Media Campaign Targets Hispanic Women For Health Care Prevention

The Washington Post on Tuesday profiled American Cancer Society President Elmer Huerta, who uses Spanish-language television and radio to encourage Hispanic women in the U.S. to seek preventive health care. Since 1994, Huerta has starred in the national weekly television program "Hablemos de Salud," or "Let's Talk About Health," which focuses on disease prevention. Huerta, who created the television show, also voices radio spots called "Cuidando Su Salud," or "Taking Care of Your Health," which air daily on more than 120 stations in the U.S. and more than 350 in Latin America. He also hosts a syndicated radio show called "Cita Con el Doctor," or "Appointment With the Doctor."

A recent survey found that about 70% of patients at the Cancer Preventorium -- a clinic at the Washington, D.C.-based Washington Hospital Center that focuses on care for low-income, Hispanic women -- learned about the center from Huerta's programs, So Young Pak, WHS spokesperson said. Since its opening in 1994, the center has treated almost 15,400 women and 6,000 men, leading to 71 diagnosed cancers (Moreno, Washington Post, 5/13).


Reprinted with kind permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Advocates Call For Increased Investment In Women, Girls Worldwide To Address Issues Such As HIV/AIDS

Advocates worldwide ahead of International Women's Day on Saturday highlighted issues such as HIV/AIDS, gender equality, discrimination, violence against women and the need to invest in women and girls, the AP/PR-Inside reports.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday during a meeting of a U.N. commission on gender equality and advancement of women said that nations should allocate increased resources for health care, nutrition, job opportunities and other needs of women worldwide. "Investing in women helps us fight all the challenges of our time -- from poverty, hunger and illiteracy to environmental degradation and disease, including HIV/AIDS," Ban said (AP/PR-Inside, 3/7). He added that gender equality is a prerequisite for reaching the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015. "As we know from long and indisputable experience, investing in women and girls has a multiplier effect on productivity and sustained economic growth," Ban said, adding, "No measure is more important in advancing education and health, including the prevention of HIV/AIDS. No other policy is as likely to improve nutrition or reduce infant and maternal mortality." Ban also pointed out the success of microfinance programs that lend small loans to women in developing countries and called on nations to "explor[e] effective and innovative ways of investing in women around the world" (AFP/Inquirer, 3/6).

U.N. officials also called on countries to mark International Women's Day with renewed efforts to end sexual assault, forced prostitution and other violence against women. Joanne Sandler, acting director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women, called on member nations to "break new ground in the struggle for women's rights" as they mark the annual event, adding that there is an "urgent need to end violence against women in all of its forms." U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Kathleen Cravero also urged the U.N. Security Council to support an eight-year-old pledge to protect women and girls from rape and sexual abuse during armed conflict. "Rape is a crime and must be stopped," Cravero said (AP/PR-Inside, 3/7).

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday called for increased political roles for women worldwide, the AP/Google reports. Speaking at a conference on women's rights, Rice said, "In today's modern world, no country can achieve lasting success and stability and security if half of its population is sitting on the sidelines." She added that the "international community should make sure that we hear the voices of women and account for their concerns wherever we seek to establish or keep the peace. If we do that, we are actually making the job of keeping the peace easier." Other participants at the conference included Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Liberian Foreign Minister Olubanke King-Akerele and Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak. European Union External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who hosted the conference, said participants agreed to continue high-level talks to ensure that expanding the roles of women stays at the top of the international agenda (Brand, AP/Google, 3/6).














In related news, Monday is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day in the U.S. The awareness day is a nationwide initiative that aims to increase awareness about the effect of HIV/AIDS on women and girls in the country through education about safer sex, testing and prevention measures (Plybon, WFMY News 2, 3/10).

ActionAid Report
A report published Friday by ActionAid said that systematic discrimination against girls and women in developing countries will prevent the United Nations from meeting the MDGs, London's Guardian reports. According to the report, girls and women are more likely to experience poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease, compared with boys and men. According to the report, African women account for 75% of HIV/AIDS cases among young people.

ActionAid said discussions about the MDGs at the United Nations and at this year's meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Japan will succeed only if they recognize that the "development emergency is first and foremost an emergency for women and girls." According to the Guardian, if current trends continue, the goal of halving hunger will not be met until 2035, and 40 countries will not have equal school enrollment of girls and boys until after 2025. In addition, reducing maternal mortality rates is less than one-fifth of what was needed to meet the MDG target. Laura Turquet, women's rights policy officer of ActionAid, said, "Getting the goals back on track is about more than governments saving face. Fundamentally, it is about women realizing their basic human rights." She added, "As the lack of progress on maternal health shows, people's lives are at stake" (Elliott, Guardian, 3/7).


Reprinted with kind permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Male Sex Dysfunction Drugs May Show Promise For Females

One needs only turn on the television to understand that significant advances have been made in the cure and treatment of male sexual dysfunction. Less visible progress has been made in understanding and treating female sexual disorders (FSD), a complex and multi-layered problem. A team of researchers has undertaken a new approach in the lab to understanding how and why FSD occurs in general, and the impact of the vasculature (the vessels in the body that carry blood, such as arteries and veins) in particular. The findings of their latest study suggest that the drugs that help men may some day also address some forms of female sexual dysfunction.


The study, Phosphodiesterase Type 5 Inhibitors Relax Female Rat Internal Pudendal Arteries: Potential Treatment for Female Sexual Dysfunction, was conducted by Kyan J. Allahdadi, Rita C. Tostes, and R. Clinton Webb, all of the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, GA. Dr. Allahdadi and his colleagues are presenting their findings at the 122nd Annual Meeting of the American Physiological Society, which is part of the Experimental Biology 2009 scientific conference. The meeting will be held April 18-22, 2009 in New Orleans.


The Study


New evidence suggests that female sexual dysfunction may be, in part, the result of inadequate supply of blood to the female genitals and may be addressed with erectile dysfunction drugs. Originally developed as therapy for hypertension, these drugs work by dilating blood vessels sufficiently to produce erections in males. These drugs have not been fully explored in females.


The researchers used an animal model and compared the effects of three drugs used for erectile dysfunction (the phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitors (PDE5I, such as Viagra® (sildenafil); Levitra® (vardenafil); and Cialis® (tadalafil)). PDE5I was used and analyzed in female and male rat internal pudendal arteries. The internal pudendal artery supplies blood to the penis in men and to the vagina and clitoris in women. Arterial segments were contracted with phenylephrine then submitted to increasing concentrations of one of the PDE5 inhibitors.


The internal pudendal arteries of both male and female rats (n=10 to12) were measured for constriction/dilation.


Results


The researchers found the following:


Percent maximum relaxation (Top), effective concentration to relax 50% (Bottom)















Sildenafil

Female Arteries Concentration/Dependency: 105.00?±7.73; 6.60?±1.7

Male Arteries Concentration/Dependency: 103?±0.9; 5.67?±0.9


Vardenafil

Female Arteries Concentration/Dependency: 115.6?±11.63; 6.67?±0.24

Male Arteries Concentration/Dependency: 105.1?±89.88; 6.4?±0.23


Tadalafil

Female Arteries Concentration/Dependency: 80.13?±5.39; 7.98?±0.24

Male Arteries Concentration/Dependency: 102.3?±23.65; 5.4?±0.23


-- All the PDE5I inhibitors relaxed both female and male rat internal pudendal arteries, indicating that these arteries from both female and male rats are sensitive to PDE5I. However, female internal pudendal arteries were more sensitive to sildenafil at a lower concentration, which suggests it may be effective at a lower dose than vardenafil.


-- Male internal pudendal arteries reacted more effectively to vardenafil. Female internal pudendal arteries also reacted differently in comparison to the male arteries in that they demonstrated an oscillatory behavior by both dilating and contracting, suggesting that PDE5I may have a different mechanism of action in females.


Conclusions


According to Dr. Allahdadi, "PDE5I may be useful in the treatment of female sexual dysfunction caused by inadequate blood supply through the internal pudendal artery. The significant difference in how male and female pudendal arteries react to PDE5 inhibitors merits further study."


The study team is currently exploring the different relaxation profile observed between female and male rat internal pudendal arteries as well as functional abnormalities in internal pudendal arteries from diabetic rats.


Physiology is the study of how molecules, cells, tissues and organs function to create health or disease. The American Physiological Society has been an integral part of this discovery process since it was established in 1887.


Source: American Physiological Society (APS)



View drug information on Cialis; Levitra; Viagra.

Far Too Many Women Risking Death to Give Life, UNFPA Leader Says

A world in which a woman risks death each minute in order to bring new life must be transformed, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, the
Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, said today.


"We must create a better, more caring world by doing all we can to prevent millions of our less fortunate sisters from losing
their lives to pregnancy and childbirth, especially when we know how to avoid these tragic deaths," said Ms. Obaid during the
launching of a report on the progress and challenges in attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed by the
world's leaders in 2000. "Countries have long agreed that no woman should be left to die for lack of reproductive health, and
today's report reaffirms that universal access to reproductive health care, including family planning, is the starting point
for maternal health and saving women's lives."


"Maternal health also frees women to pursue opportunities in work and education, giving them power to make decisions to
improve lives in their families and communities," said Ms. Obaid. "The empowerment of women, as today's report affirms, is
prerequisite to overcoming poverty, hunger and disease, and to achieving all development goals."


"Despite some progress over the last five years, today's report clearly shows that we must do far more to reduce poverty and
save lives around the world," said Ms. Obaid. "Promoting the rights of girls and women, securing their reproductive health
and the means to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections, particularly HIV/AIDS, are the surest ways to
realize the development goals of all countries, rich or poor."


The Millennium Development Goals Report 2005, Ms. Obaid said, fully underlines the important links between the MDGs and the
Programme of Action of the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development, which stresses the role of
reproductive health in sustaining lives and fighting poverty.


The lifetime risk of death from pregnancy in the developing world would be reduced substantially if all of its women had
access to the family planning services they desired, according to the report. Currently, it adds, 200 million women have an
unmet need for safe and effective contraceptive services.



If these women used effective contraception, more than 100,000 maternal deaths-one fifth of world totals-could be avoided
each year, according to the World Health Organization.


Today's report says that it is essential for pregnant women who face unexpected complications to get medical care and access
to emergency obstetric care centres that must be stocked with drugs, equipment and supplies.


The Millennium Development Goals Report 2005 also calls for pragmatic and forward-looking approaches to prevent the spread of
HIV/AIDS. "Because there is no cure for AIDS, prevention is essential", it states, adding "treatment and care need to be
expanded to reach millions more," who are HIV-positive.


UNFPA is the world's largest multilateral source of population assistance. Making motherhood safer for all women is at the
heart of the Fund's mandate.


For more information, please contact:

Abubakar Dungus, +1(212) 297-5031, dungusunfpa;

Omar Gharzeddine, +1(212) 297-5028, gharzeddineunfpa;

or visit the UNFPA website, unfpa



Distributed for UNFPA by:


Peter Robbs Consultants Ltd

News Media and Editorial

Main contacts:

Cathy Bartley

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Peter Robbs

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