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Victorian HIV Test To Help Monitor Sufferers
People living with HIV will benefit from a new test developed by Victoria, Australia scientists that offers a simpler and cheaper way of monitoring the disease in sufferers, Victorian Innovation Minister Gavin Jennings said today.

Some Small Businesses Must Cut Employee Health Benefits Or Lay Off Workers Amid Economic Recession
Small businesses increasingly are eliminating their employee health coverage plans because of rising health care premiums and declining revenue attributed to the current economic recession, the Wall Street Journal reports. About 10% of small companies are considering ending their employee health coverage plans over the next year, compared with 3% of small businesses in 2005, according to a recent survey by the National Small Business Association. In 2008, 38% of small companies offered health coverage, compared with 41% in 2007 and 61% in 1993, according to NSBA. According to a Hewitt Associates survey, 19% of all U.S. businesses plan to halt providing health care benefits to their employees in the next three to five years.A rise in health care coverage premiums has contributed to employers eliminating plans, according to the Journal. Premiums for single policies increased by 74% for small businesses from 2001 to 2008, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. According to Scott Krienke, senior vice president of product lines for Assurant Health, health insurance premiums for small businesses increase by 8% to 16% annually on average, with smaller firms often having the highest increases. According to the Journal, many employers are choosing to eliminate health coverage instead of eliminating jobs or closing down their business. Some businesses have chosen instead to shift more health care costs to workers, change health insurers, switch prescription drug plans to encourage employees to purchase more generic drugs or offer employees wellness plans that encourage healthy habits as a strategy to reduce health care costs, the Journal reports (Mattioli, Wall Street Journal, 5/26).
News of the day
Key To Potential New Treatment For Allergy-Induced Asthma Identified By Yale Team
In research that could lead to new asthma drugs, scientists at Yale School of Medicine, Hydra Biosciences of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the University of California, San Francisco have discovered that a protein may be a trigger of allergy-induced asthma in mice. They also demonstrated how a drug known to reduce inflammatory and neuropathic pain may also inhibit asthma symptoms in mice. Their paper is published in the May 18-22 online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Sexual Health

For Smokers Trying To Quit, Computer-Based Programs May Be The Answer

Trying to quit cigarettes but don"t know how? A new analysis led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, suggests that Web- and computer-based smoking cessation programs are worth a try, and fortunately during these tough economic times, many of them are free. Such programs offer a cost-effective alternative to interventions such as telephone hotlines or counseling services, both of which require trained personnel, the researchers said. These programs typically help users evaluate the benefits of quitting tobacco, such as saving money by not buying cigarettes, and suggest specific strategies for how to handle relapses. "With the rising cost of health care, there is a need to look for less expensive health programs that are effective," said study co-author Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at UC Berkeley"s School of Public Health. "What we found in our meta-analysis was that Web- and computer-based programs, once they"re set up and running, are a worthy alternative." The authors of the study, published Monday, May 25, in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, systematically analyzed 22 trials in which smokers enrolled in Web- or computer-based smoking cessation programs were compared with smokers who tried to quit on their own. The trials, which totaled nearly 30,000 participants, 16,000 of whom were randomly assigned to a Web- or computer-based program, spanned 19 years and included three to 12 months" worth of follow-up data. They found that the percentage of smokers who managed to stay away from tobacco a year after the Web- or computer-based smoking cessation program ended was 9.9 percent, a rate that is about 1.7 times higher than for those who tried to quit on their own. "Currently, Web- and computer-based smoking cessation programs are not commonly recommended because evidence of their effectiveness has been inconsistent," said the study"s lead author, Dr. Seung-Kwon Myung, staff physician at the Smoking Cessation Clinic at the National Cancer Center in South Korea. "But our review of the evidence to date suggests that Web- and computer-based programs have a legitimate place in tobacco dependence treatment options." Myung, who conducted the research while he was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley"s Center for Family and Community Health, said that computer-based programs won"t necessarily supplant existing treatment options, such as phone counseling or medications. But he noted that the Web can be particularly helpful for the uninsured who may not have access to services, or for those who are concerned about the stigma of seeking treatment. Moskowitz noted that many smokers may prefer the flexibility and privacy offered by Web and computer programs over counseling done face-to-face or over the phone. He added that computer programs can be easily translated into various languages to reach out to a more diverse group of people. Sarah Yang University of California - Berkeley


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