ANA’s PAC and complementary political education program are key to ANA’s legislative success in the U.S. Congress and a strong part of ANA’s overall success. ANA-PAC builds relation¬ships and provides bipartisan support for pro-nursing members of Congress. In addition to increasing nursing’s visibility in the political arena, ANA-PAC dem¬onstrates to policymakers that we are se¬rious about our issues.
We are only two months into 2010 and nurses are poised for challenging state legislative sessions. Legislators, faced with severe budget deficits, are limiting policy decisions primarily to those that will be revenue generating or reduce costs. State nurses associations are not deterred, advancing agendas that demonstrate the contributions and value of nurses in the health care delivery system.
With recent news of excessive, harmful radiation from medical imaging procedures, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration announced on February 9, 2010 an initiative to decrease unnecessary exposure from computed tomography (CT) scans, nuclear medicine studies, and fluoroscopy. These contribute substantially to total radiation exposure, with much higher radiation than standard and dental X-rays, and mammography.
