Here we go again. Another drug manufacturer has been sued for trying to stifle competition from generic drug makers. We’ve written about how Abbott Laboratories, Eisai and Pfizer used smarmy, anticompetitive practices to protect the profits for their brand-name drugs. This time, according to a story in the New York Times, the manufacturer is Forest….
Continue ReadingArchives for September 2014
Doctors Aren’t Afraid of Being Sued but Still Want to Limit Your Malpractice Rights
You would think with yet another objective, substantive study showing that defensive medicine – doctors overtreating patients for fear of being sued for malpractice – represents only a tiny fraction of health-care spending that advocates of so-called “tort reform” would get the message. They do get the message, but they still want to yank your….
Continue ReadingMedicare Reverses Decision to Withhold Some Hospital Information … Sort of
Last month we wrote about the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) quietly deciding to withhold some information about hospitals that make medical errors, but the feds apparently saw the error in that, and corrected their poor judgment. In a way. As reported by USAToday.com, regulators will resume releasing data about serious hospital mistakes,….
Continue ReadingFDA Panel Supports Limits on Testosterone Drugs
After months of concern about the heart risks posed by testosterone drugs, an expert panel formed by the FDA strongly approved placing strict limits on pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the drugs. As reported in the New York Times last week, the panel advised the FDA to restrict label information to make clear that the medicines….
Continue ReadingStates Square Off Against Each Other in Allocation of Livers for Transplant
Rarely does the law of supply and demand have a sadder application than in the world of organ donations, and the latest case of too much need and too few resources has states doing battle with each other. According to a story on TheHill.com, “A heated redistricting battle has gripped the nation’s heartland this fall,….
Continue ReadingWomen Still Misunderstand Risks of Breast Screening
We’ve regularly blogged about the confusion about breast screening procedures – the risks, the rewards and which women should be screened regularly – and recent research shows that a lot of women still don’t understand the risk-benefit balance. Researchers writing in the British Journal of Cancer (BJC) said that in a survey of about 2,200….
Continue ReadingSuggested Reading: Profits, Not Health Status, May Be Driving Patients Into and Out of Hospice Care
A recent installment of The Washington’s Post series on “The Business of Dying” is not for the faint of heart. Like an earlier story we blogged about a few months ago, this one is about how hospice care is being abused by the agencies that profit from it. According to Medicare, to enroll in hospice….
Continue ReadingFDA Oversight Lags for Consumer Apps, but Improves for Industrial Lab Tests
As consumer interest in medical treatment becomes increasingly gratified with downloadable apps and as industry develops ever more diagnostic tools, the opportunities for misinformation and misadventure increase as well. This summer, the FDA admitted that it could little about the former, but will regulate the latter. As reported on PBS News Hour, the quantity of….
Continue ReadingBreast-Sparing Surgery Shows Better Results in Some Cancer Patients
A preliminary report shows that surgery that spares the breast in patients with a certain kind of early-stage breast cancer has better survival rates than mastectomy. The study findings, reported Consumer Affairs, “defy the conventional belief that the two treatment interventions offer equal survival, and show the need to revisit some standards of breast cancer….
Continue ReadingDEA Will Allow Consumers to Return Unused Prescription Drugs
The federal government is finally addressing this country’s serious abuse of prescription drugs with more resources than just those that regulate health care. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has agreed to allow consumers to return unused prescription drugs to pharmacies to improve the chances that they won’t be used except for what they were intended….
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