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For Long-Underserved Patients, UH Optometrists Make Custom Contact Lenses
While the majority of patients with common vision problems can find glasses or contact lenses fairly easily, others who suffer from diseases of the eye that affect the focus of light have more limited options and may simply have to learn to live with poor vision.
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Sotomayor Calls Roe 'Settled Law,' Says Health Of Woman Must Be Considered
During the second day of her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor said she views the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion in the U.S. as settled law reaffirmed by subsequent Supreme Court rulings, the Washington Post reports (Goldstein et al., Washington Post, 7/15). At Tuesday"s hearing, lawmakers pressed Sotomayor on her views regarding abortion rights and Supreme Court precedent, the New York Times reports. She told committee members that the contraception rights case that is the foundation for Roe was "the precedent of the court, so it is settled law." She also said the 1992 ruling in Casey v. Planned Parenthood "reaffirmed the core holding of Roe," adding, "That is the precedent of the court and settled law in terms of the holding of the court" (Savage, New York Times, 7/15). Sotomayor said that "there is a right of privacy" and that the Supreme Court "has found it in various places in the Constitution." She cited the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure and the 14th Amendment guaranteeing equal protection of the law (AP/Yahoo! News, 7/14).Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) asked Sotomayor if she considered the 2007 ruling in Gonzales v. Carhart an example of settled law. In the case, the court voted 5-4 to uphold the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The ruling was the first time since Roe that the court upheld an abortion restriction that made no exception for the health of the woman, the Times reports. In her response, Sotomayor said that "[a]ll precedent of the Supreme Court I consider settled law, subject to the deference the doctrine of stare decisis would counsel," although she did not address the health exception component of the Gonzales case.Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) later pressed Sotomayor to elaborate on her views on Gonzales. Feinstein noted that at least seven Supreme Court rulings prior to the 2007 case stated that abortion laws "cannot put a woman"s health at risk." She added that Gonzales "essentially removed this basic constitutional right for women." Feinstein asked Sotomayor, "When there are multiple precedents and a question arises, are all the previous decisions discarded, or should the court re-examine all the cases on point?" Sotomayor replied that she does not consider Gonzales to be a precedent making it settled law that health exceptions for abortion laws are constitutionally unnecessary. She said, "That was, I don"t believe, a rejection of its prior precedents," which are "still precedents of the court." Sotomayor added that the "health and welfare of a woman must be -- must be a compelling consideration." Feinstein pressed Sotomayor to clarify that she meant that it is still settled that abortion restrictions must have health exceptions. Sotomayor said, "It has been a part of the court"s jurisprudence and a part of its precedents. Those precedents must be given deference in any situation that arises before the court" (New York Times, 7/15).Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked Sotomayor if the Constitution prohibits Congress or state legislatures "from defining life or regulating the rights of the unborn or protecting the right of the unborn in the first trimester?" Sotomayor began to cite the 14th Amendment to answer the question. Graham interrupted, asking, "[I]s there÷ anything in the document written about abortion?" Sotomayor said the "word "abortion" is not used in the Constitution, but the Constitution does have a broad provision concerning a liberty provision under the due process" clause (Holman, "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," PBS, 7/14).Graham also asked Sotomayor about her work with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which had submitted legal briefs in the past that supported public funding for abortion coverage for low-income women. Sotomayor served on the group"s board from 1980 to 1992. She said that she "wasn"t aware of what was said in those briefs." She noted that she had served on the board but was not a lawyer for the gro
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General Optical Council Highlights Importance Of Student Supervision, UK
The General Optical Council (GOC) is today reminding all optical businesses, students and supervisors to ensure their current arrangements for professional supervision of students meet the requirements outlined by the GOC, and examination or assessment bodies. This follows the recent Fitness to Practise (FTP) hearing involving Boots Opticians Ltd (a GOC-registered business); Trevor Burgess, a registered student dispensing optician; and Richard Simmons, a registered dispensing optician.
Diagnostics

H1N1 Could Infect Up To 2B People Within Next Two Years, WHO Says

The WHO on Friday said the "H1N1 swine-flu virus could infect up to two billion people over the next two years - about one of every three people in the world," VOA News reports. According to the news service, "A separate WHO report Friday said the virus has spread to almost every country in the world, killing about 800 people since it emerged in April" (7/25). Though the H1N1 "virus has been notable for affecting older children and young adults, groups normally not hard-hit by influenza," the WHO announced H1N1 "appeared ň€¦ to be affecting older age groups spared earlier in the pandemic," Reuters reports. The WHO also "said vaccination against H1N1 might start in weeks, even though clinical trials to test the safety, efficacy and needed dosage of H1N1 vaccines have barely started" (MacInnis/Nebehay, 7/24). Despite growing pressure to produce a viable H1N1 vaccine, WHO Assistant Director-General Keiji Fukuda assured the public Friday that vaccine safety would not be compromised, the AP/Google.com writes (7/24). The news service has also posted an interview with Fukuda (Jordans, AP/Google.com, 7/25). CDC Predicts Numbers Of U.S. Infections, Deaths Without Vaccine, Proper Control Measures "Hundreds of thousands of Americans could die over the next two years if the vaccine and other control measures for the new H1N1 influenza are not effective, and, at the pandemic"s peak, as much as 40 percent of the workforce could be affected, according to new estimates" from the CDC based on a 1957 pandemic which claimed the lives of 70,000, the Los Angeles Times reports. The estimates are "admittedly a worst-case scenario that the federal agency says it doesn"t expect to occur," the newspaper writes (Maugh, 7/25). "The estimates ň€¦ are roughly twice the number of those who catch flu in a normal season, the AP/Forbes reports. "Because so many more people are expected to catch the new flu," if vaccine efforts or other measures fail, "the number of deaths over two years could range from 90,000 to several hundred thousand, the CDC calculated" (Stobbe, 7/24). Ban Calls For H1N1 Vaccines For Developing Countries Xinhua examines the continued appeals from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon that wealthy nations help developing countries access the H1N1 vaccine (7/25). According to Reuters, the "WHO is trying to ensure that health workers in poor countries can be vaccinated so hospitals can stay open if the flu becomes more debilitating as it spreads" (Reuters, 7/24). Presidents of Argentina, Brazil Appeal For Lifting of Patent Rights To Aid In H1N1 Vaccine Production Dow Jones Newswires/CNN Money: During a South American trade summit meeting "[t]he presidents of Argentina and Brazil Friday suggested that developing countries be allowed to lift patent rights so they can produce" more H1N1 vaccines (Turner, 7/24). "Using patent rights to preserve an economic advantage in this case "would condemn millions of people to death," Kirchner argued," AFP/Google.com writes (7/25). Participants from the summit included representatives from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, the AFP/Google.com reports. "Governments represented at the Mercosur summit agreed to strengthen the network of laboratories for early detection, as well as to develop vaccines "with a new regulatory approach to ensure access for the population,"" in addition to coordination between health ministries and other entities related to vaccine and antiviral production, the news service writes (Queimalinos, 7/25). EMA To Accelerate H1N1 Approval Process The AP/Google.com examines the plan by the European Medicines Agency, to accelerate the approval process for swine flu vaccine - leading some "countries such as Britain, Greece, France and Sweden [to] start using the vaccine after it"s greenlighted - possibly within weeks." Though "[f]lu vaccines have been used for 40 years, and many experts say extensive testing is unnecessary, since the swine flu vaccine will simply contain a new ingredient: the swine flu virus ň€¦ European officials won"t know if the new vaccine causes any rare side effects until millions of people get the shots. Still, they say the benefit of saving lives is worth the gamble," the news service writes. The article includes statements by Fukada about the potential risks of untested vaccines (Cheng, 7/26). Additional Swine Flu News Irrawaddy.org examines how H1N1 has led to a growing demand and soaring prices for antivirals in Rangoon, Myanmar (Wine, 7/24). IOL examines recent discussions in South Africa about how the country can ramp up its vaccine production capabilities (Peters, 7/26). "Peru"s government has extended midyear school vacations by one week amid a growing outbreak of the H1N1 flu," Dow Jones Newswires/Wall Street Journal reports (Josephs, 7/24). This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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