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Senate Approves Supplemental Spending Bill With Funds For Flu Pandemic
The Senate on Thursday voted 86-3 to approve a $91.3 billion fiscal year 2009 supplemental war appropriations bill (HR 2346) that includes $1.5 billion for influenza pandemic preparedness, the AP/Detroit Free Press reports (Taylor, AP/Detroit Free Press, 5/21). The House already has approved a $96.7 billion version of the measure (H Res 434) (Sanchez, CongressDaily, 5/22). A conference committee to reconcile the two bills will not meet until after lawmakers return from the Memorial Day recess (Stanton/Dennis, Roll Call, 5/21). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said, "There are very few things that need to be worked out in conference" before the measure is passed (CongressDaily, 5/22).
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Boston Arm Of Multi-City Study To Focus On Sexual Health, HIV Risk Among Black Gay, Bisexual Men
Boston-based Fenway Health and the Multicultural AIDS Coalition "have launched the recruitment phase of a new study aimed at learning more about the sexual health of black gay and bi[sexual] men and finding effective strategies for HIV prevention within the black gay community," Bay Windows reports. The study, called Project Saving Ourselves (SOS), is seeking to recruit up to 400 participants in Boston, and also is collecting data on black gay and bisexual men in New York, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ben Perkins, Project SOS director at the Fenway Institute of Fenway Health"s research division, said, "This is pretty new. In terms of the scale, there hasn"t been anything quite like it." Perkins said there are several questions researchers hope to answer about black gay and bisexual male health and HIV prevention, but the goal is to determine what factors put them at risk for HIV and help promote better health and safe behavior (Jacobs, 7/15).
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Stimulus Funds Help Community Health Centers Expand Services, Remain Open
Nearly 1,200 community health centers nationwide have received a boost of funding from the federal economic stimulus package, which is helping some of the facilities that were on the verge of closing remain open and continue treating low-income and uninsured patients, PBS" "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" reports. More people are seeking care at such facilities as they lose their jobs and employer-sponsored health insurance as a result of the economic recession. At the same time, funding for the centers has dropped because of cutbacks in state and local funding and lower not-for-profit donations and grants. The stimulus package provides a total of $20 billion for clinics to maintain and increase services. "NewsHour" profiles community health centers in Lorain, Ohio, which likely would have closed without the additional funds from the economic stimulus package (Bowser, "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," PBS, 5/26).
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South Africa Launches HIV/AIDS Vaccine Trial

"The first clinical trial of an HIV/AIDS vaccine designed and developed in South Africa was launched in Cape Town" Monday, the SAPA/The Times reports. The trial will seek to determine the immune response of HIV-negative people to two experimental vaccines -- SAAVI DNA-C2 and SAAVI MVA-C (7/20). Similar tests of the vaccine began in the U.S. earlier this year, the AP/Washington Post reports. The University of Cape Town developed the experimental vaccines with technical assistance and manufacturing of the vaccine provided by the NIH, according to Anthony Mbewu, president of South Africa"s Medical Research Council. "With 5.2 million already infected and with hundreds getting infected every day despite all the condom distribution and behavioral education programs, we know that a vaccine really is what we need," Mbewu said, adding, "When the next influenza pandemic hits the world, every country will be scrambling to develop a vaccine ... so it is important that countries like South Africa have the technology and capacity to develop vaccines and the industry to manufacture them" (Faul, 7/20). Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called the partnership between South Africa and the U.S. "the most important AIDS research partnership in the world," but cautioned the years ahead would prove challenging as researchers test the safety and efficacy of the HIV vaccine, the AP/Google.com reports. "South Africa was the site of the biggest setback to AIDS vaccine research, when the most promising vaccine ever, produced by Merck & Co. and tested here in 2007, found that people who got the vaccine were more likely to contract HIV than those who did not," the news service writes, adding that "AIDS vaccine research is so filled with disappointments some activists are questioning the wisdom of continuing such expensive investments. They say the money might be better spent on prevention and education" (Faul, 7/20). This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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