Three months after Vice President Joe Biden convened the first meeting of the Cancer Moonshot Task Force—aimed at accelerating 
cancer prevention, treatment and cures—he pleaded for help from people who know how to marshal massive amounts of health data to create successful businesses, or apps that can guide consumers to the best hospitals. [continued here]…
Volume 387, Number 10030
Anthony Fauci
As the number of confirmed cases of people who have contracted the Zika virus increases across the globe, the growing knowledge about this once rare infection is not reassuring. “The more we learn, the more we get concerned”, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases….
Representative Tom Cole, the Oklahoma Republican who is chairman of the House appropriations health subcommittee, said its questions about [President Barack Obama’s $1.9 billion Zika emergency funding] request are not unreasonable….“Let us do our job to make sure we do this as prudently as possible and we will get there”, he said. “Nobody thinks this is not a serious challenge”….
While clinical research and the funding debate continues, protection from the Zika virus will depend largely on avoiding the mosquitoes that carry it….
After years of cuts in federal and local funding for mosquito control, Zika is “a pretty major wake up call to rebuild those capacities”, said Lyle Petersen, director of CDC’s division of vector-borne infectious diseases. The virus is the latest “major pathogen that has come into the Americas” in recent years—after chikungunya, dengue fever, and West Nile virus—“and it won’t be the last.” [continued here] [listen to podcast here] …
Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 19th April 2016
Secretary of State John Kerry will join world leaders at the United Nations headquarters in New York on April 22 to sign the landmark Paris Climate Change agreement, aimed at controlling greenhouse gas
es and preventing what many scientists believe would be the harmful effects of global warming.
Representatives of some 155 countries are expected at the signing ceremony, including President François Hollande of France, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other heads of state. …UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged all countries to ratify the agreement as soon as possible. “It is in their national interest to implement the agreement and reap the benefits of sustainable global climate action,” he said in an email to The Lancet.
…When 55 countries responsible for at least 55 percent of global emissions do so, the agreement takes effect. That could happen this year said UN spokeswoman Devi Palanivelu, noting that several countries are coming to New York with ratification documents they will submit after signing the agreement. But things are not moving as swiftly in the U.S. [Continued here] …
Congress hasn’t budged in the five weeks since President Barack Obama asked Congress for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funding to deal with the Zika virus. But Zika isn’t waiting.
In the weeks since the president’s request, the number of cases of the mosquito-borne virus among people who traveled to countries where transmission has been confirmed has almost quadrupled to 193, as of March 9. It is in nearly twice as many states — 32 and the District of Columbia — with Florida, New York and Texas topping the list. In Puerto Rico, the U. S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa, the number of cases is 174, or 19 times higher, reports the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [continued here] …
Volume 387, Number 10019The US Congress recently approved the largest single increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 12 years—a US$2 billion raise that was twice as much as President Barack Obama requested. But almost as soon as NIH supporters stopped cheering, they began to worry about next year’s budget, and the challenge of a new public health threat, Zika virus.
NIH Director Francis Collins told The Lancet that the funding boost “was enormously gratifying”. But if it is “a one-hit wonder”, he said “it won’t be sufficient to take full advantage of the remarkable scientific opportunities and talent that is out there”. [Continued here] [podcast here]
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Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 12th February 2016
President Barack Obama asked Congress this week for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funding 
to respond to Zika virus and administration officials wasted no time in explaining why at four congressional hearings less than two days later.
While such Capitol Hill visits are part of the budget process, the looming virus adds a new urgency to the proceedings–though not necessarily enough to deter controversy. [Continued here]…
Like many Americans, members of Congress are frustrated and angry about the huge spikes in prescription drug prices. While a congressional hearing held last week to investigate the practice united Democrats and Republicans in outrage, it did not reveal potential solutions.
The unwilling star witness was Martin Shkreli, the former head of Turing Pharmaceuticals who was responsible for the company’s decision to raise the price of Daraprim, used to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that affects HIV patients, from $13.50 to $750 a pill. [Continued here] …
The US Congress has become famous for political gridlock but s
hortly before going home for the holidays, members approved a 2,009-page budget for fiscal year 2016 with generous increases for some key health and science agencies, most notably the ailing National Institutes of Health. [Continued here.]…
mate change agreement, President Barack Obama stepped before the TV cameras at the White House to congratulate them. It 
offers the best chance we have to save the one planet we have,” Obama said. “We’ve shown that the world has both the will and the ability to take on this challenge.”
health care spending in 2014 rose at the fastest rate since 2002 “in part due to the introduction of new drug treatments for hepatitis C as well as of those used to treat cancer and multiple sclerosis.”
Volume 386, Number 10009 Volume 386, Number 10000 
Volume 386, Issue 9996, 29 August 2015
WORLD REPORT Bills providing extra funding for the National Institutes of Health while cutting other programmes could a face presidential veto. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
12 August 2015
Volume 385, Issue 9986, 20 June 2015
WORLD REPORT Officials expect to launch the US President’s new health project later this year. But Congress has yet to decide whether to fully fund it. The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, Susan Jaffe, reports.
While continuing to defend his besieged health-care reform law against lawsuits and repeal threats, US President Barack Obama is championing a new health initiative. This one also has a bold goal: to radically change the medical treatment patients receive in the USA. “I want the country that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome to lead a new era of medicine—one that delivers the right treatment at the right time”, the President said when he unveiled his Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) in his annual State of the Union address to the nation in January. …Central to the PMI will be the creation of a research cohort of 1 million US volunteers who agree to provide researchers with biological, environmental, lifestyle, and other information as well as tissue samples….The effort to vastly expand the scope and practice of individually designed treatments based on genetic information could revolutionise medicine, supporters say. But the success of the PMI depends on whether Congress agrees to fund it. [Continued in full text or PDF ] …
Volume 385, Issue 9983, 30 May 2015
WORLD REPORT A bill to speed up the translation of biomedical discoveries is getting wide support, but some argue that it is not adequately funded. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
An ambitious bipartisan plan to accelerate medical innovation in the USA is moving ahead in a Congress famous for political gridlock.
The proposed 21st Century Cures Act was approved unanimously on May 21 by the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce. The massive bill would promote discovery of new medicines and get them to patients more quickly. But the bill’s bipartisan support nearly collapsed when Democrats insisted on additional funds for the two federal agencies intricately involved in carrying out the bill’s far-reaching provisions.
Behind-the-scenes discussions finally yielded an infusion of US$10 billion over 5 years for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Shortly before the committee vote, $550 million over 5 years was added for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is responsible for ensuring new treatments are safe and effective. …But funding for both agencies did not come easy, is still uncertain, and might fall far short of what is needed. [Continued full text or PDF]…
Volume 385, No. 9978 25 April 2015
WORLD REPORT In recent weeks, the Obama Administration has unveiled several new initiatives to tackle climate change. The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, Susan Jaffe reports.
Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy and President Barack Obama
With less than half of his final term in the White House remaining, US President Barack Obama is no longer confining his efforts to slow climate change to Congress or the courts, where opponents are trying to block new, tougher environmental rules at every turn.
In the past 3 weeks, his Administration has announced a multifaceted public appeal, including plans to expand public access to tracking the impact of climate change with help from such private sector giants as Google and Microsoft, create a coalition of 30 medical, nursing, and public schools to train health-care providers to respond to the health effects of climate change, and host a climate change and health summit at the White House in the spring….
Last month, the Obama Administration submitted a US climate plan to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in preparation for December’s global conference in Paris. But the US pledge to reduce greenhouse gases depends in a large part on power plants reducing their carbon dioxide pollution; the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to finalise limits for power plants this summer. Even before they take effect, 14 states and two coal companies have taken the unusual step of challenging the agency’s still uncompleted rules in federal court.
The President is also making the fight personal, recalling, during an interview on national television, that when his eldest daughter was 4 years old, she had such a severe asthma attack that her parents had to take her to the hospital for emergency treatment. “The fright you feel is terrible”, he said.
Obama warned of increased asthma cases and “a whole host of public health impacts that are going to hit home”, speaking after meeting with the medical and nursing schools coalition. [Continued: full text or PDF ]…
24 April 2015
IN FOCUS Health officials in the USA want physicians to help to reduce diabetes by asking at-risk patients to join diabetes prevention programmes. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.
“…Clinicians may be talking to patients about their elevated blood sugar, but if it isn’t diabetes, some do not take it very seriously”, Ann Albright, director of the CDC’s Division of Diabetes Translation, told The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. “But the evidence is clear that the earlier you intervene, the greater the likelihood is of either preventing or delaying diabetes or, if someone already has diabetes, preventing or delaying the complications.” [Continued: PDF ]…
Volume 385, Issue 9974, 28 March 2015
WORLD REPORT Proposed legislation would change how the US Environmental Protection Agency uses science to determine pollution limits. The Lancet‘s Washington correspondent Susan Jaffe reports.
Approval of two controversial environmental bills in the US House of Representatives last week was the latest assault in the Republicans’ “war on science”, according to Democrats. Republicans, however, considered it a big step towards assuring that federal environmental regulations are based on solid scientific research. Despite the sharp difference of opinion along political lines, both sides claim to pursue similar goals—to keep the agency responsible for protecting the nation’s health and environment impartial and closely guided by the best science.
…The Secret Science Reform Act of 2015 would prohibit the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from proposing or finalising any policy “unless all scientific and technical information” officials relied on is “the best available science” and is “publicly available online in a manner that is sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of research results”.
“The days of ‘trust me’ science are over”, the bill’s lead sponsor, Texas Republican Lamar Smith, told The Lancet. “The American people deserve to see the data.” [Continued: full text or PDF ]…
Volume 385, Issue 9970
28 February 2015
As the new Deputy Commissioner for Medical Products and Tobacco at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), world-renowned cardiologist Robert Califf arrives at a time when the FDA’s overall responsibilities have grown exponentially. The Lancet‘s Washington correspondent, Susan Jaffe, reports. [article continued as full text or PDF] [Podcast with Dr. Califf here.]
Volume 385, Issue 9970, 28 February 2015
WORLD REPORT US Food and Drug Administration commissioner Margaret Hamburg is stepping down after nearly 6 years in office. The Lancet‘s Washington correspondent, Susan Jaffe, reports on her achievements.
Margaret Hamburg
At the end of March, Margaret Hamburg is leaving what has got to be one of the toughest unelected US Government jobs outside of the Pentagon—commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
A champion of science-based regulation and streamlined approvals for breakthrough drugs, the Harvard-trained physician is one of the two longest-serving FDA commissioners in five decades.
The FDA is responsible for the safety of 20% of the products Americans buy, including more than US$1 trillion dollars worth of goods that might seem to have little in common, such as artificial hips, dietary supplements, gene therapy, surgical lasers, prescription drugs for human beings and animals, nanotechnology products, cosmetics, blood and biologics products, tobacco, and—last but not least—most of the food we eat (excluding meat and poultry, which are the domain of the agriculture department). The agency has 16 000 employees. [article continued in full text or PDF]
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Volume 385, Issue 9966, 31 January 2015
WORLD REPORT Even with a boost in funding for Ebola research, the US National Institutes of Health’s fiscal year 2015 budget is the lowest in years. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
During last year’s contentious congressional hearings investigating the US response to Ebola, the Obama Administration’s top health officials fended off criticism hurled by both Democrats and Republicans. But in another show of bipartisanship only a few weeks later, Congress granted nearly all of President Barack Obama’s request for emergency funding to combat the disease here and abroad.
NIH Director Francis Collins
In his State of the Union address earlier this month, the President expressed his appreciation: “In west Africa, our troops, our scientists, our doctors, our nurses, and health-care workers are rolling back Ebola—saving countless lives, and stopping the spread of disease”, he said, drawing applause from both sides of the aisle. “I couldn’t be prouder of them, and I thank this Congress for your bipartisan support of their efforts.”
Congress narrowly approved the US$5·4 billion emergency Ebola funding contained in the $1·1 trillion spending bill that kept the US Government running. But so far, it has done little to loosen the budget constraints on the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—even as a global health crisis such as Ebola reminded many lawmakers of its value. [MORE full text or PDF ] …
Volume 384, Issue 9953, 25 October 2014
WORLD REPORT A congressional inquiry into the handling of Ebola in the USA has sparked new guidance to protect health-care workers. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
As US President Barack Obama ramped up the country’s response to the Ebola crisis domestically and abroad (panel), his top health officials attempted, during a tense congressional hearing last week, to address potential solutions to the epidemic ravaging west Africa, which has now reached the USA, confronting emergency medical providers at a well regarded hospital in Dallas, Texas.
But the Republican-controlled House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce, which undertook the inquiry, did not seem particularly interested in discussing additional long-term investments in medical research—there is currently no cure for the disease—or the need to shore up, if not create, health-care infrastructure in the west African countries where more than 4500 people have died of the disease.
“To protect the USA, we have to stop it at the source”, said Tom Frieden, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at the hearing. “There is a lot of fear of Ebola, and…one of the things I fear about Ebola is that it could spread more widely in Africa. If this were to happen, it could become a threat to our health system and the health care we give for a long time to come.” [MORE full text or PDF ] …
Volume 384, Issue 9948, 20 September 2014
WORLD REPORT The US President’s science council will soon publish its long-awaited report on antibiotic resistance. But will it affect the debate? Washington Correspondent Susan Jaffe reports.
Since its reformation 5 years ago, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) has grappled with some of the most difficult scientific controversies, including climate change and cybersecurity. In the next few weeks, the council will issue recommendations for controlling antibiotic resistance. “Antibiotic-resistant infections are associated with an additional 23 000 deaths in the USA each year”, Eric Lander, the report’s cochair, told The Lancet. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that the economic effect of antibiotic-resistant infections is at least US$50 billion annually in direct health-care costs and lost productivity. [MORE] [PDF]
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