US health care worse by the decade: AlterNet

With quality and access of the US health care down, support for a national health care plan is growing, reports AlterNet. “New research by the Indiana University School of Medicine shows that 59 percent of doctors support legislation to establish a national health insurance system, up from 49 percent in 2002. Only 32 percent of doctors said they were opposed. A slightly lower percentage, 55 percent, agreed with a different question on what researchers considered “incremental” reform — that is, one that relies on tweaking the existing employer-based insurance system and filling in the gaps from there.”

Full report on AlterNet

Tags: healthcare, health insurance, USA

US set to spend $50bn against HIV

The US is set to spend $50bn to battle HIV/Aids in the next five years, reports BBC.

“The US House of Representatives has passed a bill to more than triple government spending in Africa and other badly affected parts of the world. The bipartisan measure, which is backed by the White House, was passed by 308 votes to 116. The bill marks a huge increase from the $15bn authorised during the first five years of an initiative launched by President Bush in 2003.”

Full report on BBC News site

Tags: HIV, HIV/AIDS, funding, Africa

The side-effects of doing good

Following the New York Times article about the head of the malaria programme at WHO complaining about the negative influence of Gates Foundation on research activities in public health, The Economist has published an analysis of the controversy… Here is an excerpt:

“At least in part, the gripes against the Gates Foundation are the churlish growls of a jealous crowd of bureaucrats and labourers at less influential charities. Some people at the WHO, a Geneva-based arm of the United Nations, openly worry that the foundation is setting up a new power centre that may rival their organisation’s authority. Such conspiracy theorists point to the foundation’s recent grant of over $100m to the University of Washington to evaluate health treatments and monitor national health systems—jobs supposed to be done by the UN agency.”