by the El Reportero’s news services

Rafael Correa

In the final opinion polls, published on April 6, for the general elections on April 26, President Rafael Correa appears to be stretching his lead.

The polls show Correa with about 57 percent support, easily enough to win the presidency in the first round. The big question, which the polls do not really answer, is what will happen in the simultaneous congressional elections.

Correa’s personal vote will boost his Alianza País (AP), but whether this will be enough to give the AP a majority in the 124-seat congress is far from clear.

Fidel Castro open to Cuba-US dialogue

Development: On 5 April Cuba’s former president, Fidel Castro (1959-2008), said that Cuba was not afraid of dialogue with the U.S., and slammed as “fools” those external analysts that suggested the Communist-led regime needed confrontation to exist.

Signifi cance: Castro’s comments capped some interesting developments over the weekend that indicated the growing outreach on both sides of the Florida Straits.

A visiting delegation of seven U.S. congressionals (all Democrats) met the head of the Cuban parliament, Ricardo Alarcón, and the foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, and declared that the US and Cuba should restore diplomatic relations first and then begin talks.

A senior oil advisor at the Ministry of Basic Industries, Manuel Marrero Faz, said Cuba would welcome US investment in its fledgling offshore oil sector.

Finally, White House officials hinted that President Barack Obama would shortly fulfill his 2008 campaign pledge to allow unlimited family travel and remittances to Cuba.

Castro praised the US senator, Richard Lugar (Indiana), the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who on March 30 wrote to President Obama asking him to sanction Cuba’s re-admission to the 32-member Organization of American States and appoint a special envoy to establish direct talks on issues like drugs and migration with the government of President Raúl Castro. Lugar, Castro said, has his “feet on the ground”.

Castro pointed out that Cuba and the US have been co-operating on anti-drug traffi cking efforts for several years. Senior officials meet once a month.

Vázquez Mota quits cabinet in Mexico

Development: On 4 April Josefina Vázquez Mota resigned as education minister to run for congress on July 5.

Signifi­cance: Vázquez Mota is a heavy hitter. She is now a possible presidential candidate for the ruling Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) in 2012. It seems that she will take over the leadership of the PAN in the lower chamber after the elections.

Vázquez Mota was brought in to shake-up Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s election campaign at the beginning of 2006 when he was lagging badly in the polls. She had previously been running the Fox government’s welfare programmes, which were delivered by a web of NGOs, so she knew which strings to pull to get the votes out for Calderón. Vázquez Mota made a major contribution to Calderón’s narrow win in the 2006 presidential election. Vázquez Mota won a seat in congress in 2006, but joined the government as education minister.

(Latin News contributed to this report.)

by Soraya Schwartz

Following a March 5 White House meeting of some 150 major stakeholders in President Obama’s promised national health reform package, a series of regional summits has been launched, starting in Dearborn, Mich. Through April, additional forums are set for California, Iowa, North Carolina and Vermont.

President Obama detailed the process and led the discussion at the White House session, where some half dozen Hispanic health reform advocates participated.

The president said he expects to see Congress complete health legislation before the end of 2009.

Governors Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and Jim Doyle of Wisconsin were invited to moderate the March 12 Dearborn session, which brought together a diverse group to present their concerns and ideas. The day started with a video message from the president and summary reports on the White House interaction the week prior and community meetings that took place in December.

Melody Barnes, director of the White House domestic policy council, represented the Obama administration.

Also joining in the first regional meeting were doctors, patients, insurers, policy experts and health care providers, as well as representatives from both major political parties.

Among those contributing ideas atthe daylong White House event were National Alliance for Hispanic Health president Jane Delgado, National Hispanic Medical Association founding leader Elena Ríos, National Council of La Raza president Janet Murguía, League of United Latin American Citizens executive director Brent Wilkes and U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.).

President Obama set the agenda: “We can no longer talk about whether we will have health care reform, but how we will have effective reform and how are we going to do it.”

Those attending, among them numerous Democratic and Republican members of Congress as well as advocates representing both business and labor constituencies, were divided into work groups to discuss essential elements a bill should contain.

Ríos and Delgado shared their assessments with Weekly Report.

Delgado commented on a major shift on how the nation will look at health care in the future. “The President is already clear. He’s saying this is all a down payment. We’ll get as much down as we can, but we’re moving in the right direction. And we’ve never had this much momentum.”

‘93 REFORM WAS ILL-FATED Ríos emphasized, “Everybody wanted to work together and had great ideas. I am optimistic.” She added the reminder: “The demographics of our country are changing. We need a bill that is responsive to all Americans.”

Becerra had contributed to his session that it is essential to ensure protections for the nation’s undocumented immigrants in any plans.

Ríos noted a key difference between 2009 and 1993, when the Clinton administration launched its ill-fated health care reform effort.

While today the nation has a much larger and still growing non-white population, in 1993 Hispanics and other persons of color were marginalized.

Now they are seen as part of the fabric of America and the backbone of the economy.

NHMA is ready to work with the White House and congressional leaders “to make the new legislation more responsive to our community’s needs,” Ríos said.

Affordable inner city, rural and border health care will be vital to provide accessibility for Hispanics and other people of color, she cited, stressing the need for more ­interpreters, language services, cultural outreach programs and health information technology.

The White House issued an invitation to the general public to join the discussion by communicating their interests to: www.HealthReform.gov. Hispanic Link.

(Micah Muscolino contributed to reporting and writing this article.)

by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, (Michigan) — Head and neck cancer patients who smoked, drank, didn’t exercise or didn’t eat enough fruit when they were diagnosed had worse survival outcomes than those with better health habits, according to a new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“While there has been a recent emphasis on biomarkers and genes that might be linked to cancer survival, the health habits a person has at diagnosis play a major role in his or her survival,” says study author Sonia Duffy, Ph.D., R.N., associate professor of nursing at the U-M School of Nursing, research assistant professor of otolaryngology at the U-M Medical School, and research scientist at the VA Ann Arbor Health care System.

Each of the factors was independently associated with survival. Results of the study appear online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The researchers surveyed 504 head and neck cancer patients about five health behaviors: smoking, alcohol use, diet, exercise and sleep. Patients were surveyed every three months for two years then yearly after that.

Smoking was the biggest predictor of survival, with current smokers having the shortest survival. Problem drinking and low fruit intake were also associated with worse survival, although vegetable intake was not. Lack of exercise also appears to decrease survival.

“Health behaviors are only sporadically addressed in busy oncology clinics where the major focus is on surgery, chemotherapy or radiation. Addressing health behaviors may enhance the survival advantage offered by these treatments,” says Duffy, a U-M Cancer Center investigator.

Complicating matters is that many of these health behaviors are inter-related. For example, smokers might also be heavy drinkers, making it more difficult to quit. It’s not enough, Duffy points out, to refer someone to a smoking cessation program if alcohol is a major underlying problem.

In addition, previous research has associated many of these health behaviors with preventing cancer. In the current study, a third of the patients reported eating fewer than four servings of fruit per month. Nutrition experts recommend two servings of fruit per day.

“Eating fruits and vegetables, not smoking and drinking in moderation can have a big impact on a person’s risk of getting cancer in the first place. Now it appears that these factors also impact survival after diagnosis,” Duffy says.

The next step for the researchers is to look at behavior changes over­time to determine if changing health habits when a person is diagnosed can impact survival. That will help determine what types of interventions or services should be offered to patients in the clinic.

Head and neck cancer statistics: 35,310 Americans will be diagnosed with head and neck cancers this year and 7,590 will die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.