By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has reversed decades of advice on circumcision and now says that the benefits of the procedure outweigh the risks. The first policy statement on circumcision since 1999 has triggered angry reactions from opponents who called on the influential group to immediately retract the policy recommendation. Since the 1970s, the AAP had said circumcisions were not medically necessary. Removing the foreskin of the penis from infant boys is an ancient Jewish and Islamic tradition, but circumcision rates have been declining in the U.S. and even in Israel. An increasing number of…
Category: Featured - Part 14
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon An unusual summer spike of whooping cough cases in Colorado has prompted health experts here to declare an epidemic and call for both children and adults to get immunized. A strong anti-vaccine movement in Colorado has meant that the state has lagged behind the rest of the country on many immunizations. Only about 85 percent of children and adults who should be protected from whooping cough are fully vaccinated. So far this year, Colorado health officials have tracked 715 cases of whooping cough, also known as pertussis. That compares to an average of just 158 cases…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon LAKEWOOD As Medicare has leapt into the top-tier of issues that will decide the presidential contest, Colorados population of older adults is ballooning. Colorado now boasts the fourth fastest-increasing population of seniors in the country and these aging baby boomers who vote in large numbers could help drive election results in key swing counties of this crucial swing state. Mitt Romneys pick of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, for his running mate has put Medicare at the center of the national debate. Ryan supports dismantling the public health insurance program for seniors and replacing it with…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Once certain that he would die young, the man born with the deadly disease now dreams of growing old. Im going to be a grandfather someday. Im going to have a really long life, says Bill Elder, a 25-year-old Stanford graduate who is now applying for medical school. Thats because of a blue pill and a new trend in drug development called venture philanthropy. Elder has cystic fibrosis (CF). Its known as an orphan disease because so few people have it only about 30,000 in the U.S. and about 70,000 worldwide so there is little incentive…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon KEYSTONE Afghanistan combat veteran, gun owner and bestselling author Wes Moore said its a travesty that its easier to get a gun than health care in the U.S. Accused Aurora movie theater killer James Holmes now faces 142 criminal charges including a sentence-enhancing count for unlawful use of a firearm during the commission of a crime. Moore told an audience of health experts at the 2012 Colorado Health Symposium here last week that we must mourn those who lost their lives in Aurora, but its also crucial for policymakers to discuss tighter gun regulations. If not…
By Diane Carman While political leaders across the country furiously debate how or even whether to provide health care coverage for the uninsured, Denver Health, the states largest safety net provider, welcomed a new CEO this week. Arthur A. Gonzalez will be charged with running a critical institution where 42 percent of its patients are uninsured at a time when state revenue projections are weak and the future of Medicaid expansion is in serious doubt. He succeeds Dr. Patricia Gabow, who is retiring in September after serving as CEO of Denver Health for 20 years. He will begin the new…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon AURORA The Colorado community devastated by a mass killing will now become one of only four sites selected for the most promising revolution in health care: hotspotting. The movement began with a different senseless shooting in 2001 in Camden, N.J., a city that tops the country for both crime and poverty. Its a place filled with urban ruins, where a tree is shooting up through a once-stately Carnegie library, where budget cuts recently forced the layoffs of half the police department and where gunshots frequently pierce the night sky. We also end up with all the…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon and Diane Carman Colorado leaders have failed to tackle gun fatalities as a public health threat and gun deaths in Colorado and nine other states now exceed automobile fatalities, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Violence Policy Center. Coloradans are reeling from the Aurora theater massacre, the third mass shooting here since 1999 when Columbine shattered the countrys psyche. Yet Colorados governor told a national television audience on Sunday that he thought there was little that could have been done to prevent the recent killings, and conspicuously absent…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon AURORA The sound of police and news helicopters buzzed over the Anschutz Medical Campus on Friday and dogs searched locked-down research buildings as workers at the Rocky Mountain regions premier medical research campus grappled with the reality that the suspected Batman killer had, until last month, been one of their own. James Holmes, 24, had been a student at the University of Colorados graduate program in neurosciences. He had lived just one block west of the leafy campus full of new high-rise buildings and adjacent to two of the leading hospitals in the Denver area, the…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Latinos, who are uninsured at disproportionately high rates in Colorado, could gain the most as health reform takes hold. Thats what happened in Massachusetts, which in 2006 became the first state in the nation to require health coverage for all individuals and to implement a health insurance exchange. Massachusetts health reform law became a model for the Affordable Care Act, which the U.S. Supreme Court last month upheld. A lot of Latinos have low-paying jobs and they dont qualify for Medicaid, said Maria Gonzalez, spokeswoman of Health Care for All Massachusetts, a consumer advocacy group that…