This week the FDA renewed a warning it had first sounded last year about the antibiotic azithromycin. But it wasn’t just a reminder that the drug, whose brand name is Zithromax, or Zmax, carries risks-this was a graver assessment that azithromycin can cause the heart’s electrical rhythms to change which, for some people, can be….
Continue ReadingArchives for March 2013
Beware the Long-Term Use of Drugs for Gastrointestinal Problems
Heartburn is one of the most common gastrointestinal disorders and, apparently, a problem that leads too often to overprescribing drugs. That’s the conclusion of a study in the Journal of Internal Medicine by researchers from Northwestern University. As summarized on AboutLawsuits.com, doctors often write prescriptions for proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) at excessive doses. And they….
Continue ReadingOfficials Warn About Deadly Drug-Resistant Bacteria
Hospitals are hotbeds for infections because that’s where sick people go. And because those people are already weak, they’re more vulnerable to opportunistic organisms that proliferate in that environment. As we have reported, awareness is increasing of how hospital infections spread and how to minimize that traffic, even if the cause-effect-response process is difficult to….
Continue ReadingLonger Lives for Ovarian Cancer Patients: The Only Secret Is Experience
Two treatments are proven to lengthen the lives of women with ovarian cancer, but only 1 in 3 patients gets them, according to a new study. It’s no mystery why. The old rule for better health care — experience, experience, experience — is proven out again. Ovarian cancer is a bone-scary diagnosis because of its….
Continue ReadingHospital’s Unnecessary Heart Procedures Were Routine
The honor system is a fine thing when people are honorable. Not so much if they’re not. A medical example of the latter unfolded recently in Kentucky, where unnecessary heart procedures failed to help the patients, but certainly boosted the bank accounts of the hospital and the surgeons. As reported last month by the Courier-Journal,….
Continue ReadingWhat Does Johnson & Johnson Have Against Patient Safety?
This year is not turning out well for Johnson & Johnson. Things wouldn’t be so grim for the huge conglomerate-which markets a range of products from gauze to baby shampoo to surgical implants-if its priority were patient safety instead of hawking products it knows to be deficient. The first piece of bad news for J&J….
Continue ReadingCauses of Preventable Accidental Deaths at Home
Accidents happen. And it appears that the number of fatal accidents at home is rising. Between 2000 and 2008, more than 30,000 deaths occurred from unintentional injury at home. The most common causes of home accident death are poisoning, falls and fire/burn injuries. So says a study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine whose….
Continue ReadingDiagnostic Errors in Primary Care Put Many at Risk
Most of the attention given to medical errors concerns institutional issues, such as surgical mistakes, hospital medication mishaps, lack of infection control and emergency room misdiagnoses, or individual caregivers who are woefully deficient in the practice of medicine. But a new study in JAMA Internal Medicine makes clear that primary care patients also are routinely….
Continue ReadingMedical Board Identifies Overused and Unnecessary Procedures and Treatments
Both conscientious medical practitioners and consumer health-care watchdogs were gratified last month when a professional group deemed nearly 100 medical procedures, tests and therapies overused and frequently unnecessary. Medical care in the U.S. has long functioned under a more-is-more principle that is not only expensive and wasteful of resources, but often causes patient harm from….
Continue ReadingSuggested Reading: Medical Bill Manipulation, Cancer Test Harms, Alternative Medicine
Sometimes, we read an article about health, medicine and/or patient safety that’s utterly fascinating but too long to summarize fairly in a blog post. So here’s a shout out to a few recent stories you might want to look up. “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us,” by Steven Brill. Time magazine’s exhaustive examination….
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