Health Headlines - October 2

Drug Plans Begin Medicare Marketing Blitz

Beginning Saturday, America's millions of Medicare beneficiaries can expect to be bombarded with advertising and other solicitations from health insurance companies extolling their own versions of the new Medicare drug prescription plan, set to kick in this January.

Over 40 options will be available to beneficiaries in almost every state, the Bush administration said Friday, with most plans differing slightly from the standard minimum benefit mandated by Congress.

According to the New York Times, under the government's new plan, Medicare recipients must pay a $250 deductible and are then responsible for 25 percent of annual drug costs ranging from $251 to $2,250. They are also responsible for 100 percent of the next $2,850 in expenses. Medicare will pay about 95 percent of expenses over $5,100, however. This leaves a 'coverage gap' for those will annual expenses between $2,251 and $5,099.

In many cases, annual deductibles offered by private Medicare-linked drug plans may be less than the $250 outlined by Congress and in most states insurers may also provide drug coverage for those in the coverage gap, further reducing expenses to beneficiaries.

Enrollment for the new Medicare drug plan begins Nov. 15. While this smorgasbord of choices can save consumers money, it could also make the process more confusing.

"It's mind-boggling," Oregon Medicare commissioner Cindy Becker told the Times. "If you try to explain the whole program at one time, people will be shellshocked. You have to give it to them in small doses." In her state alone, she said, 20 companies plan to offer 45 stand-alone plans with monthly premiums ranging from $6.93 to $64.99.

Acting FDA Chief Resigns Other Position

Newly appointed U.S. Food and Drug Administration Acting Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach said Friday that he will resign his previous job as head of the National Cancer Institute, the Washington Post reported.

Von Eschenbach, a Texas urologist and long time Bush family friend, was appointed to the FDA post earlier this week after the sudden resignation of then-chief Lester M. Crawford.

Von Eschenbach's dual positions as head of both the NCI and FDA came under criticism by members of Congress this week, who cited conflict-of-interest concerns. For example, as FDA commissioner he would have final say over whether the cancer institute might be allowed to test experimental drugs in people. The NCI also often works with pharmaceutical companies who have a vested financial interest in FDA decisions.

The new acting commissioner is also vice chairman of C-Change, a non-profit group headed by former president George H.W. Bush and his wife Barbara, according to the Washington, D.C.-based investigative newsletter Cancer Letter. The C-Change board also includes drug makers Bristol Myers-Squibb Co. and Johnson & Johnson.

In a memo issued Friday, von Eschenbach said U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secretary Mike Levitt had asked John Niederhuber to take over as "chief operating officer to handle day-to-day management at NCI," the Post reported. Niederhuber had been recently tapped by von Eschenbach as deputy director for translational and clinical sciences at the institute.

Von Eschenbach also noted that "as a prudential matter," he plans to abstain from FDA matters in which the cancer institute is a party.

FDA Probes Meningitis Vaccine For Links to Brain Illness

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday it plans to investigate potential links between a meningitis vaccine called Menactra and a serious neurological condition called Guillain Barre syndrome (GBS) after five recently vaccinated teenagers came down with the illness.

According to the Associated Press, U.S. health officials recommended the vaccine -- approved for use by the FDA last January -- for adolescents and college freshmen living in crowded dormitories, and they say there is no reason at this time to alter that guideline.

GBS causes increasing weakness in the arms and legs which can, in some cases, progress to paralysis. It usually strikes suddenly, often after infections.

The affected 17- and 18-year-olds from New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey all contracted the syndrome within four weeks of vaccination with Menactra, the AP said.

Studies in more than 7,000 recipients by Menactra manufacturer Sanofi-Pasteur turned up no cases of GBS, and more than 2.5 million doses have been given since the vaccine hit the market. The FDA noted that the five cases reported are similar in number to what might be expected in the general, unvaccinated population.

WHO Downplays its Own Bird Flu Warnings

The World Health Organization moved Friday to quell fears sparked a day earlier by one of its own spokesmen, who had said 150 million people could die from a predicted bird flu pandemic.

On Thursday, the WHO's influenza coordinator said that a pandemic involving the lethal strain of bird flu that has ravaged bird flocks in Asia over the past two years could kill that many people if the virus mutated and became more easily spread between humans, the Associated Press reported.

Dr. David Nabarro -- appointed Thursday as U.N. coordinator for avian and human influenza -- had warned that the "range of deaths could be anything between 5 [million] and 150 million." On Friday, WHO spokesman Dick Thompson tried to qualify Nabarro's statement.

"We're not going to know how lethal the next pandemic is going to be until the pandemic begins," Thompson said. "You could pick almost any number."

Thompson then repeated a number that WHO considers a "more reasoned" estimated death toll of 7.4 million, the AP reported.

While experts agree that another pandemic is certain, two unknown factors -- the proportion of the public that becomes infected and the percentage that ultimately dies -- will determine how serious it is, the wire service reported.

More Americans Using Seat Belts

A record 82 percent of the American public has used seat belts during 2005, the U.S. Department of Transportation said Friday.

In a speech before the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta credited better police enforcement and a growing awareness of the value of buckling up.

"The fact that safety belts save lives is starting to click with the American people," the Associated Press quoted him as saying.

Mineta said seat belt use, up from 71 percent in 2000, is now saving an estimated 15,700 lives annually, preventing 350,000 serious injuries, and saving $67 billion each year in costs linked to traffic injuries and deaths, the AP said.

Twenty-two states now have primary seat belt laws, in which an officer can stop a motorist who doesn't wear a safety belt. Most other states have secondary seat belt laws, in which police can issue a seat belt violation only if the motorist is stopped for another infraction, the wire service said.