Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 9th August 2016
As the number of people in the United States and Puerto Rico with the Zika virus approaches 7,400, public health officials are learning the mosquitoes that can transmit the virus are deceptively formidable foes.[Continued here]…
Volume 388, Number 10043 WORLD REPORT The Republican and Democratic campaigns have polar opposite policies on environmental issues
important to health. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports. [Continued here] …
Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 29 July 2016
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders stressed the need for unity when he addressed the convention on its first day, citing the Democratic party platform as evidence of the gains his supporters have achieved. “It is no secret that Hillary Clinton and I disagree on a number of issues … that’s what democracy is about,” Sanders told the convention. “But I am happy to tell you that at the Democratic Platform Committee, there was a significant coming together between the two campaigns and we produced, by far, the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party.” [continued here] [listen to podcast here]…
Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 15 July 2016
Cleveland, OH – The Republican Party’s platform committee approved a blueprint this week that reflects the core principles of its most conservative wing, describing how a Republican presidential candidate would govern if elected.
Photo:SUSAN JAFFE
Several delegates said they don’t expect the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, to agree with every point and that’s OK.
“With Mr. Trump, on a lot of these issues, he’s with us,” said Melody Potter, a member of the Republican National Committee from Charleston, West Virginia. “We know for a fact that Hillary Clinton is not with us.”
…Reporters attending the platform committee meetings this week were not allowed to see copies of the roughly 50-page document delegates discussed. But some delegates were willing to mention some health care provisions. [Continued] …
Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 27th June 2016
Four months after President Barack Obama requested $1.9 billion to respond to the Zika
virus, the U.S House of Representatives approved $1.1 billion last week. Just days later, the Senate rejected legislation on June 28 that would have provided the same amount. That’s not the only obstacle blocking funding. [Continued here] …
Volume 387, Number 10037 WORLD REPORT Advocates for medical research are eager to hear how the presidential candidates would advance the search for new treatments. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
As the most tumultuous presidential primary season in recent times comes to an end, biomedical researchers, physicians, and advocacy groups want the candidates campaigning for the White House to address some of the substantive matters they worry about: National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, advancing Alzheimer’s disease research, speeding up drug development, and a host of research related issues.
… In New Hampshire last year, the campaigns provided a preview of the kind of discussion between candidates and voters that research and patients’ advocacy groups would like. It revealed a stark difference between Clinton and Trump on funding for Alzheimer’s research and support for those caring for the 5·4 million Americans stricken with the disease. [Continued here]
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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] …
Volume 387, Number 10026 Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump’s unorthodox campaign to become the Republican presidential nominee has dominated the 2016 political race, nearly overshadowing some unconventional contenders on the Democratic side. The result is a political season that has defied the odds makers.
Former US Secretary of State and Senator from New York, Democrat Hillary Clinton may be well on her way to becoming the first woman in US history to win her party’s nomination for president. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, is trailing Clinton in the number of delegates needed to win the nomination. Yet his popular call for “a political revolution” continues to slowly raise his delegate count. [MORE]
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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] …
Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 13th January 2016
No single federal agency reviews US drug prices, but 51 members of the U. S. House of Representatives have discovered a 35-year-old law that allows the governme
nt to control huge hikes in drug costs. And they want the Department of Health and Human Services and National Institutes of Health (HHS) to use it. Earlier this week the group led by Texas Democrat Lloyd Doggett wrote to HHS Secretary Sylvia Matthews Burwell and NIH director Dr. Francis Collins to explain why. [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 
30 million Americans over 60 years old have difficulty hearing, but less than a third can afford hearing aids, according to a report to President Barack Obama by his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology two weeks ago. Even though hearing loss is often part of the natural aging process, the council did not recommend that Medicare, pay for hearing aids, which can cost an average of $5,000 to $6,000 for a pair. [Continued here]24 October 2015
t been easy—surviving two Supreme Court challenges, nearly done-in by embarrassing technical glitches, and more than 50 congressional votes attempting to dismantle it. But its troubles are not yet over: enrolling new beneficiaries “is going to be tougher than last year”, warned Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.Volume 386, Number 10000 
Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 28 August 2015
Home-care workers are excluded from the federal law requiring most employees to receive a minimum wage—currently $7·25 an hour—and 150% of that pay when they work overtime. After 40 years, the US Department of Labor (DOL) issued rules eliminating that exemption. The new rule was supposed to take effect last January but it was blocked by a lawsuit filed by associations representing companies that hire these workers. [Continued here.] [with video of Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky shadowing home-care worker Gilda Pipersburgh]…