GinaMarie Mangiaracina

Help Wanted: Innovators to address the most pressing issues in healthcare. Must think outside the box and be willing to take on some of the most challenging issues. Please apply within. It wasn’t a job listing, but it was the premise for the recent TEDMED event in Washington, DC, called the Great Challenges program. Sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Great Challenges would use a 3-day competition to find the 20 most pressing health challenges in America – challenges that would then benefit from year-round attention and conversations among multi-disciplinary teams of scientists. With the requirement that the issue had to be presented using cutting-edge ideas and unusual perspectives, there hardly seemed a better venue for the CCA signature program the STOP Obesity Alliance to make its case. How to get selected was our greatest challenge. Obesity had to distinguish itself among a range of important issues, ranging from unwed teen pregnancy to mental health to healthcare acquired infections. Issues were paired with advocates who had to encourage the organization’s 55,000+ delegates to vote for their health issue as the most challenging and important. The advocates were encouraged to use social networks to gain additional public votes. The directorContinue Reading

Yesterday, an FDA Advisory panel overwhelmingly recommended approving the obesity drug, Qnexa in a 20-2 vote. This marks the first time in 13 years that an obesity drug could see approval. While the FDA has yet to act on the Advisory Committee’s recommendation, this is amazing forward progress. Obesity is an epidemic that affects more than 30% of the adult U.S. population. When one includes both overweight and obese Americans, that number grows to nearly 70%. What other health condition that affects this much of the population is largely ignored? Drawing a blank? Exactly – any other health condition this pervasive would already have seen a full court press to prevent and treat it. Just take a look at the percentage of Americans affected by other conditions that have approved treatments available: Diabetes – 8.3% Heart Disease – 7% Cancer – 8.5% Less than 10% for each! It’s not that obesity has little effect on our bottom line. Obesity costs the United States more than $147 billion a year and, if trends continue unabated, costs are predicted to double each decade, reaching $957 billion annually in 2030. But it’s more than economic cost. Every day, more research uncovers the farContinue Reading