Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Global Cost Of Smoking Totals $1 Trillion And 6 Million Lives Each Year, WHO Report Finds
Smoking and its side effects cost the world's economies more than $1 trillion and kill about 6 million people each year 鈥 with deaths expected to rise by more than a third by 2030, according to a new report聽from the World Health Organization and the National Cancer Institute. Those losses exceed聽annual global revenue from tobacco taxes, estimated to be $269 billion in 2013-14,聽according to the report released Tuesday. Of that, less than $1 billion was invested in tobacco control. (Wang, 1/10)
When Illumina announced on Monday that it will begin shipping its two newest DNA sequencing machines as soon as March, president and CEO Francis deSouza said the technology 鈥渨ill enable the $100 genome.鈥 That raised some questions: $100鈥攔eally? A $100 genome will cost $100 in the same way that the $1,000 genome costs $1,000. As in, it won鈥檛, at least not soon. (Begley, 1/11)
If you can get pregnant, you should be popping at least one pill a day: a folic acid supplement to lower the risk of a type of serious birth defect in any future offspring. So says the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which Tuesday reiterated its 2009 recommendation that all women who can conceive take 400 to 800 micrograms daily of the B vitamin in case their diet isn't providing enough of it. (Hobson, 1/10)
Taking heartburn medicines during pregnancy may increase the risk for asthma in the baby, a review of studies has found. The analysis, in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, combined data from eight studies that included more than 1.6 million patients. Follow-up ranged from five to 14 years. (Bakalar, 1/10)
The National Cancer Institute launched an effort Wednesday to speed up clinical trials by getting researchers quicker access to the drugs they want to test. The NCI聽initiative creates a virtual 鈥渇ormulary鈥 鈥 a kind of clearinghouse 鈥 that initially will include 15 different medications donated by six manufacturers. The formulary will allow the institute to act as an intermediary between the drug companies and scientists at 69 NCI-designated cancer centers and to streamline the process by which researchers get the therapies. (McGinley, 1/11)
