The United States Supreme Court has declined to overturn the Texas Legislature’s 2003 redistricting plan, accomplished, even according to Court, to benefit one party over the other.  The Texas legislature, at the behest and as a result of the fundraising activities of Former Majority Leader Tom Delay, redrew all of the Texas districts, for the admitted purpose of benefitting Republicans over Democrats in the 2004 Congressional Elections.  That’s OK, according to the majority of the Court.  This redistricting plan was created by the same Texas legislature that submitted to the insurance companies’ will to restrict the rights of injured patients.  See link at http://www.vindy.com/content/local_regional/286441254797951.php

The term “medical home” describes not just a physical place, but the people who provide care and how they do it. In an ideal medical home, patients and parents feel respected. Staffers take a proactive, team approach to helping families coordinate information from multiple providers and direct them to other resources in the community.

The U.S. Maternal Child and Health Bureau has made the medical home part of its national agenda for states, and ensuring that every child with special health care needs has a medical home is one of six top objectives for states under the president’s New Freedom Initiative.

For the rest of the story about this innovative new approach to comprehensive quality and responsive care, see the following link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13300549/

The MSNBC Health Website states that asbestos has long been associated with lung cancer and mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the lining of the chest and abdomen.

The Senate asked the institute, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, to look into the possibility that other forms of cancer could also be related to the fibrous mineral once widely used for insulation.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed, and the Senate has considered, bills to exempt the asbestos industry from liability for damage to workers caused by inhalation of asbestos. What remains to be seen is whether the Senate will listen to the answers the Institutue of Medicine gives to the Senate’s questions, or whether our representatives will continue to bow to the asbestos industry and its insurers. 

Associated Press report concludes it’s a sobering symptom of how the nation’s emergency-care system is overcrowded and overwhelmed, “at its breaking point,” concludes a major investigation by the influential Institute of Medicine.

That crisis comes from just day-to-day emergencies. Emergency rooms are far from ready to handle the mass casualties that a bird flu epidemic or terrorist strike would bring, the institute warned Wednesday in a three-volume report.

That ERs are overburdened isn’t new. But the probe by the IOM, an independent scientific group that advises the government, provides an unprecedented look at the scope of the problems — and recommends urgent steps for health organizations and local and federal officials to start fixing it.

Topping that list is a call for coordinating care so that ambulances don’t waste potentially lifesaving minutes wandering from hospital to hospital in search of an ER with room. The idea is to set up regionalized systems that manage the flow much like airports direct flight traffic. That also should direct patients not just to the nearest ER but to the one best equipped to treat their particular condition — making sure stroke victims go to stroke centers, for example.

FDA official last month requested the trials be halted because Ketek could be deadly. 

According to a government Web site, Sanofi-Aventis, a French pharmaceutical company  is conducting four different studies of Ketek in 3,920 youngsters. The first started last June. 

Safety issues arose about Ketek in January after researchers reported three cases of severe liver problems, including one death. Ketek’s market share and prescriptions have plummeted since then.

For complete MSNBC story, see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13218958/. 

Lobbyists and their political action committees (PACs) have contributed at least $103.1 million to members of Congress since 1998, according to a new report released today by Public Citizen. This is the first comprehensive effort to match names of lobbyists with Federal Election Commission campaign contribution data. The result provides details about the biggest lobbyist contributors and congressional recipients of campaign largesse and furnishes a contribution total nearly double the previous estimate.

The report details the amounts given to members of Congress since 1998 by the 50 biggest lobbyist money-givers. Twenty-seven percent of lobbyists have contributed an amount to lawmakers large enough to be recognized by the Federal Election Commission ($200 or more), and a select 6.1 percent of lobbyists have contributed at least $10,000 - totaling 83.4 percent of all lobbyist contributions. Many of the top recipients of congressional campaign money are on appropriations committees that dole out federal money.

The report also records the rise of contributions by lobbyists from $17.8 million in the 2000 election cycle to $33.9 million in the 2004 cycle – a 90.3 percent increase. In the 2006 election, lobbyists and their PACs are already on track to give about 10 percent more than in the previous cycle, not accounting for the expected increase in contributions as Election Day draws nearer.

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Dean Baker, author and director of the Center for Economic Policy and Research, has written a new book entitiled The Conservative Nanny State, How the Wealthy Use the Government to Get Rich and Stay Richer.  In his Chapter 6, he writes that the Nanny State rich corporations have taken aim at the American legal system, attempting to arbitrarily strip juries of their ability to hold corporations accountable for their conduct.