The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the Government of Afghanistan today urged the international community to fund a sharp increase in needed food assistance for the poor of Afghanistan who cannot afford to pay soaring local prices for wheat, a staple of the Afghan diet.

Some HIV/AIDS experts are considering whether it would be “wise” to shift some of the global funding for HIV/AIDS to basic health problems — such as clean water, family planning or diarrhea — facing developing countries, the AP/Google.com reports.

FDA on Friday announced that the label for the birth control patch Ortho Evra — made by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ortho McNeil — will include new data on a study that found a higher risk of blood clots among women who use the patch,

President Bush on Tuesday threatened to veto legislation (S 1200) being considered by the Senate that would reauthorize funding for Indian Health Service through 2017, the AP/New York Times reports (AP/New York Times, 1/23).

“Does Having More Physicians Lead to Better Health System Performance?,” Journal of the American Medical Association: In the JAMA commentary, David Goodman of the

The House on Wednesday is scheduled to vote on whether to override President Bush’s second veto of a bill (HR 3963) that would have expanded SCHIP, but supporters of the legislation are about a dozen votes short of the two-thirds majority needed, CongressDaily reports (Johnson, CongressDaily, 1/22).

BAPS Swaminaryan Sanstha UK has appointed Diabetes UK as its 2008 Charity of the Year. BAPS is an international UN-affiliated charity organisation committed to serving the world by caring for individuals, families and communities through its humanitarian activities. Sponsored walkThis year, BAPS is organising its annual national sponsored family walk and fun run in conjunction with Diabetes UK to take place in London and other centres on 6 April.

The Vatican on Friday responded to last week’s report that U.S. researchers had cloned five human embryos by calling this type of cloning the “worst type of exploitation of the human being,”

Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag on Tuesday during a Senate Finance Committee hearing said temporarily increasing the federal medical assistance percentage for Medicaid likely would help stimulate the economy, but the impact would vary by state, CQ HealthBeat reports.

President Toni Rodriguez charged all respiratory therapists to jump the last major hurdle in solidifying the identity of Respiratory Care as a profession at the December annual meeting of the AARC. “On our 60th anniversary we stand on the brink of some of our greatest accomplishments as a profession,” says President Rodriguez. “When the right time and the right circumstances fuse, you must be ready to act.” Dr.