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U.S. Marshals Seize Drug Products Manufactured By Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories Ltd. FDA Acts To Prevent Repeated Drug Quality Problems
U.S. Marshals, at the request of the Food and Drug Administration, today seized drug products manufactured by Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories Ltd. (Caraco), at the company"s Michigan facilities in Detroit, Farmington Hills, and Wixom. The seizure also includes ingredients held at these same facilities. "The FDA is committed to taking enforcement action against firms that do not manufacture drugs in accordance with our good manufacturing practice requirements," said Janet Woodcock, M.D., director of the FDA"s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "Compliance with these standards prevents harm to the public."

USDA And HHS Praise Guidelines For Foodborne Disease Outbreak Response
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius commended the Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response (CIFOR) for the new Guidelines for Foodborne Disease Outbreak Response. These guidelines assist local, state and federal agencies in preventing and managing foodborne disease outbreaks through planning, detection, investigation, control and prevention.
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Antiabortion-Rights Groups Push For State-Level Restrictions On Access
The Washington Post on Monday examined how antiabortion-rights advocates are pressing state legislatures to approve measures designed to restrict access to abortion and compel women seeking the procedure to reconsider. The Post reports that the election of President Obama, who supports abortion rights, and the Democratic majority in Congress have made it less likely that there will be new federal restrictions on abortion or an overturning of Roe v. Wade. In response, antiabortion-rights groups have pushed to enact more state-level restrictions, such as parental consent for minors and waiting periods. According to the Post, state legislatures in 2008 considered around 400 measures to restrict abortion. Gretchen Borchelt, senior counsel at the National Women"s Law Center, said, "The states are the battlegrounds and certainly the testing grounds of new kinds of restrictions." She added, "State legislatures can be more creative in what they"re trying to push and see what works."The restrictions -- known as Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP laws -- include measures such as requiring a woman to visit a clinic twice at least 24 hours apart before obtaining an abortion, severely limiting public funding for abortion, mandating consent from both parents or a judge"s signature before minors can obtain abortions and requiring that women view ultrasounds before abortion procedures. The ultrasound laws are aimed at making women reconsider the decision to have an abortion, while the waiting period laws "have the added effect of raising the obstacles and the costs," particularly for low-income and working-class women, who are most likely to have unintended pregnancies, the Post reports.Terri Herring, head of Mississippi"s Pro-Life America Network, said, "We tried every which way, and we were successful in the state way." She added, "All-or-nothing means nothing. Incremental means something." Herring"s next goal is enacting a law in Mississippi requiring clinic staffers to report the identities of the sexual partners of minors. The Post reports that Mississippi, which has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, has become a model for antiabortion-rights groups in other states. According to Herring, the "greater goal, even in legislation, is to influence the culture." Felicia Brown-Williams, a Planned Parenthood staffer in Mississippi, said, "We"ve got a glut of bills we fight every year. We spend the first two months in sheer and utter panic that one of these bills is going to get past us" (Slevin, Washington Post, 6/8).
Nutrition

MedPAC Questions Spending But Comes Up Short On Solutions

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission - an independent group that makes recommendations to Congress on Medicare issues - said in its annual June report that the "government must give doctors and health-care facilities incentives to rein in costs in providing care for the elderly and disabled," the Wall Street Journal reports. The panel, known as MedPAC, raised specific questions about high priced imaging services that encourage doctors to over use them, the possibility of penalizing physicians who provide poor care at high cost with lower payments, and whether to cut payments to private plans that provide Medicare coverage (Zhang, 6/16). MedPAC"s report is "emblematic of the larger debate: long on problems and short on solutions," the Washington Post reports. "The commission has made specific recommendations in its past biannual reports, but identifying wasteful medical spending has proven a lot easier than rooting it out." For instance, one of MedPAC"s latest ideas is expanding "accountable care organizations" that would give groups of doctors and hospitals bonuses for good care. But the report itself says savings would be unpredictable (Hilzenrath, 6/16). One obstacle to reducing costs based on MedPACs recommendations is that the current reimbursement system pays fees for individual services, encouraging volume, but not quality or value, the report says, Kaiser Health News reports. MedPAC has recommended more fundamental changes to incentivize quality and value, but Congress hasn"t acted on them. One way to overcome that obstacle may be to give MedPAC the authority to implement its own recommendations, according to legislation introduced last month by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. President Obama backed the proposal, saying in a speech Monday that the panel"s proposals would save $200 billion. But, it remains unclear whether the plan has traction in Congress or among the public (Weaver, 6/15). This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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