Few things are harder than watching your spouse die, especially when he’s in the prime of life. That sad situation was made worse for one woman because her husband’s doctors never spoke frankly about his prognosis. Nora Zamichow began her heartfelt essay in the Los Angeles Times simply and directly: “There is one word most….
Continue ReadingArchives for February 2015
Gravely Ill People Soon Will Have Faster Access to Experimental Drugs
The FDA is proposing that doctors have easier access to experimental drugs for patients suffering dire illnesses who have no other options for treatment. An editorial published in the New York Times commended the feds for reducing the time involved in applying for the right to use an experimental drug for an ill person from….
Continue ReadingWhat Is “Home” for a Mentally Disabled Person?
Letters to the editor in the New York Times come with the provocative headline: “Can There Be Good Mental Asylums?” As the father of a 25-year-old son with severe autism, I think about this a lot. Our son Brendan now lives in a group home which we helped set up in Silver Spring, Maryland. It….
Continue ReadingStill More Diseases Linked to Smoking
The dangers of smoking cigarettes have been well documented for a long time, but new research shows that inhaling tobacco is even more hazardous than we knew. Scientists writing earlier this month in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) found that in addition to lung cancer, heart disease and stroke, smoking also raises the….
Continue ReadingOutbreak Renews Concern about Contaminated Endoscopes
Last week, an outbreak of a superbug known as CRE at UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center in Los Angeles prompted the FDA to alert hospitals and medical providers to the possibility that a medical device used for gastroenterological problems might be the culprit. At this writing, two people have died and nearly 200 have been….
Continue ReadingPatient Safety Organization Calls for Greater Transparency
The National Patient Safety Foundation recently issued a sweeping report strongly supporting transparency in health care. Transparency not only is ethical, according to the report, but it promotes accountability, leads to fewer medical errors, increases patient satisfaction and lowers costs. The foundation’s Lucian Leape Institute held roundtable discussions with a range of health-care stakeholders who….
Continue ReadingOne Woman’s Losing Struggle for Medical Malpractice Relief
Too many medical malpractice attorneys are turning away too many righteous cases because they’re not allowed to play on a level legal field. The result is that people victimized by serious medical errors suffer twice, once in the medical facility and the second time by the law. A story recently published in the Insurance Journal….
Continue ReadingYoga as Scoliosis Treatment? The Evidence Is Thin
ABC News recently ran a story about a woman who treated her scoliosis-related back pain through yoga, fleshed out with information about yoga as a general treatment for low back pain. That might work for some people, but the framing of the story invited readers to choose yoga in lieu of medical care without considering….
Continue ReadingDevices Used in Knee Surgery Had No Safety Proof
OtisMed Corporation didn’t have approval from the FDA for its OtisKnee guides before it started selling them. The FDA ultimately rejected the company’s application, saying that OtisMed failed to show that the product was safe and effective. So why was the device used in the knee replacement surgery on Carla Muss-Jacobs, who suffered a terrible….
Continue ReadingReport Criticizes FDA’s Drug Safety Tracking
When drug manufacturers are responsible for reporting the potential side effects of the products they develop, is it any surprise that the record is less than complete? Last week the Institute of Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) issued a report critical of the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) because of incomplete information about injuries and….
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