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Popular Articles

CDC Issues Fact Sheet On Oral Sex, HIV Transmission
The CDC has released a fact sheet informing people that there is some risk of transmitting HIV to others through oral sex, even though it is much lower than the risk of transmission from vaginal or anal intercourse, the Lakeland Ledger"s "Robin"s Rx: Medical Blogging in Polk County" reports. According to the CDC, many people believe that oral sex is safe or has no risk of transmitting disease. The CDC fact sheet said that abstaining from any sexual activity or engaging in mutual monogamy where both partners are uninfected are the only ways to completely prevent HIV transmission, but that condoms and other barriers between the mouth and genitals can reduce the risk of transmission through oral sex (Adams, "Robin"s Rx: Medical Blogging in Polk County," Lakeland Ledger, 6/4).

Food And Drug Administration Moves Towards Greater Openness
The Food and Drug Administration is taking steps towards greater openness. The Associated Press reports that FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg "announced Tuesday she has created a task force to make recommendations on how the agency can release more information in such areas as drug evaluation and enforcement matters. She wants a report in six months." Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein will head the task force, which will represent all of the FDA"s major divisions as well as its law enforcement branch. It will hold two public meetings with the first on June 24. "The FDA has long operated under strict confidentiality rules," the AP reports, and in opening up information, one sensitive issue will be what to do with unpublished clinical trial data from drug manufacturers. Despite such concerns, "Hamburg said she believes the need for secrecy may have been taken too far, and is harming the FDA"s credibility within the medical community and among consumers" (Alonso-Zaldivar, 6/2).
News of the day
New Health Series For South Asian People Hitting TV Screens, Diabetes UK
A new health series following the lives of six South Asian people, and offering diet and healthy lifestyle advice, will be hitting our screens on Sunday 17 May.
Medical Devices

Drug & Alcohol Action Team Uses SAS To Tackle Drugs And Save Lives By Improving Joined-Up Delivery

The London Borough of Croydon"s Drug & Alcohol Action Team (DAAT) is using SAS software to achieve better results in its efforts to get more people into drug treatment, reduce drug-related crime and empower the local community to resist drug misuse. SAS, the leader in business analytics software and services, gives the DAAT greater insights to commission services more effectively and target the borough"s res to where they can have the biggest impact. SAS delivers a more "joined-up" approach to allocating treatment across various agencies, which results in the most effective treatment being more quickly assigned to users who really need it. A multi-agency public sector partnership, Croydon"s DAAT, unites representatives from the local council, health service, police and criminal justice system and the voluntary sector. SAS" software helps the DAAT to plan treatment modernisation services that deliver effective treatment structures for substance misuse and ensures that the work of local agencies and cross-agency projects are integrated successfully. SAS software also helps the DAAT to automate statutory "Green Reports" for the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System as well as key performance indicator (KPI) reporting against national Home Office targets, which improves operational effectiveness at a local level by cutting administration time from over a week down to half a day. With SAS, the DAAT can perform analysis in line with national KPIs for drug treatments, monitor the local agencies" performances and explore new ways to deliver improved treatment structures within their very tight budgets. Says Ray Rajagopalan, Data Manager at Croydon"s DAAT: "By using SAS, we can analyse the success and failure of specific treatment programmes and see whether our treatment structure actually meets the needs of the local population. SAS saves us time by being able to immediately detect weaknesses in the system rather than waiting a year or more before an issue becomes apparent. Having that ability to pre-empt problems and to do things at a much quicker pace enables early indicators to be identified and corrective action to be taken far sooner in the reporting cycle. SAS software enables DAAT decision-makers to get on with sorting problems out, making changes and re-allocating res, to improve the local treatment system and provide more effective front-line services." Before SAS, the DAAT used basic spreadsheet tools such as Microsoft Excel and Access, which were unable to manage its growing volumes of data or quickly provide the comprehensive analysis needed. Rajagopalan continues: "Having proper analytics from SAS provides us with a range of benefits that we never had before. It is improving the time scales required to produce comprehensive analysis." Ian Manocha, Managing Director of SAS UK, states: "It"s an honour for SAS to be an integral part of the DAAT process in tackling drugs and ultimately saving lives. It"s great to see that our strength in analytics can help apply res in the best way and change the lives of real people for the better." SAS


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