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Eleven Accussed Of Scamming Medicare In Michigan
Eleven people were charged in an indictment unsealed on Thursday with "scamming Medicare to get painkillers," the Associated Press reports. "A federal indictment in Detroit says the government unwittingly paid more than $480,000 to a phony health-care business that was a front for acquiring and selling painkillers." Authorities say Quick Response Medical Professionals paid people up to $220 to be seen by a doctor and that those visits were then reimbursed by Medicare. The case also involves thousands of doses of OxyContin worth more than $5 million that were sold during 2007 and 2008. The AP noted that "the government says Medicare and Medicaid fraud costs taxpayers billions each year" (6/4).
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Antiretrovirals Can Be Used To Prevent Spread Of HIV/AIDS, Model Shows
In addition to acting as life-saving therapy to people living with HIV/AIDS, WHO researchers say antiretrovirals (ARVs) may also be able to prevent the spread of HIV, Health-e/allAfrica.com reports. Reuben Granich, of the WHO, used a model to estimate the use of ARVs for the prevention of HIV transmission, and presented his findings to delegates gathered at the 5th International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention meeting in Cape Town, South Africa (Thom, 7/20).
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Blogs Comment On Media Coverage Of Abortion Issues In Health Reform Debate, Other Topics
The following summarizes selected women"s health-related blog entries. ~ "Mainstream Media Reinforces Unexamined Arguments Against Public Funding for Abortion," Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check: It "seems that mainstream media s ... believe that abortion is an effective cudgel to beat health care reform to death," Marcotte writes. According to Marcotte, the "unvarnished truth" is that there is "no way that any kind of public health care plan will have elective abortion coverage. Nor is there any real chance of abortion becoming mandated coverage." However, "you wouldn"t know it to read the media coverage of this issue," she writes, continuing that "we"ve got the toxic mixture of pants-on-fire lying anti-choicers and cowardly media outlets that give the opponents of health care reform an opportunity to lie about the potential for taxpayer-funded abortions." Those who defend health care reform are "so busy trying to shut down the misinformation about abortion coverage that we"re not having the more interesting discussion about whether or not abortion should be covered," Marcotte says. She adds, "And by not having that discussion, we"re allowing the belief that some people"s moral objections to abortion should dictate federal policy lay unchallenged," she continues. She writes that she "suspect[s] that anti-choicers latched onto taxpayer-funded abortions because they can count on a lot of the public to imagine the government funding female licentiousness." Marcotte concludes that the "good news is that this contempt for female sexuality has receded enough that the media debate hasn"t -- yet -- turned to whether or not health care reform should cover contraception" (Marcotte, RH Reality Check, 7/28).~ "Privileging Opposition to Abortion," Jamison Foser, Media Matters for America: Some reporters "have skewed their reports in favor of those who oppose" coverage of abortion in federally subsidized insurance plans, according to Foser. For example, Foser writes that on a recent episode of MSNBC"s "Hardball," host Chris Matthews asked Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) "leading questions that encouraged them to state their opposition to insurance coverage of abortion" but never asked them "one simple question: Why shouldn"t abortion be covered, given that the procedure is legal?" Foser adds, "Nor has he asked if there are any other legal procedures that shouldn"t be covered." The "premise that taxpayers who oppose abortion shouldn"t have to pay for them with their tax money carries obvious implications the media ignores," Foser writes. He adds that the "idea that taxpayers shouldn"t pay for insurance that covers medical services they don"t support is fundamentally incompatible with the very concept of insurance." He continues, "If every interest group wields veto power over the medical care insurance can cover, insurance simply can"t work." However, this is not the "only logical inconsistency on the part of abortion foes that the media fail to examine" in their coverage of abortion issues in the health reform debate, he writes. "Many of those who are most adamant that the government not allow abortion to be paid for by health insurance plans are the same conservatives who argue against health care reform by warning of the prospect of a government bureaucrat getting between you and your doctor," according to Foser. He continues that the "same people who want a government ban on insurance coverage for a legal medical procedure turn around and demagogue about government bureaucrats making medical decisions," which is "a pretty obvious inconsistency, the kind any reporter should be able to spot easily." However, the "tension between those two positions has gone unexplored in news reports about the abortion controversy," Foser concludes (Foser, Media Matters for America, 7/24).~ "Obama Abortion Backtrack Shows He"s All Rhetoric, No Fight," Bonnie Erbe, U.S. News & World Report"s "Thomas Jefferson Street": "[O]ne thing we know will not be incl
Sexual Health

Preschoolers' Language Development Is Partly Tied To Their Classmates' Language Skills

Young children learn how to speak and understand language from the words parents speak at home and teachers speak in preschool. A new longitudinal study has found that their preschool classmates also play a part. The study, by researchers at the University of Virginia and Ohio State University, is published in the May/June 2009 issue of the journal Child Development. The researchers took a look at more than 1,800 preschoolers in over 450 pre-kindergarten classrooms in 11 U.S. states. They tested children"s skills in "receptive language" (including their understanding of vocabulary and grammar) and "expressive language" (including their speaking skills, which also involve vocabulary and grammar) in English at the start and end of pre-kindergarten. Children"s abilities to both speak and understand words developed faster when they were with classmates with better language skills. Going to school with children who had better language skills was even more beneficial for children who began preschool with higher language skills, and for those who were in classrooms that were well-managed. "Classmates are an important re for all children, especially for children who begin preschool with higher language skills," suggests Andrew J. Mashburn, a senior research scientist at the University of Virginia and the study"s lead author. "This is likely because these children are better able to capitalize on their peers" skills for learning language. These results also indicate that teachers can promote children"s language development by effectively managing children"s behavior, which creates an environment in which children feel comfortable to converse with and learn language from one another." Given the growing recognition that young children"s language abilities affect their readiness for school and later school success, this study offers ideas for designing and structuring preschool classrooms. The study was funded, in part, by the U.S. Department of Education. Summarized from Child Development, Vol. 80, Issue 3, Peer Effects on Children"s Language Achievement During Pre-Kindergarten by Mashburn, AJ (University of Virginia), Justice, LM (The Ohio State University), and Downer, JT, and Pianta, RC (University of Virginia). Copyright 2009 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. Sarah Hutcheon Society for Research in Child Development


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