Daily Rounds: Kids' Bad Teeth; Docs' Pay Up With New Patients; A Decision On BPA; Pain Relief In Nigeria

Preschoolers In Surgery For a Mouthful Of Cavitites (The New York Times) — "...dentists nationwide say they are seeing more preschoolers at all income levels with 6 to 10 cavities or more. The level of decay, they added, is so severe that they often recommend using general anesthesia because young children are unlikely to sit through such extensive procedures while they are awake." (The New York Times)

Doctors' Pay Rises With New Patients (The Boston Globe) — "The Harvard-affiliated hospitals are tying about 10 percent of doctors’ salaries this year to the size of their practice and the complexity of their patients’ illnesses.That means the hospitals’ 360 employed primary-care physicians can increase their pay, now roughly $200,000 a year for those who work full time, if they see more patients than the average, or if they have many patients with multiple medical problems. Their pay can fall if they take care of fewer people. The program is already having an effect when many patients have trouble finding primary-care doctors. Dozens of internists at the Brigham and Mass. General are bringing on one or two new patients a week." (The Boston Globe)

BPA In Food Packaging: FDA To Decide By March 31 (Forbes) — "BPA, an industrial chemical so ubiquitous it has been found in the urine of 93 percent of Americans, according to the Endocrine-Related Cancer Journal, mimics the female hormone estrogen. In studies, it has been linked to reproductive problems, prostate and other cancers, and problems in fetal brain development. A recent study from Harvard’s School of Public Health found a link between behavioral issues in preschool-age girls and mothers with high BPA levels — the higher the mothers’ BPA levels, the worse their daughters rated on standard behavior tests. The FDA has said it will decide by March 31 whether BPA should be banned from all U.S. food and beverage packaging..." (Forbes)

Nigeria To Import Morphine In Pain Relief Initiative (The New York Times) — "Nigeria’s health minister announced last week that the country would immediately buy 55 pounds of morphine for the nation’s hospitals and would form an alliance with a new nonprofit organization, the Global Access to Pain Relief Initiative. 177,000 Nigerians die in pain from cancer or AIDS each year, according to Meg O’Brien, director of the new initiative, but the country has imported only two pounds of morphine since 2007. (Nigeria, which will soon have a population of 170 million, according to the C.I.A. World Factbook, is home to one-fifth of all Africans.)" (The New York Times)