The foundation, which focuses on raising money for breast cancer research and prevention, said it was pulling about $700,000 in breast cancer screening and service grants from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America under a new policy that forbid support for organizations under investigation.

Planned Parenthood is the under investigation that was launched last fall by House Energy and Commerce Investigative Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns, R-Fla.

But Planned Parenthood’s supporters argued the investigation is politically motivated and based on allegations proved to be unsubstantiated.

Komen, they charged, was simply knuckling under to pressure from anti-abortion groups and using the new policy as cover.

Reaction was swift and fierce with abortion-rights supporters denouncing Komen from the floor of Congress to Facebook pages.

In a statement, released today the Komen board for directors said:

We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives. The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

In a statement released in response to the Komen decision Planned Parenthood said:

In recent weeks, the treasured relationship between the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation and Planned Parenthood has been challenged, and we are now heartened that we can continue to work in partnership toward our shared commitment to breast health for the most underserved women. We are enormously grateful that the Komen Foundation has clarified its grantmaking criteria, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Komen partners, leaders and volunteers.

Full text of both statements are below:

Full text of today’s statement from Komen:

We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives. The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.

It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women. We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics – anyone’s politics.

Starting this afternoon, we will have calls with our network and key supporters to refocus our attention on our mission and get back to doing our work. We ask for the public’s understanding and patience as we gather our Komen affiliates from around the country to determine how to move forward in the best interests of the women and people we serve.

We extend our deepest thanks for the outpouring of support we have received from so many in the past few days and we sincerely hope that these changes will be welcomed by those who have expressed their concern.

Statement released by Planned Parenthood:

“The outpouring of support for women in need of lifesaving breast cancer screening this week has been astonishing and is a testament to our nation’s compassion and sincerity.

“During the last week, millions spontaneously joined a national conversation about lifesaving breast cancer prevention care and reinforced shared values about access to health care for all. This compassionate outcry in support of those most in need rose above political, ideological, and cultural divides, and will surely be recognized as one of our nation’s better moments during a contentious political time. Planned Parenthood thanks each and every person who has contributed to elevating the importance of breast cancer prevention for so many women in need.

“In recent weeks, the treasured relationship between the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation and Planned Parenthood has been challenged, and we are now heartened that we can continue to work in partnership toward our shared commitment to breast health for the most underserved women. We are enormously grateful that the Komen Foundation has clarified its grantmaking criteria, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Komen partners, leaders and volunteers. What these past few days have demonstrated is the deep resolve all Americans share in the fight against cancer, and we honor those who are at the helm of this battle.

“Planned Parenthood has been a trusted partner with the Komen Foundation in early cancer detection and prevention services. In particular, Planned Parenthood helps the Komen Foundation reach vulnerable populations — low-income women, African-American women, and Latinas — especially in rural areas and underserved communities where Planned Parenthood health centers are their only source of health care. With Komen Foundation grants, over the past five years, Planned Parenthood health centers provided nearly 170,000 clinical breast exams and more than 6,400 mammogram referrals. With the outpouring of support over the past week, even more women in need will receive lifesaving breast cancer care.”

by Lena Groeger

The fine is just the latest of more than a dozen the Red Cross has racked up in the last decade.

In 2003, a federal court, frustrated by repeated blood safety violations by the Red Cross, gave the FDA the power to fine the organization.

Forty-six million dollars in penalties later, many of the same violations — understaffing, ineffective screening of donors, failure to recall infected blood — are outlined in the recent letter the FDA sent to the executive vice president of Biomedical Services for the Red Cross.

The 32-page letter describes hundreds of violations over several months in 2010 at 16 Red Cross facilities across the country, and details how the Red Cross repeatedly failed to properly track and record information about donors and blood units.

(To see a history of Red Cross fines and many of the documents cited in this article go to ProPublica’s timeline of Red Cross fines.)

For example, the agency failed to notify health departments when donors had infectious diseases such as HIV and syphilis, failed to add new donors with infected blood to a national list of people who aren’t allowed to donate, and failed to review records of donors who had bad reactions, such as a 16-year-old who lost consciousness and fell to the floor after giving a unit of blood.

It also failed to follow written procedures, such as the case of a phlebotomist in Arizona who stuck herself with a needle before sticking a donor with the same needle to draw blood. The case went unreported for a month, because a staff member “was not aware of the need to immediately notify a Medical Director,” according to the inspection letter.

In a recent statement, the Red Cross said it was disappointed that the FDA issued the fine for “an inspection conducted so long ago” and noted that it has “already taken corrective steps to address those matters and that improvements in operations have been made.”

In an email to ProPublica, a Red Cross spokeswoman also said there is no evidence that these violations endangered any patients, adding that the blood supply is safer than it has ever been.

The spokeswoman said the agency has made significant improvements, including reducing the number of problems system-wide by at least 65 percent, and is investing in technology upgrades.

For example, the agency recently upgraded software and computer equipment at blood drives to better collect and track donor information.

The FDA’s letter laying out the fines says the Red Cross “has known of these continuing problems and has failed to take adequate steps to correct them.”

The FDA also noted that “many of the violations recounted in this letter are virtually identical to violations charged in previous [letters].” In June 2010 the FDA imposed a $16 million penalty on the Red Cross for the same type of violations.

The chronic problems raise the question of whether penalties are working at all.

The Red Cross has been making promises and failing to keep them for over a decade, according to Sidney Wolfe, who heads the health research group at the consumer watchdog organization Public Citizen.

Wolfe said he wrote to head of the FDA in 2000, urging it to hold the Red Cross in contempt of court. A federal court first put the Red Cross under government supervision in 1993 after finding blood safety lapses. A decade later, in 2003, the court empowered the FDA to impose fines.

“But fast-forward nine years ahead, and we have the same violations,” Wolfe said.

If the Red Cross disagrees with an assessment, it can ask the FDA to reevaluate the penalty, but in most cases the fine only changes by a few thousand dollars.

Most of the recent problems inspectors cited have to do with managing records and tracking blood donors. The Red Cross says it is unaware of any infections or deaths that stemmed from problems noted in the report, and that “serious problems” account for only three percent of the total problems found.

The FDA doesn’t think that’s good enough.

“FDA cannot definitively say there was never any danger to the blood supply since the violations can create conditions that could lead to potential safety consequences,” said FDA spokeswoman Patricia El-Hinnawy.

The government requires that the Red Cross (like any blood services operation) have multiple safeguards for its blood services.

That includes asking a donor questions to identify any risks, checking his or her name against a national list of people who aren’t allowed to give blood, testing for infectious diseases, keeping track of blood units so infected blood isn’t released, and investigating any deviations from standards.

Because blood transfusions always carry a degree of risk, the FDA considers every step in that process critical to minimizing problems.

“Failure of an individual safeguard does not automatically translate into the release of unsafe products,” an FDA spokeswoman told ProPublica in an email, “however, it may increase the potential for risk.”

In 2008, the Red Cross consolidated its blood work to two facilities: one in Charlotte, N.C., and the other in Philadelphia. The offices are in charge of managing, tracking and, if need be, recalling blood.

But according to the inspection letter, both offices have been chronically understaffed, and simply haven’t been able to carry out their required functions in a timely or effective manner. As of 2010, the offices had a backlog of about 18,000 donor management cases.

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By Julie Rovner, NPR NewsThis story comes from KHN partner ‘s Shots blog.

Two of the nation’s most iconic women’s health groups are engaged in a nasty fight that’s raising a lot of eyebrows.

The breast-cancer charity Susan G. Komen For the Cure is pulling about $700,000 in breast cancer screening and service grants from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

The money isn’t massive by either group’s bottom line: Komen raised more than $400 million in 2010; Planned Parenthood’s total revenue that year was over $1 billion.

But it apparently marks a new chapter in the ongoing abortion war, not to mention the battle to defund Planned Parenthood.

Komen’s reason, according to the AP (the organization didn’t return NPR’s calls or emails) was a new policy forbidding grants to organizations under official investigation. Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards confirmed that in an interview.

Planned Parenthood is the subject of an inquiry launched last fall by House Energy and Commerce Investigative Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns, R-Fla.

But members of Congress who back Planned Parenthood say that investigation is little more than the same allegations that have long been made — and not substantiated – against the group.

“This is a trumped up investigation by some Republicans in the Congress who have a vendetta against Planned Parenthood,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Planned Parenthood’s Richards says she thinks the Komen Foundation has finally been pushed too far by pressure from anti-abortion groups. “I think what’s really disturbing about seeing these right-wing attacks on groups like the Komen Foundation is we can’t allow bullies to prevent women from getting the health care they need.”

But others say the pressure may have come from within the Komen organization itself. They point to the hiring last year of Karen Handel, a vice president who ran for governor in Georgia last year on a platform that included cutting state funds for Planned Parenthood.

Whatever the reason, it has outraged members of Congress like DeGette.

“I don’t see two groups at war with each other,” she said. “I see the Komen Foundation declaring war on women’s health.

Planned Parenthood has done everything they’ve been asked to do. And with their own private money, with 3 percent of their services or less, they do abortions, which the last I heard were still legal in this country.”

Anti-abortion groups, not surprisingly, are praising the Komen Foundation.

“The work of the Komen Foundation has life-saving potential and should not be intertwined with an industry dealing in death,” said Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life.

What’s your take? Is Komen right to pull funding for Planned Parenthood or is it knuckling under to political pressure?

Meanwhile, Steven Aden of the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal firm, said it “applauds Komen for seeing the contradiction between its life-saving work and its relationship with an abortionist that has ended millions of lives.”

But despite those plaudits, an even bigger question many are asking is which of these huge and recognizable groups is likely to win this fight?

Deana Rohlinger, an associate professor at Florida State University who studies women’s groups, thinks that while Planned Parenthood may lose this funding battle, it’s likely to win the war.

Planned Parenthood is “an organization that has been around for a long time, and this isn’t the first time it’s seen a hit to its bottom line,” she said. “It’s gone without before. And I don’t imagine that this is going to bring it down.”

Komen, on the other hand, she says, has been seen, until now, as more about pink ribbons and T-shirts than politics.

Yet “by taking such a strong move, what they’ve done is made it more about abortion, potentially, than about women’s health,” she says. “And that could be problematic in terms of people that support the Komen Foundation. You’re talking about a generally popular group, and some folks might reconsider participating.”

Local Resources:

• Puget Sound Susan G. Komen for the Cure (breast cancer advocacy group): www.pskomen.org
• Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest: www.plannedparenthood.org/ppgnw

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

Every week, Kaiser Health News reporter Jessica Marcy selects interesting reading from around the Web.

Washington Monthly: The Yaz Men: Members of FDA panel had industry ties

Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration convened a committee of medical experts to weigh new evidence concerning the potential dangers of drospirenone, a synthetic hormone contained in popular birth control pills including Bayer AG’s Yaz and Yasmin. … the committee concluded by a four-vote margin that the benefits of drugs with drospirenone outweigh the risks.

However, an investigation by the Washington Monthly and the British medical journal BMJ has found that at least four members of the committee have either done work for the drugs’ manufacturers or licensees or received research funding from them.

The FDA made none of those financial ties public. … When asked whether the agency was aware of any financial ties between its advisors and manufacturers or distributors of drospirenone, FDA spokeswoman Morgan Liscinsky said, “No waivers were issued” (Jeanne Lenzer and Keith Epstein, 1/9).

CNN: Doctors Cheated On Exams

For years, doctors around the country taking an exam to become board certified in radiology have cheated by memorizing test questions, creating sophisticated banks of what are known as “recalls,” a CNN investigation has found.

The recall exams are meticulously compiled by radiology residents, who write down the questions after taking the test, in radiology programs around the country, including some of the most prestigious programs in the U.S. …

Dozens of radiology residents interviewed by CNN said that they promised before taking the written test to memorize certain questions and write them down immediately after the test (Scott Zamost, Drew Griffin and Azadeh Ansari, 1/13).

Governing: Why Are Dentists Opposing Expanded Dental Care?

Try finding a dentist in the remotest rural or deepest urban pockets of the land, and for blatantly economic reasons, they just aren’t there. That’s why states are looking to fix the problem by creating a so-called mid-level dental provider.

Much like a nurse practitioner (NP) or physician assistant (PA) is to a doctor, this provider would be educated and licensed to perform basic dental services — routine checkups, cleanings, filling cavities and extracting teeth — under the supervision of a fully trained dentist. …

Yet in much the same way that the American Medical Association fought against the creation of NPs and PAs, the American Dental Association (ADA) and its state chapters are lobbying hard to thwart state legislatures as they work to create this new level of dental care providers (David Levine, January 2012).

American Medical News: Former Drug Reps Eyed to Pitch Physicians on Referrals

The Laser Spine Institute, a Tampa, Fla.-based endoscopic spine ambulatory surgery center with locations in seven cities … is expanding its marketing beyond the public and aiming at physicians in the community who might send them new patients.

To help in the effort, the 25-doctor group is looking to hire four new representatives — called physician liaisons or physician relations associates — who have at least five years’ experience as drug or device-company detailers. …  people in the field say demand is growing for professionals with the ability to call on doctors in person to help drive referral business in profitable areas such as cardiac care, cancer care and orthopedic surgery (Kevin B. O’Reilly, 1/16).

See related Kaiser Health News article: Hospitals Adopt Drug Industry Sales Strategy (Galewitz, 12/13)

Columbia Journalism Review: Medicare Vouchers Explained

In the Republican presidential debate Monday, Mitt Romney came out in favor of a “premium support program, which allows people to buy either current standard Medicare or a private plan.”

He said he supported the proposal made by Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan … So far, the mainstream media has done little to explain the concepts and terms being tossed around by politicians on all sides.

Campaign Desk sat down with Henry Aaron, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, to sort all this out (Trudy Lieberman, 1/18).

Health Affairs: New Federal Policy Initiatives To Boost Health Literacy Can Help The Nation Move Beyond The Cycle Of Costly ‘Crisis Care’

Health systems often function as if all patients have health literacy skills and can be vigilant advocates for themselves. In reality, however, a wide chasm often separates what providers intend to convey in written and oral communication and what patients understand. …

Fortunately, many organizations have already responded to the call to make health literacy a key element of health care improvement. …

The time is right to accelerate our national commitment to providing the American people with clear, understandable, and actionable science-based health information (Howard K. Koh, Donald M. Berwick, Carolyn M. Clancy, Cynthia Baur, Cindy Brach, Linda M. Harris and Eileen G. Zerhusen, 1/18).

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

The Washington Post Magazine: A Family Learns The True Meaning Of The Vow ‘In Sickness And In Health’

Seven years later Robert was still mentally impaired and his personality far different than before the accident, but he knew his family, knew he had had a brain injury that upended their lives, and asked lots of questions. He carried with him at all times a reporter’s notebook, in which he had written the information most important to him: his daughters’ ages — 9 and 11 — and that he has “known my honey” 18 years. … Robert had looked at Page with earnest eyes and the relaxed demeanor he used to have and asked if it was hard for her to pack up the house: “Does that cause you distress, darlin’? Make you sad?” Page took his hand, and her eyes filled with tears. “We had the best days of our lives and the worst days of our lives in that house,” she said quietly (Susan Baer, 1/5).

Photo courtesy of Photo by Marja Flick-Buijs

Columbia Journalism Review: The Bloodying Of PolitiFact: What Is Medicare, Anyway?

Now it’s my turn to weigh in on the “Lie of the Year,” the gimmick PolitiFact uses to highlight the most egregious misstatements of the past year. This time, though, the fact-checking service stumbled into a fusillade of criticism from such unlikely bedfellows as New York Times liberal columnist Paul Krugman and the conservative Wall Street Journal’s online opinion page. The lie, according to PolitiFact, was the Democrats’ assertion that Republicans voted to end Medicare when the House voted last spring to embrace a voucher plan pushed by Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan. The fact is Republicans by supporting Ryan’s voucher plan did essentially vote to end Medicare. … PolitiFact and others should have left it there and devoted space to the larger issue. Medicare may be wildly popular, but it is not well understood by most people — be they beneficiaries, politicians, or journalists. Deconstructing how this complicated and misunderstood program works and the historical context for proposed changes would go a long way to helping the public evaluate the arguments from both Democrats and Republicans (Trudy Lieberman, 1/6).

Slate: Make Me A Baby As Fast As You Can

The booming business in international surrogacy, whereby Westerners have begun hiring poor women in developing countries to carry their babies, has been the subject of plenty of media buzzing over the past few years. Much of the coverage regards the practice as a win-win for surrogates and those who hire them; couples receive the baby they have always wanted while surrogates from impoverished areas overseas earn more in one gestation than they would in many years of ordinary work. … But make no mistake: This is first and foremost a business. And the product this business sells — third-party pregnancy — is now being offered with all sorts of customizable options, guarantees, and legal protections for clients (aka would-be parents) (Douglas Pet, 1/9).

Reason: Medicare Whac-A-Mole

It is often said that you can’t put a price on health. But for decades that is exactly what the federal government has attempted. Since the birth of the entitlement, a parade of legislators and bureaucrats has been playing billion- and trillion-dollar games of Whac-A-Mole with Medicare, knocking down spending with an elaborately constructed set of technocratic payment schemes in one area only to see it rise back up in some other part of the system. Obama is merely proposing to try it one more time (Peter Suderman, January 2012).

American Medical News: 5 Simple Ways To Cut Medical Practice Costs

Photo of Vierdrie

Physicians are finding that a few simple steps can open the door to big savings in operating a medical practice. General operating costs for multispecialty practices have increased 52.6 percent since 2001, exceeding revenue gains in that period, according to the Medical Group Management Assn., which uses such groups as bellwethers for the overall practice economy.

But those expenses were cut 2.2 percent in 2010, according to MGMA. … Consultants and experts recommend looking for savings in five key areas: office supplies, office equipment, medical supplies, finance and consulting, and energy costs (Karen Caffarini, 1/9).

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.