(Press-News.org) Washington, D.C. (28 February 2012)—The prospect of deep cuts in the federal budget threatens to reverse the dramatic progress of a bipartisan US commitment to defeat neglected diseases in developing countries, according to a new report released today by the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC).
Federal investments in global health research and development (R&D) programs that span multiple agencies have helped nurture an array of new vaccines, medicines, diagnostics, and other health products needed to combat diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis (TB), and childhood killers like pneumonia and diarrheal diseases. Despite these advances, President Obama's budget request for 2013 calls for several decreases for global health when compared with last year's levels. Several global health R&D programs at US agencies also saw drastic funding cuts.
There are widespread concerns that cuts to global health R&D programs, which support critical efforts to develop the next generation of lifesaving health products, could grow even larger, given the pressure to reduce the US budget deficit.
"[T]he budget climate in the United States continues to be severe, and US policymakers are beginning to implement austerity measures that could impact funding for global health R&D," the GHTC report stated. "Indeed, the continuing fiscal situation undoubtedly puts these programs at risk in the future, when global health R&D programs could see even more severe funding cuts than have already occurred."
According to the GHTC report, global health R&D projects are among the best investments US policymakers can make, which would make funding cuts even more devastating. Last year alone produced multiple research breakthroughs, including results from a trial showing that early antiretroviral treatment can prevent HIV transmission to uninfected partners and results from a Phase III malaria vaccine trial showing that the vaccine candidate known as RTS,S can provide young African children with significant protection against clinical and severe malaria.
"It would be ironic if widespread and unprecedented cuts in global health R&D were to take place just as past investments begin to bear fruit," said Kaitlin Christenson, MPH, GHTC's director. "US commitment was instrumental in eradicating smallpox and conquering polio and is now helping achieve unprecedented reductions in deaths from malaria and diarrheal diseases. Equally dramatic breakthroughs can be expected for a variety of other diseases if we continue to invest in research for new lifesaving health products."
GHTC, which represents 40 nonprofit organizations focused on developing new vaccines, drugs, and other disease-fighting tools for the developing world, warns that the future could look far different from the progress being made today. Its report, Sustaining Progress: Creating US policies to spur global health innovation, found that while the US commitment to global health R&D has bridged deep political divides in Congress and garnered particularly strong support from the last two presidential administrations, it is now confronting a major test.
The report notes that in the 2012 budget process, some individual global health R&D programs experienced reductions, alongside cuts to what are known as product development partnerships (PDPs)—relatively new and innovative types of public-private partnerships focused on developing drugs, vaccines, diagnostics, and other products specifically for patients in low-income countries. In addition, the report found that overall investments in global health R&D remained far short of what is actually needed.
Global health R&D is spread throughout the US government and includes research and product development efforts supported through a variety of programs at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Department of Defense (DoD), and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The GHTC report points out that the US is not alone in trying to balance the need to address fiscal constraints with maintaining a commitment to reducing global health disparities. The report cites the recent "Global Funding of Innovation for Neglected Diseases" survey, which found that in 2010, investments in R&D from all sources worldwide, public and private, fell by 3.5 percent. Public sector investments declined the most, dropping by 6 percent.
According to the GHTC report, "The rest of the world is struggling with the same global financial crisis that is challenging the United States." Further, "other major donors could be inclined to maintain their commitments if the United States persists." GHTC also recommends an increased emphasis on health-related R&D in major international development programs, such as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
According to the report, "US investments in global health research can produce real results, and the nation must persist in our efforts to develop the next generation of lifesaving health products. US leaders have the opportunity to seize on this bipartisan legacy and recent scientific advancements and stay focused on the end goal—saving lives around the world. The United States cannot give up now."
###
About the Global Health Technologies Coalition
The Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) is a group of 40 nonprofit organizations working to increase awareness of the urgent need for technologies that save lives in the developing world. These tools include new vaccines, drugs, microbicides, diagnostics, and other products. The coalition advocates for increased and effective use of public resources, incentives to encourage private sector investment, and streamlined regulatory processes. The GHTC is housed at PATH and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
END
Clean delivery kits combined with clean delivery practices could lead to substantial reductions in neonatal mortality in infants born at home, according to a study published in this week's PLoS Medicine.
The authors, led by Nadine Seward and Audrey Prost from the Institute of Child Health at University College London, analysed data from three previous studies to investigate the links between neonatal mortality, the use of clean delivery kits, and individual clean delivery practices in almost 20 000 home births in rural areas of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. The researchers ...
In this week's PLoS Medicine, Cleusa Ferri of King's College London Institute of Psychiatry, UK and colleagues report on their investigation of mortality rates in over 12 000 people aged 65 years and over in Latin America, India, and China. The authors show that chronic diseases are the main causes of death, with stroke the leading cause in almost all sites studied, and that education has an important effect on mortality.
The authors state: "Our findings are important in informing priorities to improve health and reduce deaths in older people…Given the much higher absolute ...
For mental health to gain significant attention, and funding from policymakers globally, it is not enough to convince people that it has a high disease burden but also that there are deliverable and cost-effective interventions – according to South African researchers writing in this week's PLoS Medicine.
Mark Tomlinson and Crick Lund from the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health based at the University of Cape Town, argue that global mental health must demonstrate its social and economic impact. The authors argue: "a coherent evidence base for scalable interventions ...
In their February editorial, the PLoS Medicine Editors reflect on recent research by Olav Lindqvist and colleagues which describes nonpharmacological palliative care for cancer patients in the last days of life. The qualitative study found that the approaches used by palliative care staff were multifaceted, with physical, psychological, social, spiritual, and existential care interwoven in caregiving activities. The Editors comment: "[Lindqvist and colleagues' findings] reveal the complex and sometimes subtle caregiving approaches that palliative care staff take to improve ...
The ability to detect and respond to magnetic fields is not usually associated with living things. Yet some organisms, including some bacteria and various migratory animals, do respond to magnetic fields. In migratory animals like fish, birds, and turtles, this behavior involves small magnetic particles in the nervous system. However, how these particles form and what they are actually doing is not fully understood.
In a new study, published February 28 in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology, Keiji Nishida and Pamela Silver of Harvard Medical School take a major ...
Some disease-causing parasites are known to favor one sex over the other in their host species, and such differences between the sexes have generally been attributed to differences in immune responses or behavior. But in a new article, published February 28 in the magazine section of the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology, David Duneau from Cornell University and Dieter Ebert from the University of Basel now propose that all sorts of characteristics that differ between the sexes of the host species can influence a parasite's adaptation.
These characteristics, such ...
Reconstructing family trees dating back to 1811, Dutch researchers have estimated the death risk for people with inherited heart rhythm disorders, according to a study in Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics, a journal of the American Heart Association.
Heart rhythm disorders can result in sudden cardiac death in apparently healthy people because of severe disturbances in the rhythm of the heart. The risk is high for people who carry one of these rare genes and have symptoms such as fainting.
Before the study, the risk in people without symptoms was less certain. Thus, ...
U-Jam Fitness, a cardio dance fitness program that unites world beats with urban flavor and takes students around the world from Hip-Hop to Bollywood, announced a special 90 minute class and celebration in honor of its two year anniversary.
U-Jam Fitness founders Susy C. Marks and Matt Marks launched the athletic dance fitness program in January 2010 to give students of all levels an intense and sweat-induced workout set to exciting, high energy music--a unique combination of world beats with urban rhythm. In just two years, the fitness program has exploded and now ...
Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have discovered a new 'off switch' in our immune response which could be boosted in diseases caused by over-activation of our immune system, or blocked to improve vaccines. The findings are published this week in the journal Nature Communications. The research was funded by Health Research Board, Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland.
The research team, led by Dr Anne McGettrick and Professor Luke O'Neill, at the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, have discovered that a protein, called TMED7, can shut down part of our immune ...
MONTREAL, February 28, 2012 – Research results published in Brain Injury by Université de Montréal neuropsychologist Dave Ellemberg reveal that adolescents are more sensitive to the effects of a sport-related concussion than adults or children. These kinds of injuries mostly affect their working memory – the brain function that enables us to process and store short-term information and that is essential for activities such as reading and mental calculation. "The frontal regions of the brain are more vulnerable to concussions. These areas oversee executive functions responsible ...
