A New York lawmaker is calling on Congress to pass legislation that would further regulate how tobacco products are sold and marketed to children.

Rep. Vito Fossella, a Republican of Staten Island, along with representatives from the American Cancer Society, lobbied on behalf of the legislation, which would ban the sale of cigarettes to children, restrict marketing targeting children, ban fruit- and candy-flavored cigarettes, and require larger health warnings on tobacco products.

Speaking at a news conference in Staten Island, Mr. Fossella said New York spends $8.17 billion a year on smoking-related health care costs. With about $5.4 million paid for through Medicaid, he estimated, households in New York pay about $904 a year in federal and state taxes for smoking-related spending.

This month, Governor Paterson and the state Legislature increased the tax on cigarettes to $2.75 a pack, an increase of $1.25. The legislation, by Reps. Henry Waxman, a Democrat of California, and Tom Davis, a Republican of Virginia, is awaiting a floor vote.

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HOSPITAL CREATES PROGRAM FOR CORRECTING FACIAL, SKULL DEFORMITIES

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center has created a new program focused on treating children with facial and skull deformities.

Endowed by a trustee of the hospital, David Komansky, and his wife, Phyllis, the program will perform corrective surgery on children. Doctors also plan to develop and refine minimally invasive techniques for certain procedures. The hospital declined to disclose the size of the gift.

Hospital officials said Dr. Samuel Rhee, formerly a director of craniofacial surgery at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, will direct the program. Dr. Rhee was also appointed a professor of surgery at Weill Cornell.

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CITY, STATE RECEIVE $20 MILLION TO IMPROVE HEALTH SURVEILLANCE

New York’s city and state departments of health were awarded $20 million in federal grants to improve the accuracy and timeliness of public health surveillance and reporting.

The grant, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will be used to improve automated ways of tracking disease and monitoring hospital capacity.

“Public health stakeholders will have access to additional public health information that is not currently available,” the state’s health commissioner, Dr. Richard Daines, said in a statement last week announcing the grant. The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Frieden, said that by improving disease tracking, health officials hope to prevent the spread of certain illnesses.

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SCOTTISH RESEARCHERS DISCUSS HEART DISEASE IN NEW YORK

Researchers from the University of Glasgow in Scotland are delivering a series of lectures this month on heart disease in New York.

The lecture series, which began April 2, is hosted by Columbia University Medical Center and topics include disease prevention, genomics, and life expectancy predictions. Tomorrow, the director of the British Heart Foundation Glasgow Cardiovascular Research Centre, Dr. Anna Dominiczak, is scheduled to speak about genetics and cardiovascular disease. The series is an effort by the University of Glasgow to strengthen its links to Columbia on biomedical research, the Scottish university said in an announcement for the series.

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CONSORTIUM OUTLINES WAYS TO CUT HEALTH CARE’S ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS

A consortium of New York hospitals, doctors, and health plans has released a set of recommendations for reducing health care-related administrative costs.

The group, known as Linxus, identified scenarios in which information could be shared electronically, and laid out “best practices” for communication between health plans and health care providers.

Linxus, initially managed by the Greater New York Hospital Association, is focused on developing ways to reduce administrative costs, with a focus on using electronic medical records and information technology. The group estimates that $18 billion nationwide is wasted on administrative and billing operations.

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SURGEON NAMED CHIEF OF DEPARTMENT AT MONTEFIORE, ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE

A cardiac surgeon who led the way in the use of human muscle cell injections to treat heart failure, Dr. Robert Michler, has been named surgeon in chief at Montefiore Medical Center.

Dr. Michler also was appointed chairman of the department of surgery at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, which is affiliated with the hospital.

Since 2005, Dr. Michler has served as chairman of the department of cardiothoracic surgery at Montefiore, a 1,122-bed hospital in the Bronx.

Previously, he was chief of cardiothoracic surgery and transplantation at the Ohio State University Medical Center.

Before that, he was director of the cardiac transplantation program at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.

Dr. Michler graduated from Harvard University and earned his medical degree from Dartmouth Medical School.

esolomont@nysun.com