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Senate Begins Debate On FDA Regulation Of Tobacco

The Senate began debate Tuesday on whether to grant the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate tobacco products, Reuters reports. Debate began after an 84-11 procedural vote and could continue into next week. The Democratic-backed bill "would let the FDA oversee the packaging, marketing and manufacturing of cigarettes and other tobacco products, which have been linked to cancer and other illnesses and kill 400,000 Americans each year."
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Texas Lawmakers Divert Millions From Family Planning Clinics To Community Health Centers

Specialty clinics that provide family planning services in Texas have seen a significant decrease in state funding over the past four years because lawmakers have redirected millions of dollars to expand family planning at community health centers, the Dallas Morning News reports. The funding changes began in 2005, when lawmakers said they were shifting funding to community health centers because they offered more comprehensive health care to low-income patients. Advocates for the family planning clinics argue that the policy is an attempt by antiabortion-rights advocates to shut the clinics down. Although clinics that receive state funding are prohibited from offering abortion services, some conservative lawmakers believe that limiting the funding will hurt groups like Planned Parenthood, which offers abortion services at other locations, according to some family planning advocates. The Morning News reports that state lawmakers might return some of the funding to the specialty clinics during the current legislative session; however, the funding only would equal any money left unused by the community health centers.The most significant funding change occurred in 2005, when almost 25% of the state"s $45 million annual family planning budget was set aside for "federally qualified health centers" -- community health centers that offer services to uninsured and underserved people. Advocates for family planning clinics say that the number of patients receiving state-funded reproductive services declined by nearly 22%, from 326,000 patients in 2005 to 255,000 in the last fiscal year. They also note that the community health centers have an unused surplus of more than $11.5 million since 2005, which they say the family planning clinics could have used.According to the Morning News, many public health experts believe that specialty clinics that have family planning services offer more efficient and effective reproductive care than community health centers. David Warner, a health care finance and policy expert at the University of Texas Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, said the specialty clinics are "very targeted" and "don"t have a lot of overhead," whereas the community clinics have "limited enrollment and can be a lot less accessible." He added, "Continuing to starve those clinics means that you"re not going to be reaching the number of people you could be reaching with family planning services." Family planning clinics in Texas offer more than a dozen services ranging from birth control prescriptions to breast and cervical cancer screening and sexually transmitted infection testing. However, reproductive health advocates say many people often associate the clinics with abortion services, which gives antiabortion-rights lawmakers an incentive to shut down the clinics by withholding funding. Fran Hagerty, CEO of the Women"s Health and Family Planning Association of Texas, said, "Some lawmakers believe if they can prevent Planned Parenthood from participating in the state"s family planning program, then they"ve accomplished their goal."Supporters of community health centers say that billing issues and other administrative problems have distorted their data on how many reproductive health patients they are treating. Many women receive care at the community centers for family planning services along with treatment of other health problems, so they often are not recorded as reproductive health patients, according to the centers (Ramshaw, Dallas Morning News, 5/22).