An article published in The Lancet reports thatthere are still wide coverage gaps for important maternal and childhealth interventions among Countdown countries, even though they havemade some progress since 1990. J Ties Boerma (WHO, Geneva, Switzerland)and colleagues from the Countdown 2008 Equity Analysis Group also foundthat in order to reach Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 4 and 5, therate of progress would have to be more than doubled.

The UK’s food watchdog, the Food Standards Agency (FSA), is to advise government Ministers to ask manufacturers to bring in a voluntary ban of six artificial food colours from food and drink by 2009. They will also advise Ministers to push for them to be phased out in the rest of the European Union.

A March 30 article in the Chicago Tribune that reported high kidney failure rates among blacks in Chicago “vividly portray[ed] the devastating impact of kidney failure in this community,” Griffin Rodgers, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at

Senate Finance Committee aides on Monday said that Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) will ask more than 50 physician groups to support his Medicare bill, which would delay a scheduled 10% reduction in physician reimbursements for 18 months, CongressDaily reports. According to committee aides, Baucus will not ask the

The Louisiana Weekly on Sunday examined suicide and depression in the black community.

Texas Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins has announced that a plan to provide health coverage to about 482,000 uninsured parents whose children are enrolled in Medicaid or SCHIP will not begin this fall as planned, the Austin American-Statesman reports.

The “tragic outcomes” of two recent pregnancies among Texas teenagers shows that abstinence-only sex education programs are “not working,” Peter Durkin, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas, writes in a

A new study by researchers at Hasbro Children’s Hospital offers a closer look at the association between childhood sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), including snoring and sleep apnea, and behavioral problems like hyperactivity and anxiety.

The Iowa Senate on Monday voted 42-6 to approve a bill (HF 2539) that would expand Hawk-I coverage to tens of thousands more children, the Des Moines Register reports.

New devices and research for mechanical circulatory support in pediatrics from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Pediatric Circulatory Support Program will be discussed at the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) 28th Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions. The meeting is ongoing this week at the Boston Marriott Copley Place and Hynes Convention Center.