The Pulse

Last week came news of an FDA panel recommending the use of the drug Truvada to prevent HIV infection in high-risk individuals.

But that development, as welcome as it is, should not distract us from the need for an HIV vaccine, says Dr. Mark J. Mulligan, a professor of medicine at Emory University, in a new GHN Commentary.

“Every year for 15 years, approximately 56,000 Americans have become newly HIV-infected,’’ writes Mulligan. “This number has not fallen despite behavioral education efforts.’’

Friday is HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, and this weekend, Action Cycling Atlanta puts on the AIDS Vaccine 200 Bike Ride.

Here’s a link to Mulligan’s Commentary.

Georgia Health News welcomes Commentary submissions. If you would like to propose a Commentary piece for Georgia Health News, please email Andy Miller, editor of GHN, at amiller@georgiahealthnews.com

Many American baby boomers perceive tuberculosis to be a relic of the past, like polio.

In past centuries, the disease killed millions of Americans, including historical figures such as President James Monroe and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Then, in the 1940s and ’50s, effective drug therapies were developed, and experts predicted the eventual elimination of TB.

Yet TB remains a massive killer worldwide, accounting for 2 million deaths annually. And it’s the leading cause of death for people infected with HIV, including in the United States.

The U.S. rate of TB has been declining. Last year, a total of 10,521 new tuberculosis cases were reported in the U.S., an incidence of 3.4 cases per 100,000 people. That’s the lowest rate recorded since national reporting began in 1953, the CDC says.

But Georgia’s tuberculosis rate, though dropping, is still higher than the national average. Georgia reported 347 TB cases (3.5 cases per 100,000 population) in 2011, a 16 percent decrease from 2010.

The disease in the state is largely centered in three counties in metro Atlanta — DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett.

The state Department of Public Health reports that in 2010, the most recent year with available data for population estimates by race and ethnicity, the highest TB case rate was in Asians (24.1 per 100,000), followed by Hispanics (8.2 per 100,000), and non-Hispanic blacks (7.1 per 100,000).

The cost of containing a live outbreak can be ‘‘phenomenal,’’ says state Sen. Renee Unterman, who represents a Gwinnett district. Unterman’s advocacy helped inject an extra $350,000 in the state budget for treating TB in those three counties.

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Boredom and hormones are a dangerous mix in teenagers, who are all too likely to experiment with alcohol, drugs and sex.

It’s a problem everywhere, including Georgia. Even in rural areas, such problems can often be acute.

Take thinly populated Madison County, in northeast Georgia. “We have a lot of kids who go to parties and drink excessively and then they make wrong choices. A lot of times they’ll get drunk and have sex and not even remember it,” said Wanda Strickland, a nurse practitioner at the Teen Matters clinic and the Madison County Health Department.

Some are exposed to sexually transmitted diseases; others seek the “morning after” pill to prevent pregnancy.

In the county’s most recent Behavior and Risk for Teens (BART) survey in 2003, 45 percent of the 17- and 18-year-old high school students surveyed said that they had consumed alcohol, and more than half had engaged in sexual intercourse.

Unfortunately, some parents not only fail to protect their children from the risks that drinking brings, but may actually make it easier for teenagers to get drunk. The drinking then opens the door to other public health problems, like teen pregnancy and STDs.

A 15-year-old Clarke County ninth-grader recalls that when living in Madison County, many teens were provided alcohol at regular parties at a local adult resident’s home. ‘’Sometimes I’d just sleep in the hammock on the porch,’’ the ninth-grader says. full story

Southern Regional Health System and Emory Healthcare announced Thursday that they will enter talks on a possible affiliation.

Emory would manage Southern Regional, a Riverdale hospital system, under the proposal.

The announcement of a letter of intent follows initial talks between the two nonprofit organizations reported in March. And it continues the drive for consolidation among hospitals across the state, and especially in the metro Atlanta area.

Earlier this year, Emory completed a partnership with Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta to form a joint operating company. Elsewhere in the state, hospital mergers have occurred in Albany and Valdosta, and the Mayo Clinic recently took control of a health system in Waycross. full story

Fifty-fifty.

Those are the odds given by a prominent Atlanta attorney that the Supreme Court will uphold the 2010 health reform law.

He gives the same odds that the justices will strike down the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in its entirety or part of the law that includes its controversial mandate for most individuals to purchase health insurance.

“The case is truly difficult,’’ said attorney Bruce Brown of McKenna Long & Aldridge, at an Atlanta conference this week held by the Georgia Charitable Care Network, an organization of charity clinics serving the uninsured in the state.

Brown, whose legal experience includes clerking for the late Chief Justice Warren Burger, said he believes the justices ‘‘will really grapple with’’ the complex law.

The court’s decision is likely to come in late June.

The stakes for Georgia and other states are high. The law, if upheld, would extend Medicaid coverage to 650,000 Georgians and private insurance to thousands more. The state’s current rate of uninsured is 20 percent, one of the highest percentages in the nation.

And a new study shows access to health care is a big problem in Georgia.

Adults in nearly every state saw their access to health services worsen during over the past decade, with Tennessee, Florida and Georgia having the greatest increase in people reporting having an unmet medical need, according to a study released Tuesday. full story