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Flavored Cigarettes Snubbed Out
The Food and Drug Administration has banned fruit- and candy-flavored cigarettes as part of its effort to prevent children from starting to smoke. The agency said it will act against any company that continues to make, ship, or sell such products in the United States. The tobacco control legislation approved by Congress last spring authorized the FDA to target flavored cigarettes, and the agency said it is also examining options for regulating menthol cigarettes and flavored tobacco products other than cigarettes. Almost 90% of adult smokers start the habit as teenagers, and studies have shown that 17-year-old smokers are three times as likely to use flavored cigarettes as are smokers over 25, the FDA said. “Candy and fruit flavorings have unfortunately been some of the most egregious examples of marketing tobacco products to children, and the academy supported the inclusion of this ban in the legislation,” American Academy of Pediatrics President David Tayloe Jr. said in a statement.
FDA Makes Device Grants
In an effort to have more medical devices available for children, the FDA has awarded a total of $2 million in grants to three nonprofit device consortiums. A panel of experts reviewed 16 applications for the grants, which were mandated by Congress in 2007 and will be administered by the FDA's Office of Orphan Products Development. The grants, to groups based in California, Massachusetts, and Michigan, are to encourage connections between innovators and potential manufacturers of pediatric medical devices. Each of the grant recipients will coordinate efforts of the FDA, device companies, and the National Institutes of Health to bring pediatric medical devices to market sooner. Development of medical devices for children is a challenge because of differences in size, growth, and body chemistry between age groups. As a result, availability of pediatric devices lags up to a decade behind similar devices intended for adults, according to the FDA.
Review Raps Medicaid Services
Preventive care for children and adults is lagging in Medicaid, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found. It reported that many children covered by Medicaid are not receiving well-child checkups and that providers may not be aware that obesity-related services are covered for youngsters in the program. Most states told GAO that they have set goals for and monitored children's utilization of preventive services available and that they have taken steps to increase the number of children who received those services through Medicaid. However, the GAO study found that only 58% of children who were eligible under the program to receive a periodic screening, diagnostic, or treatment service in 2007 actually received one.
HHS Supports Health Centers
The Department of Health and Human Services has granted $25.7 million to increase and improve health and support services at public health centers, which are treating many more children than they did before the economic downturn. The federal health center system, overseen by the Health Resources and Services Administration, served more than 17 million medically needy people in 2008, up from 10 million patients in 2001, according to HHS. Since the economic downturn began, the health center patient population has grown by another million people, one-third of them children.
Obesity Counseling Found Ineffective
Primary care obesity screening followed by a series of counseling sessions failed to improve body mass index, physical activity, or nutrition in overweight or mildly obese children, a study in the British Medical Journal found. A total of 139 overweight and mildly obese children aged 5-10 years underwent four brief consultations with their physicians in Melbourne over 12 weeks. The objective was to change the children's behavior. But when compared with that of a control group after a year, the intervention group's BMI had not fallen significantly, the study found. Money might be better spent on obesity-prevention activities at the community and population levels, rather than on individual counseling by primary care physicians, the authors concluded.
HHS Awards Adoption Incentives
The Department of Health and Human Services announced the distribution of $35 million to 38 states and Puerto Rico to increase adoptions among children in foster care. Congress created the Adoptions Incentive program in 1997 as part of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, particularly to move older children and those with special needs into permanent homes. As part of the program, states can earn $4,000 for each additional adopted foster child above a baseline rate established in 2007. They receive additional payments for the adoption of foster children older than age 8 and those with special needs. States use the incentive payments to improve their programs for abused and neglected children, according to HHS.
Flavored Cigarettes Snubbed Out
The Food and Drug Administration has banned fruit- and candy-flavored cigarettes as part of its effort to prevent children from starting to smoke. The agency said it will act against any company that continues to make, ship, or sell such products in the United States. The tobacco control legislation approved by Congress last spring authorized the FDA to target flavored cigarettes, and the agency said it is also examining options for regulating menthol cigarettes and flavored tobacco products other than cigarettes. Almost 90% of adult smokers start the habit as teenagers, and studies have shown that 17-year-old smokers are three times as likely to use flavored cigarettes as are smokers over 25, the FDA said. “Candy and fruit flavorings have unfortunately been some of the most egregious examples of marketing tobacco products to children, and the academy supported the inclusion of this ban in the legislation,” American Academy of Pediatrics President David Tayloe Jr. said in a statement.
FDA Makes Device Grants
In an effort to have more medical devices available for children, the FDA has awarded a total of $2 million in grants to three nonprofit device consortiums. A panel of experts reviewed 16 applications for the grants, which were mandated by Congress in 2007 and will be administered by the FDA's Office of Orphan Products Development. The grants, to groups based in California, Massachusetts, and Michigan, are to encourage connections between innovators and potential manufacturers of pediatric medical devices. Each of the grant recipients will coordinate efforts of the FDA, device companies, and the National Institutes of Health to bring pediatric medical devices to market sooner. Development of medical devices for children is a challenge because of differences in size, growth, and body chemistry between age groups. As a result, availability of pediatric devices lags up to a decade behind similar devices intended for adults, according to the FDA.
Review Raps Medicaid Services
Preventive care for children and adults is lagging in Medicaid, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found. It reported that many children covered by Medicaid are not receiving well-child checkups and that providers may not be aware that obesity-related services are covered for youngsters in the program. Most states told GAO that they have set goals for and monitored children's utilization of preventive services available and that they have taken steps to increase the number of children who received those services through Medicaid. However, the GAO study found that only 58% of children who were eligible under the program to receive a periodic screening, diagnostic, or treatment service in 2007 actually received one.
HHS Supports Health Centers
The Department of Health and Human Services has granted $25.7 million to increase and improve health and support services at public health centers, which are treating many more children than they did before the economic downturn. The federal health center system, overseen by the Health Resources and Services Administration, served more than 17 million medically needy people in 2008, up from 10 million patients in 2001, according to HHS. Since the economic downturn began, the health center patient population has grown by another million people, one-third of them children.
Obesity Counseling Found Ineffective
Primary care obesity screening followed by a series of counseling sessions failed to improve body mass index, physical activity, or nutrition in overweight or mildly obese children, a study in the British Medical Journal found. A total of 139 overweight and mildly obese children aged 5-10 years underwent four brief consultations with their physicians in Melbourne over 12 weeks. The objective was to change the children's behavior. But when compared with that of a control group after a year, the intervention group's BMI had not fallen significantly, the study found. Money might be better spent on obesity-prevention activities at the community and population levels, rather than on individual counseling by primary care physicians, the authors concluded.
HHS Awards Adoption Incentives
The Department of Health and Human Services announced the distribution of $35 million to 38 states and Puerto Rico to increase adoptions among children in foster care. Congress created the Adoptions Incentive program in 1997 as part of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, particularly to move older children and those with special needs into permanent homes. As part of the program, states can earn $4,000 for each additional adopted foster child above a baseline rate established in 2007. They receive additional payments for the adoption of foster children older than age 8 and those with special needs. States use the incentive payments to improve their programs for abused and neglected children, according to HHS.
Flavored Cigarettes Snubbed Out
The Food and Drug Administration has banned fruit- and candy-flavored cigarettes as part of its effort to prevent children from starting to smoke. The agency said it will act against any company that continues to make, ship, or sell such products in the United States. The tobacco control legislation approved by Congress last spring authorized the FDA to target flavored cigarettes, and the agency said it is also examining options for regulating menthol cigarettes and flavored tobacco products other than cigarettes. Almost 90% of adult smokers start the habit as teenagers, and studies have shown that 17-year-old smokers are three times as likely to use flavored cigarettes as are smokers over 25, the FDA said. “Candy and fruit flavorings have unfortunately been some of the most egregious examples of marketing tobacco products to children, and the academy supported the inclusion of this ban in the legislation,” American Academy of Pediatrics President David Tayloe Jr. said in a statement.
FDA Makes Device Grants
In an effort to have more medical devices available for children, the FDA has awarded a total of $2 million in grants to three nonprofit device consortiums. A panel of experts reviewed 16 applications for the grants, which were mandated by Congress in 2007 and will be administered by the FDA's Office of Orphan Products Development. The grants, to groups based in California, Massachusetts, and Michigan, are to encourage connections between innovators and potential manufacturers of pediatric medical devices. Each of the grant recipients will coordinate efforts of the FDA, device companies, and the National Institutes of Health to bring pediatric medical devices to market sooner. Development of medical devices for children is a challenge because of differences in size, growth, and body chemistry between age groups. As a result, availability of pediatric devices lags up to a decade behind similar devices intended for adults, according to the FDA.
Review Raps Medicaid Services
Preventive care for children and adults is lagging in Medicaid, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found. It reported that many children covered by Medicaid are not receiving well-child checkups and that providers may not be aware that obesity-related services are covered for youngsters in the program. Most states told GAO that they have set goals for and monitored children's utilization of preventive services available and that they have taken steps to increase the number of children who received those services through Medicaid. However, the GAO study found that only 58% of children who were eligible under the program to receive a periodic screening, diagnostic, or treatment service in 2007 actually received one.
HHS Supports Health Centers
The Department of Health and Human Services has granted $25.7 million to increase and improve health and support services at public health centers, which are treating many more children than they did before the economic downturn. The federal health center system, overseen by the Health Resources and Services Administration, served more than 17 million medically needy people in 2008, up from 10 million patients in 2001, according to HHS. Since the economic downturn began, the health center patient population has grown by another million people, one-third of them children.
Obesity Counseling Found Ineffective
Primary care obesity screening followed by a series of counseling sessions failed to improve body mass index, physical activity, or nutrition in overweight or mildly obese children, a study in the British Medical Journal found. A total of 139 overweight and mildly obese children aged 5-10 years underwent four brief consultations with their physicians in Melbourne over 12 weeks. The objective was to change the children's behavior. But when compared with that of a control group after a year, the intervention group's BMI had not fallen significantly, the study found. Money might be better spent on obesity-prevention activities at the community and population levels, rather than on individual counseling by primary care physicians, the authors concluded.
HHS Awards Adoption Incentives
The Department of Health and Human Services announced the distribution of $35 million to 38 states and Puerto Rico to increase adoptions among children in foster care. Congress created the Adoptions Incentive program in 1997 as part of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, particularly to move older children and those with special needs into permanent homes. As part of the program, states can earn $4,000 for each additional adopted foster child above a baseline rate established in 2007. They receive additional payments for the adoption of foster children older than age 8 and those with special needs. States use the incentive payments to improve their programs for abused and neglected children, according to HHS.