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Low Prevalence Of HPV Infection May Be Tied To Poor Prognosis For Blacks With Head And Neck Cancer
Researchers at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer have found that head and neck cancer patients who test positive for the human papillomavirus (HPV) have much better survival rates than patients who don"t have the virus, according to a new study in the journal Cancer Prevention Research. The researchers also discovered that blacks in the study had a very low rate of HPV infection, and consequently worse survival, which may explain why African-American patients traditionally have had a poor prognosis for head and neck cancer.

Potential For Noninvasive Brain Tumor Treatment
Duke University engineers have taken a first step toward a minimally invasive treatment of brain tumors by combining chemotherapy with heat administered from the end of a catheter.
News of the day
Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Feature Highlights Recent Blog Entries
"Blog Watch" offers readers a roundup of health policy-related blog posts.Appropriately, the last of the Senate Finance Committee"s three major public roundtables on health reform issues was on finance. Keith Hennessy lauds economist Kate Baicker"s testimony (.pdf) and says it helps connect reform ideas to a system of third-party payment. Hennessy says the current system leads people to "spend more of other people"s money than they do of their own, and less wisely." Hennessy explores the example of employer-sponsored insurance, which he says makes health insurance appear less expensive to employees than it is.Meanwhile, the New Republic"s Jonathan Cohn, who has been calling attention to potential ways of financing the significant cost of reform, recommends the testimony of Center on Budget and Policy Priorities President Robert Greenstein. Greenstein testified that there are no "painless" ways of raising money for reform, and said, "This leads to my first recommendation, in the form of a plea to the Committee. Please do not take any offset options off the table at this time. I believe you ultimately will need to put together a package that contains an array of spending and revenue offsets." Offsets could include removing or limiting the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance. Bob Lazsewski strenuously disagrees. He illustrates a post titled "Paying for a Big Part of Health Care Reform With New Taxes Would Be a Terrible Mistake!" with a graph of the trends in health insurance premiums over the last 20 years and says, "paying for most of health care reform by raising taxes would be nothing less than cowardly and fiscally irresponsible." He continues, "the Congress is so desperate to find money and so unwilling to anger any powerful health care special interests we better get ready for some interesting rationalizations to promote tax increases in the place of fundamental reforms."After the hearing, ranking member Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) gave a presentation at the Heritage Foundation on his preferences for bipartisan reform legislation and the Foundry"s Marguerite Higgins blogged Enzi"s key points. She says the senator wants to increase affordability, use private plans for coverage and ensure a bill is fully paid for.The White House appears to be initiating additional outreach efforts to mobilize support. Jose Antonio Vargas of the Washington Post"s Daily Dose reports that President Obama"s administration chose to send its first WhiteHouse.gov e-mail on health reform Wednesday. Vargas says, "It"s only fitting that Obama"s first official e-mail from the White House is about health care reform. As early as December, the incoming Obama administration began using new media tools to build grassroots support around the issue."Interesting elsewhere:
Sexual Health

Martinez: Medicare Fraud Fight Worthy Of Joint Agency Operation

U.S. Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) commended the Departments of Justice (DoJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS) for their decision to focus on detecting, preventing, and prosecuting Medicare fraud cases. "Medicare fraud is out of control - especially in my home state of Florida. Billions of dollars are lost every year to health care fraud - dollars that could otherwise be used to help care for the elderly and disabled. Any action to combat fraud is a good step," said Martinez, lead Republican on the Senate"s Special Committee on Aging. "Now Congress needs to act to provide the tools necessary to better identify fraud early and stem the tide of fraud that DoJ and other law enforcement agencies must later investigate and prosecute." This month, Senator Martinez introduced the Seniors and Taxpayers Obligation Protection or "STOP" act, which will work to reduce the billions of taxpayer dollars stolen every year by creating Medicare fraud prevention and detection systems. In particular, the STOP Act would protect seniors and doctors from identity theft, keep criminals from becoming Medicare providers, and strengthen data mining and matching to catch criminals currently in Medicare in real time. It would require the HHS to no longer use Social Security Numbers as the Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) on Medicare cards, thus reducing fraud and identity theft among seniors. The STOP Act will also help to improve HHS"s detection methods and place billing statements under increased scrutiny. "DoJ and HHS"s focus on Medicare fraud sends a signal to criminals and those contemplating engaging in fraud that there is a significant price to pay for committing Medicare fraud. I look forward to working with them and my colleagues in Congress to support strong fraud-fighting measures as we seek to reform health care," said Martinez. The Office of Senator Mel Martinez


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