DocuBase Article: World Health Statistics 2014

DocuBase Article: World Health Statistics 2014.

From the 19 May 2014 summary at DocuTicker

From Health-related Millennium Development Goals – Summary of Status and Trends:

With one year to go until the 2015 target date for achieving the MDGs, substantial progress can be reported on many health-related goals. The global target of halving the proportion of people without access to improved sources of drinking water was met in 2010, with remarkable progress also having been made in reducing child mortality, improving nutrition, and combating HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

Between 1990 and 2012, mortality in children under 5 years of age declined by 47%, from an estimated rate of 90 deaths per 1000 live births to 48 deaths per 1000 live births. This translates into 17 000 fewer children dying every day in 2012 than in 1990. The risk of a child dying before their fifth birthday is still highest in the WHO African Region (95 per 1000 live births) – eight times higher than that in the WHO European Region (12 per 1000 live births). There are, however, signs of progress in the region as the pace of decline in the under-five mortality rate has accelerated over time; increasing from 0.6% per year between 1990 and 1995 to 4.2% per year between 2005 and 2012. The global rate of decline during the same two periods was 1.2% per year and 3.8% per year, respectively.

Nevertheless, nearly 18 000 children worldwide died every day in 2012, and the global speed of decline in mortality rate remains insufficient to reach the target of a two-thirds reduction in the 1990 levels of mortality by the year 2015.

+ Direct link to document (PDF; 2.4 MB)

 

Two tables from the report

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Article] How Sweet It Is: All About Sugar Substitutes

How Sweet It Is: All About Sugar Substitutes.

 

From the 19 May 2014 FDA article

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Whether it’s to cut down on the number of calories they consume or any of a variety of other reasons, some people use sugar substitutes – also called high-intensity sweeteners – to sweeten and add flavor to their foods. They can be used alone to sweeten foods and beverages such as iced tea or coffee, or as an ingredient in other products. There are a number of sugar substitutes on the market from which to choose.

“Sugar substitutes are called ‘high-intensity’ because small amounts pack a large punch when it comes to sweetness,” says Captain Andrew Zajac, U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS), director of the Division of Petition Review at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

According to Zajac, unlike sweeteners such as sugar, honey, or molasses, high-intensity sweeteners add few or no calories to the foods they flavor. Also, high-intensity sweeteners generally do not raise blood sugar levels.

The FDA has approved a new high-intensity sweetener called advantame.

Advantame—which does not yet have a brand name (such as Sweet’N Low, a brand name for saccharin, or Equal, a brand name for aspartame)—has been approved as a new food additive for use as a sweetener and flavor enhancer in foods, except meat and poultry.

Examples of uses for which advantame has been approved include baked goods, non-alcoholic beverages (including soft drinks), chewing gum, confections and frostings, frozen desserts, gelatins and puddings, jams and jellies, processed fruits and fruit juices, toppings, and syrups.

How Do You Know It’s Safe?

FDA is required by law to review all new food additives for safety before they can go on the market. The process begins when a company submits a food additive petition to FDA seeking approval. One exception is for substances “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS, because those substances are generally recognized by qualified experts as safe under the conditions of intended use and are exempt from the food additive approval process.

Zajac explains that the agency’s scientists thoroughly review all the scientific evidence submitted by a company to ensure the product is safe for the intended use.

“In determining the safety of advantame, FDA reviewed data from 37 animal and human studies designed to identify possible toxic (harmful) effects, including effects on the immune, reproductive and developmental, and nervous systems,” Zajac says.

Advantame is chemically related to aspartame, and certain individuals should avoid or restrict the use of aspartame. To that end, FDA evaluated whether the same individuals should avoid or restrict advantame, as well.

People who have phenylketonuria (PKU), a rare genetic disorder, have a difficult time metabolizing phenylalanine, a component of both aspartame and advantame. Newborns are tested for PKU using a common “heel-prick” test before they leave the hospital.

Foods containing aspartame must bear an information statement for people with PKU alerting them about the presence of phenylalanine. But advantame is much sweeter than aspartame, so only a very small amount needs to be used to reach the same level of sweetness. As a result, foods containing advantame do not need to bear that statement.

Five Already on the Market

The last high-intensity sweetener approved by FDA was Neotame (brand name Newtame) in 2002. The other four on the market, and are:

• Saccharin, was first discovered and used in 1879, before the current food additive approval process came into effect in 1958. Brand names include Sweet‘N Low
• Aspartame, first approved for use in 1981. Brand names include Equal
• Acesulfame potassium (Ace-K), first approved for use in 1988. Brand names include Sweet One
• Sucralose, first approved for use in 1998. Brand name is Splenda

In addition to the six high-intensity sweeteners that are FDA-approved as food additives, the agency has received and has not questioned GRAS notices for two types of plant/fruit based high-intensity sweeteners: certain steviol glycosides obtained from the leaves of the stevia plant (Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) Bertoni) and extracts obtained from Siraitia grosvenorii Swingle fruit, also known as Luo Han Guo or monk fruit.

While these high-intensity sweeteners are considered safe for their intended uses, certain individuals may have a particular sensitivity or adverse reaction to any food substance. Consumers should share with their health care provider any concerns they have about a negative food reaction.

In addition, FDA encourages consumers to report any adverse events through MedWatch: FDA’s safety information and adverse event reporting program.

This article appears on FDA’s Consumer Updates page, which features the latest on all FDA-regulated products.

openFDA – More than 3 million adverse drug event reports at your fingertips.

openFDA

 

 

 

From the Web site

OpenFDA offers easy access to FDA public data and highlight projects using these data in both the public and private sector to further regulatory or scientific missions, educate the public, and save lives.

What does it do?

OpenFDA provides API and raw download access to a number of high-value structured datasets. The platform is currently in public beta with one featured dataset, FDA’s publically available drug adverse event reports.

In the future, openFDA will provide a platform for public challenges issued by the FDA and a place for the community to interact with each other and FDA domain experts with the goal of spurring innovation around FDA data.

We’re currently focused on working on datasets in the following areas:

• Adverse Events: FDA’s publically available drug adverse event reports, a database that contains millions of adverse event and medication error reports submitted to FDA covering all regulated drugs.
• Recalls (coming soon): Enforcement Report and Product Recalls Data, containing information gathered from public notices about certain recalls of FDA-regulated products
• Documentation (coming soon): Structured Product Labeling Data, containing detailed product label information on many FDA-regulated product

We’ll be releasing a number of updates and additional datasets throughout the upcoming months.

 

 

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[Press Release] A milestone in protection from influenza

A milestone in protection from influenza.

From the 17 June 2014 HHS press release

A statement from Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) Director and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) Robin Robinson, Ph.D.

This week, our nation reached a milestone in battling influenza, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s first approval to manufacture seasonal influenza vaccine using cell-based technology in a U.S. facility. That facility, owned by Novartis of Basel, Switzerland, and located in Holly Springs, N.C., now can manufacture cell-based vaccine against seasonal as well as pandemic influenza viruses. This new capability demonstrates the effectiveness of a multi-use approach to emergency preparedness.

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States’ Apps Target Health and Safety

States’ Apps Target Health and Safety.

Excerpts from the 26 June 2014 article at Pew Chartitable Trust

Among the state apps focused exclusively on health or public safety:

• The Minnesota Air app provides real-time information about air quality conditions in 10 reporting areas across the state, as well as pollution forecasts for the Twin Cities and Rochester.
• The Every Woman Counts app in California lets women know when it’s time to make an appointment for mammograms and Pap tests.  Users enter information about their screening history and select a schedule for their exams, and the app sends them reminders.
• The MyVaxIndiana app enables parents to keep track of their children’s vaccination records. The information comes from a state immunization system and is updated by health care workers, schools and doctors.
• The NMWatch app in New Mexico uses GPS mapping to allow residents, emergency managers and responders to monitor up-to-date wildfire activity. It not only helps people who need to know whether to evacuate, but it alerts those with respiratory problems who might be affected by thick smoke in their neighborhood.

Connected Citizens

More state agencies that oversee health or emergency management have recognized that they need to embrace mobile technology to stay connected with citizens.

“It’s a natural progression,” said Theresa Pardo, director of the Center for Technology in Government at the University at Albany, a research center that focuses on innovation in government technology. “I think these new apps are really powerful. What underlies them is a massive effort to identify and integrate in sophisticated ways data that is relevant to an individual, particularly in the event of a crisis.”

Communicating critical, life-saving information during emergencies and directing the public to services after disasters is an enormous challenge for states, said Karen Cobuluis, spokeswoman for the National Emergency Management Association, the professional association for state emergency management directors.

 

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A Long Way to Go

While states are moving rapidly to make advances in digital technology, they still have a long way to go when it comes to overseeing their apps and mobile device projects.

In an October 2013 survey of state chief information officers, 58 percent called their state’s efforts to manage apps and mobile device projects “mostly” or “totally” fragmented and uncoordinated.

The association’s Robinson said that most states today don’t have an “enterprise-wide, well-coordinated roadmap” for investing in and deploying mobile technology. “It’s serious for the states because of the implications. There’s no shared strategic direction,” he said. “We need to address how we’re managing mobile devices.”

Robinson of NASCIO said that in many states, apps are being launched agency by agency, which creates more complexity. Plus, states often lack the in-house technical expertise to develop their own apps, so they’re forced to use outside contractors.

 

 

 

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Global Health and Human Rights Database

Global Health and Human Rights Database.

• A free online database of law from around the world relating to health and human rights.Offers an interactive, searchable, and fully indexed website of case law, national constitutions and international instruments
• Features case law and other legal documents from more than 80 countries and in 25 languages.
• Provides 500 plain-language summaries and 200 original translations of case law previously unavailable in English.
• Developed by Lawyers Collective and the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, in collaboration with over 100 partners from civil society, academic, and legal practice worldwide.
• Links to Additional Resources

 

 

 

 

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State of the Air 2014 ( American Lung Association)

 State of the Air 2014 | American Lung Association.

                    Sources of Pollution

 

From the Web site

The State of the Air 2014 shows that the nation’s air quality worsened in 2010-2012, but remains overall much cleaner than just a decade ago.
More than 147.6 million people—47 percent of the nation—live where pollution levels are too often dangerous to breathe, an increase from last year’s report.
Despite that risk, some seek to weaken the Clean Air Act, the public health law that has driven the cuts in pollution since 1970.

Web site includes the following

• Options to
  • Search air quality by zip code (for “grades”)
    and state (for “report cards”)
  • Compare your air
    
• Health Effects of Ozone and Particle Pollution
• Key Findings
  • Ozone Pollution — More than 4 in 10 people lived in areas with unhealthful levels of ozone in 2010-2012. See which cities with the worst ozone had even more unhealthy air days.
  • Year-round Particle Pollution — More than 46.2 million people live in an area burdened year-round by unhealthful levels of deadly particle pollution. See which cities saw continued progress in cleaning up sources and which suffered even more pollution.
  • Short-term Particle Pollution — Many cities endured more days where particle pollution spiked during this period. Fourteen percent (14%) of people in the United States live where they suffered too many days with unhealthful levels of particle pollution.
  • Cleanest Cities — Only four cities made the cleanest list in all three categories, but several were among the cleanest in two.
  • People at Risk — Nearly half of the people in the U.S. live in counties that have unhealthful levels of either ozone or particle pollution. Learn more about people who face the greatest risk—probably someone you know is one of them.
  • What Needs to be Done to Get Healthy Air— What do we need to do as a nation? How can you help clean up the air?

 

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TOXIC CHEMICALS SHOULD BE CONTROLLED TO PREVENT DIMINISHED HEALTH THAT CAN RESULT IN DISABILITY

Research Institute for Independent Living

The Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976 should be revisited to provide Americans greater protection from toxic chemicals that diminish health and result in disability.

The  House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Trade and Consumer Protections held an oversight hearing on the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976 (TSCA). Presenters at the forum were representatives from the chemical industries, members from the General Accountability Office, researchers, policy experts and consumer advocates for effective public health policies.

Summary

There are 80,000 chemicals for which the toxic content is unknown. Thus, there are unidentified toxic chemicals in products and the environment that have not been identified and appropriately regulated, and these chemicals can adversely affect the health of Americans. In addition, there are 700 new chemicals introduced each year. Classified information masks risks to the public. If there are no data there is no risk. One of the problems that…

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