench-to-bedside research leading to contributions to health care that is the focus of this highly competitive program." The impact of the resulting discoveries will extend beyond academia to industry, government and the nation. In addition, discoveries that are developed commercially can generate royalty streams for the university. "By attracting external funding, whether from federal agencies such as NIH or CDC, or from foundations or industry, new dollars come into Florida from outside the state - this leads to new jobs and a ripple effect in the local economy," said David Guzick, M.D., Ph.D., UF"s senior vice president for health affairs and president of the UF&Shands Health System. Guzick was principal investigator on the University of Rochester"s CTSA grant, presented in the first set of awards in 2006. By incorporating 12 of the university"s colleges, the largest health-care system in the Southeast and the nation"s largest two-division Veterans Affairs health system, the CTSI seeks to transform how scientific research is carried out, by emphasizing broad collaborations. The partnership comprises UF"s Gainesville and Jacksonville campuses, including the colleges of Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and Health Professions, Veterinary Medicine, Fine Arts, Journalism and Communications, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Health and Human Performance and Agriculture and Life Sciences; as well as the Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences with its 67-county network of extension programs, which will engage citizens in educational activities and participatory research. Shands HealthCare and the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System also help to extend the institute"s res and services across the state. "We"ll use those as ways to engage the community and make the CTSI a statewide re," Stacpoole said. "It"s a truly fundamental - from the roots up - transformation of how we do research and training." University of Florida


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