A U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday backed legislation that would give the Food and Drug Administration power to control the advertising and manufacturing of cigarettes and other tobacco products. The bill next goes to the full Senate for a vote. A similar measure passed the House of Representatives in April. The House and Senate would need to work out any differences before sending the legislation to President Barack Obama, who supports the effort. Passed mostly along party lines in a 15-8 vote, the measure would give the FDA new authority over the multibillion-dollar tobacco industry to restrict advertising to children, dictate package warnings and control nicotine content.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) played odds-maker on healthcare reform over breakfast Thursday, predicting a 75 percent to 80 percent chance that his panel will advance a bipartisan bill next month. Asked by a reporter what were the chances he would succeed in winning the support of senators from both parties, Baucus responded: “Very high. Very, very high. If you want me to put a percentage on that, I’d say it’s about 75, 80 percent. It’s very high.”
Dentists trained at the taxpayer's expense should be forced to spend up to half their time working for NHS patients, according to the conclusions of a new study. The report by the New Local Government Network said the radical step is needed to cope with a "crisis" in NHS dentistry which has left one in five people without access to treatment. It costs the taxpayer £175,000 to put dentistry students through five years of training, after which they are required to spend only the first year of their career as a qualified practitioner within the NHS. The report says that this represents a poor deal for taxpayers, with Government estimates suggesting that more than two million people who wish to access NHS treatment are currently unable to do so
Dentists should be able to fine patients who miss appointments, the Conservatives said yesterday. They warned that under a Tory government, anyone repeatedly failing to attend treatment visits will be charged as part of reforms to restore access to an NHS dentist for up to two million patients. Party chiefs want to scrap Labour's 'disastrous' dental system, which led to at least a million people losing NHS treatment. Other measures include incentives for dentists to spend more time on decay prevention, and the end of contracts that encourage them to carry out unnecessary 'target-driven' treatments.
The number of confirmed cases of the new Influenza A (H1N1) flu has risen to 10,243 and the death toll has edged up to 80, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday. Most of the new cases are in the United States, which has seen 5,469 outbreaks of the virus so far, the WHO said as it focuses on the H1N1 virus that has brought the world to the brink of a pandemic. Another 51 cases have also been reported in Japan, bringing the total number of cases there to 210 and potentially making it more likely that the WHO will declare a full pandemic after it raised its pandemic alert last month to 5 on a 6-level scale. Health ministers and experts at this week's WHO annual assembly have been discussing how to fight the virus with vaccines and drugs as well as what criteria the WHO should consider when deciding whether to raise the alert level.
Health chiefs in Wales are dealing with a "massive" measles outbreak, with numbers already four times the highest figure recorded over the past 13 years. Four nursery school children were treated in hospital as part of 127 cases across mid and west Wales, while there are another 39 cases in Conwy. The National Public Health Service (NPHS) in Wales saw 39 cases last year. Its highest figure in 2003 was 44. Officials appealed for parents to take up the MMR vaccine.
The British Dental Association (BDA) has responded to the publication of outline plans for the reform of NHS dentistry in England by the Conservative Party which have been released today. The plans, which are outlined in a document titled Transforming NHS dentistry, include commitments to improve access to dental care, scrap the unit of dental activity, reintroduce formal patient registration and reward preventive care given by dentists. The document also sees the Conservatives pledge to properly pilot any reforms.
In signing a higher education bill May 16, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty brought to a close a two-year debate over what have come to be known as "midlevel providers" and established a new dental team member, the dental therapist, to provide care to underserved populations. The Minnesota Dental Association says Senate File 2083 is the result of MDA holding to its principles and will ensure that new providers are integrated members of the dental team—as opposed to other unsupervised models like the Advanced Dental Hygiene Practitioner. "The MDA and its member dentists have worked hard over the past few months to ensure that principles for appropriate education, supervision, and scope of practice were maintained," said Dr. Lee Jess, MDA president. "We are pleased that our concerns were heard and that this new position is a workable program to reach those in need while ensuring high quality care."
No comments:
Post a Comment