Or … let them run through your body first, and then into the toilet. Either way, taking mega-doses of vitamins and other supplements just doesn’t do much for people, other than enriching the vitamin content of their toilet water. Latest proof: High doses of Vitamin D and calcium do nothing for most people, because the….
Continue ReadingArchives for November 2010
Louisiana malpractice fund may not cover claims against neurosurgeon
A Louisiana neurosurgeon may face multiple lawsuits after the fund that normally handles malpractice claims in the state said it might not cover the cases. Dr. Ravish Patwardhan already has had to surrender his surgical privileges in September over concerns about the speed of his surgeries, the number of surgeries he performed annually and the….
Continue ReadingMalpractice and preventable harm still common in hospitals, new study finds
A study of ten hospitals in North Carolina finds a one-in-four chance of being hurt by medical care, a rate that hasn’t improved in the ten years since a landmark study said that 100,000 Americans were killed by malpractice and medical error each year. The new study, published in the nation’s leading medical journal, the….
Continue ReadingPatient safety at risk if testing standards for biosimilars are relaxed, FDA told at hearing
Patient safety advocates and brand-name drug makers lined up against companies that make generic drugs over just how flexible the standards should be for the clinical testing of biosimilars. These drugs, also known as biogenerics, follow-on biologics and subsequent entry biologics, are officially approved subsequent versions of biopharmaceutical products following patent and exclusivity expiration on….
Continue ReadingA simple question to ask your dentist about X-ray safety
X-rays in the dental chair carry a small but cumulative risk of causing cancer, and there are simple ways to reduce the risk. One is to ask the dentist if he or she is using “fast” X-ray film, which allows a smaller X-ray exposure to get the same quality image. The majority of dental offices….
Continue ReadingWrong operation teaches surgeon the value of pre-procedure protocols
An orthopedic surgeon who performed the wrong operation on a patient now says he no longer sees any burden in The Joint Commission’s (TJC) Universal Protocol for Preventing Wrong Site, Wrong Procedure and Wrong Person Surgery. And he’s gone on the record in a prominent medical journal to confess error and try to help other….
Continue ReadingMalpractice and other adverse events affect one in seven Medicare patients
A new study from the Office of Inspector General of the US Health and Human Services Department estimates that one in seven Medicare patients in hospitals — or some 134,000 patients per month — are hurt by “adverse events” in hospitals. Nearly half of those events are preventable, based on reviews by doctors, the report….
Continue ReadingChecklists for surgery safety cut death and injuries, new Dutch study shows
Any lingering doubts about the positive effects of comprehensive surgical checklist intervention should vanish following the release of a study conducted in the Netherlands and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The Dutch study evaluated the effects of a comprehensive surgical checklist intervention in six regional and tertiary care centers in the Netherlands….
Continue ReadingStudies on a new drug show comedy of errors when not enough patients are tested
A lesson in the safety and efficacy of new drugs is very simple: small studies are bad, big studies are good. This lesson has been proven all over again with a big trial of a heart failure drug called Natrecor (generic name: nesiritide). Small studies made the drug look worrisome for some bad side effects…..
Continue ReadingRampant Malpractice and Safety Hazards Found in Kidney Dialysis Centers
ProPublica, the investigative reporting group, is publishing a series on the quality of care the nation’s 400,000 dialysis patients get, and it’s not pretty. The basic conclusion: “Taxpayers spend more than $20 billion a year to care for those on dialysis — about $77,000 per patient, more, by some accounts, than any other nation. Yet….
Continue Reading