January
4, 2005
|
Vol.
8 No. 1
|
WASHINGTON
UPDATE
*NIH Director Elias Zerhouni
named David Abrams, Ph.D., as the new head of NIH’s Office of
Behavioral and Social Sciences Research on Dec. 9, 2004. Abrams replaces
Raynard Kington, M.D., Ph.D., now NIH Deputy
Director. Abrams is the Director of Behavioral Medicine Research at Brown
University.
*Environmental Protection
Agency head Michael Leavitt is President Bush’s
choice to succeed Tommy Thompson as Secretary of the Department of Health
and Human Services, the White House announced on Dec. 13, 2004. Former
Food and Drug Administration head Mark McClellan, whom many thought would
replace Thompson, will remain administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services.
*President Bush also officially appointed Arden L. Bement, Jr., Ph.D.,
as National Science Foundation director on Nov. 24, 2004. Bement has
been NSF Acting Director since February, when he stepped in for Rita
Colwell. Bement, a metallurgical engineer, served on the NSF Advisory
Board to the Social, Behavioral, and Economics Sciences Division from
1997-2000.
*Federally funded
abstinence-only sex education is often factually inaccurate and misleading,
according
to a report released by Rep. Henry Waxman,
D-Calif. on Dec. 1, 2004. The report concludes that over 80 percent of
the abstinence-only programs analyzed in the study “contain false,
misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health.” To
read the full report, go here.
*When Congress finally passed its omnibus appropriations bill in December,
it left out $50 million in funding for the HHS office of National Health
Information Technology, according to a report in Healthcare IT News.
Supporters of the office, including President Bush, hope to try again
for funds when the 109th Congress convenes in January.
*HHS officials used
money from a grant program for vaccinating poor children to buy 1.2
million doses of flu vaccine from a GlaxoSmithKline
plant in Germany, according to a Dec. 16, 2004 article in the New York
Times. The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, the
American Medical Association and the American Academy of Family Physicians
sent a letter to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson protesting the expenditure.
To read the letter, go here.
*Medicare is considering
a proposal to cover smoking cessation counseling for beneficiaries
who have been diagnosed with a smoking-related disease
or who take certain drugs whose metabolism is affected by smoking, the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Dec. 23, 2004. The
proposed coverage policy is here.
