Although it has many supporters (also known as nicotine addicts), the tobacco industry has few friends. That’s not only because it markets a lethal product, but because of its inability to cop to its health-corroding properties and its history of lying. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), tobacco use kills more….
Continue ReadingArchives for December 2012
Controversy Swirls as Psychiatry Manual Gets an Update
For the first time since 1994, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has approved a revision to its primary guide, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). It’s the fifth edition of the manual, dubbed DSM-5, which is like the dictionary of mental disorders. Its definitions are the foundation of how mental disorders are….
Continue ReadingMalpractice Proposal Is Justice Denied
A proposal under discussion in the South to dispense with juries in favor of a government agency to rule on medical malpractice is just the latest in a series of wrongheaded efforts to deprive victims of medical errors of their rights. As described on the civil justice website PopTort.com, the proposal is favored by Richard….
Continue ReadingDoctors’ Failure to Communicate Can Make Patients Sicker
Chemotherapy, a frontline treatment for many forms of cancer, uses chemical agents to stop fast-growing cells from multiplying. That includes cancer cells, but also other fast-growing cells, which is why it has so many side effects. The chemicals do not discriminate between what’s cancer and what isn’t. Although chemotherapy sometimes can halt the progress of….
Continue ReadingCourt’s Ruling about Off-Label Drug Promotion Defies Reason
Last week a federal appeals court made a ruling that chips away at a fundamental aspect of the FDA’s gatekeeping function with new drugs. The court tossed a conviction of a drug sales representative who was promoting drugs for uses the FDA had not approved. Two of the three judges on the panel said such….
Continue ReadingPortable Bed Rails Can Kill or Hurt People They’re Supposed to Protect
Bed rails seem like such a good idea-metal bars installed on beds to help people pull themselves up or get out of bed, and to prevent them from rolling out of bed. But the clamor to make them safer is growing louder because some portable bed rails promoted as a safety device can pose a….
Continue ReadingUrgent Care Around the Corner
An emergency, by definition, is a situation that needs to be addressed immediately. When the emergency is about illness or injury, people often head for a hospital emergency room. A few years ago, we wrote about a Harvard study that showed that longer ER waits were causing more serious problems, and even death. Unfortunately, ER….
Continue ReadingLawsuit Prompts DC Hospital to Change Policy to Improve Patient Safety
The Washington Hospital Center has agreed to change the way that patients are admitted for brain imaging procedures, in response to a lawsuit by a brain-injured patient whose family says she was left without a doctor for several hours while she was having an undetected stroke after a procedure in the hospital’s radiology department. The….
Continue ReadingPut a Fork in Medicare’s Overtesting
With all the political angst over the future of Medicare and how to fund it, we have to ask: Why not start with eliminating the redundancies — the repeats on tests when no repeat is needed? A new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that Medicare patients frequently undergo repeated diagnostic tests…..
Continue ReadingE-Record Shortcuts Threaten Integrity of Medical Records
Medical records are supposed to be a truthful repository in real time of everything that happened to a patient. Their integrity is vital to high-quality patient care and to the ability of a patient to hold providers accountable in court if things go wrong. So word of widespread abuse of shortcuts allowed by electronic record….
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