Earlier this month, we mentioned a column by Maureen Dowd in The New York Times concerning the unnecessary death of 12-year-old Rory Staunton from septic shock, who was misdiagnosed as having a stomach bug. The sad story has legs not only because we’ve learned more about what happened that day at New York University Langone….
Continue ReadingArchives for July 2012
Prostate Surgery Often Presents More Problems Than It Solves
Routine screening for prostate cancer has been in the news a lot lately, and attention was renewed recently when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended that the PSA test be canceled for most men. Those experts concluded that only one life is saved for every 1,000 people screened over a 10-year period, that the….
Continue ReadingThe Enduring Myth of Medical Malpractice Reform
Sometimes it seems like the drive to control the amount of damages awarded for medical malpractice is on some kind of political message loop. Often called “tort reform,” it frequently is fodder in election campaigns, and is always a popular lawyer-bashing topic at cocktail parties. One state or another is always considering capping the amounts….
Continue ReadingNew Restaurant Rules Show Reduction in Trans Fat
Good news from the nanny state: Compelling restaurants to cut the trans fat content of their food has a positive effect on public health. Trans fat that does not occur naturally in meat or dairy products is artificially produced by rendering liquid oils solid. That’s useful in baked goods, and lengthens a product’s shelf life…..
Continue ReadingPropecia Side Effects Might Not Go Away
The drug study was small, and the participants were recruited via an Internet forum of people who were hardly objective-they all had suffered adverse side effects. But despite these cautions, the research recently published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine about the hair-loss drug Propecia was significant. As noted on AboutLawsuits.com, the FDA announced in….
Continue ReadingUninsured Hospitals Compound Potential Patient Malpractice Harm
Suppose you need gall bladder surgery. Suppose there’s a prestigious urban teaching hospital nearby with lots of famous doctors and researchers who get a lot of media attention for all the ground-breaking work they do. Suppose it’s in your insurance network and your surgeon has privileges in its OR. Perfect, right? Maybe. But suppose you….
Continue ReadingTV Doctors: Good Entertainment, Bad Medicine
We couldn’t have said it better than the Los Angeles Times: ” Television is great for sports, reality shows and reruns of ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ but if you’re getting your health information from TV, you might not be as well-informed – or as healthy – as you could be.” We would add that you….
Continue ReadingFear-Mongering Rears Its Head in Hotel Room Germ Study
When the media glommed onto a news release issued by the American Society for Microbiology last month, America responded with a collective “ewwww.” The study tallied the location and number of germs in the average hotel room. Researchers from the University of Houston concluded that the items most heavily contaminated with bacteria were television remotes,….
Continue ReadingBig Pharma Bust: Unsavory Details Behind the GlaxcoSmithKline Lawsuit
Last week we reported about the widely publicized criminal behavior of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, and the $3 billion fine it will pay for its crimes. Thanks to Kaiser Health News (KHN), consumers can get the gory details of just how Big Pharma inflates drug sales and the cost of health care. It’s about doctors who….
Continue ReadingProblems with Kidney Dialysis Put Patients at Risk
For people whose kidneys no longer function well enough to process waste products or maintain proper levels of certain chemicals in the bloodstream, kidney dialysis is the only treatment except for transplant. But kidneys — and the dialysis procedure — are complicated, and a few recent stories are a heads-up for people affected by kidney….
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