Despite the overwhelming evidence in favor of childhood vaccinations, there’s been a lot of buzz lately about their safety and scheduling. Lost in all that chatter is the fact that the rate for adult vaccinations is lower than that for children, and, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), unacceptably low. We’re….
Continue ReadingArchives for February 2013
Which Doctors Line Their Pockets with Big Pharma Money?
As we reported last year, part of the Obama administration’s health-care reform includes the Physician Payments Sunshine Act. It requires drug companies to disclose payments they make to doctors for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment. Sometimes, such compensation influences treatment decisions and encourages overuse of drugs and devices. And these relationships are ripe for….
Continue ReadingHow Tort Reform Continues to Victimize the Victims
Connie Spears has the bad luck to live in Texas. Her story, as recounted by the New York Times/Texas Tribune is another sad reminder of how the powerful forces behind so-called “tort reform” continue to deprive people harmed by medical mistakes of their rights. And Texas leads the way. In 2010, Spears arrived at a….
Continue ReadingSome Hospitals Reuse Insulin Injector Pens
You might remember a blog we wrote last year about safe injection practices, and how hepatitis, HIV and infections can be spread when hygiene is not a priority. Nothing is stupider than reusing invasive medical equipment, but a couple of hospitals in New York don’t seem to have a very high safe-injection IQ. As reported….
Continue ReadingHospital Patient Care and Safety Are Compromised by Overworked Doctors
Worrisome findings about the work load of doctors who work fulltime in hospitals comes from a recent survey of hospitalists published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Hospitalists are physicians who treat patients only while they are in the hospital. As their plight was described by MedPageToday.com, many hospital physicians feel overburdened to the extent that it….
Continue ReadingMore Doubt Cast on the Value of Annual Checkups
The New York Times’ venerable health columnist Jane Brody recently wrote about the advisability of the annual physical checkup. It’s a topic we’ve covered, too, reaching mostly the same conclusion: In most cases, an annual doctor examination is a poor use of time, money and medical resources. As Brody points out, trying to figure out….
Continue ReadingWho’s Looking for Health Information Online and Why?
Who hasn’t Googled some medical or health topic? And who hasn’t wondered if the information they found is true, useful and relates to them? A recent survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project asked more than 3,000 Americans about their online searches for information about their health issues to find out what they’re….
Continue ReadingBig Pharma: Heads They Win, Tails Patients Lose
If you played a coin-flipping game where you could show all your winners and hide your losing tosses, you’d be way ahead. But nobody would let you get away with that, would they? If you’re Big Pharma, you get away with hiding the evidence every day, as Dr. Ben Goldacre explains in an op-ed in….
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