President Bush on Monday during his last State of the Union address urged Congress to authorize a $30 billion, five-year extension of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the New York Times reports (Stolberg, New York Times, 1/29).

Mesotherapy treatment is a non surgical cosmetic solution aimed at diminishing problem areas in your body such as cellulite, excess weight, body contouring, and face/neck rejuvenation, just to name a few. It is administered via numerous injections containing various types of FDA approved medicines, vitamins, and minerals. — It is introduced into the mesoderm, the layer of fat and tissue underneath the skin.

A recent Journal of the American Medical Association study that found minorities are less likely than whites to receive narcotic painkillers at emergency departments “underscores the deeply entrenched problem of racial and ethnic health care disparities in American medicine,” Kate Scannell, a physician and syndicated columnist, writes in the

President Bush in his State of the Union address on Monday called on Congress to ban human cloning and increase funding for “ethical” stem cell research that does not involve the destruction of human embryos, AFP/Google.com reports (AFP/Google.com, 1/29).

“Drug spending for Medicare did increase” in 2006, but media accounts of a recent Health Affairs study that said such spending prompted increases in health care costs and overall spending for the program were “wrong,” Robert Goldberg, vice president of the

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday discussed Democratic priorities for 2008 that included several health care initiatives, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. She said, “I’m working with Democratic and Republican governors to pass Medicaid legislation, which the White House is resisting.

Despite overall improvements in infant mortality, there continues to be a disparity in infant mortality rates between whites and blacks, a report in the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology indicates, Reuters Health reports. Martha Slay Wingate of the

“A Progress Report on State Health Access Reform,” Health Affairs: The web exclusive study by John McDonough, executive director of Health Care for All, and colleagues provides a comprehensive catalog of health coverage expansions adopted by 39 states in 2006 and 2007.

The following highlights recent news of state actions on women’s health-related legislation.Birth Control Maine: The Legislative Council on Thursday voted 5-4 to block Sen. Doug Smith (R) from introducing a bill to the Senate that would require parental consent before any public school could provide prescription birth control to students ages 14 and younger, the

Two newspapers recently reported on developments in SCHIP in Louisiana and Utah. Summaries appear below.Louisiana: State health Secretary Alan Levine in a telephone interview on Friday said that he believes the state will be given federal approval to expand SCHIP after a meeting on Friday in Washington, D.C., the Baton Rouge Advocate reports.