Health Highlights: Sept. 1, 2007

ByABC News
March 24, 2008, 1:09 AM

Mar. 23 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments,compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Cancer Society Using Entire Advertising Budget as an Alert to Problems of the Uninsured

The American Cancer Society has decided to use its $15 million annual advertising budget to attack a health problem that its chief executive says overwhelms almost every other one in the United States: the rising number of uninsured Americans.

The New York Times reports that recent U.S Census figures have shown that the number of Americans without health insurance rose in 2006 to 47 million, almost 16 percent of the population. And it is this growing number of people who don't have the coverage to get preventative tests, such as mammograms, that may be slowing down a successful fight against cancer, the Times reports.

With 560,000 Americans estimated to die from cancer this year, the financial burden actually causes poverty in one-in-five families, the newspaper says. "I believe, if we don't fix the health care system, that lack of access will be a bigger cancer killer than tobacco," the Times quotes John R. Seffrin, cancer society chief executive, as saying. "The ultimate control of cancer is as much a public policy issue as it is a medical and scientific issue."

Two other health organizations are using a significant amount of their advertising budgets to campaign for more affordable health insurance: AARP and the American Medical Association.

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First New Smallpox Vaccine Since 1931 Approved by FDA

After a number of clinical trials, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced the licensing of a new smallpox vaccine.

The vaccine, ACAM2000 -- made by Acambis Inc. of Cambridge, England -- will be for inoculating people at "high risk of exposure to smallpox and could be used to protect individuals and populations during a bioterrorist attack," the FDA says in a news release. It is the first smallpox vaccine approved by the FDA since 1931.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paid $30 million for 10 million doses of ACAM2000 in 2006, and the FDA's announcement of the vaccine's licensing indicates that it will become a main source to protect against smallpox if it becomes necessary.