Media outlets got some recent, perhaps excessive, mileage out of two different research studies with populist appeal—one seemed to re-address the question about the harms or benefits of moderate alcohol consumption; the other revisited the concern as to whether a virus common in cats, and sometimes spread in their litter, infects humans’ brains and makes….
Continue ReadingArchives for March 2016
A $500-million medical fraud case paints ugly picture of caregivers, politicians
For anyone who has doubt about how low physicians and hospitals can stoop for a buck, a city magazine has offered a dismal portrait of breathtakingly bad conduct in a $500 million medical fraud. Prosecutors have accused some powerful California politicians of playing a part in this scandal. The report in Los Angeles magazine details….
Continue ReadingSimple steps to boost patient safety: Operate one at a time, and write prescriptions electronically
New reports show how physicians can improve patient safety and help themselves with two simple steps: Stopping the practice of conducting surgeries at the same time on different patients, and writing prescriptions electronically instead of by hand. Jamming up on complex surgeries Investigative journalists at the Boston Globe deserve credit for reporting on a dispute….
Continue ReadingDid NFL adopt Big Tobacco’s smokescreen ploy to deny concussion harms?
The National Football League may have taken a page from Big Tobacco’s playbook, and played fast and loose with data used in “scientific studies” to downplay players’ risks from concussions, a New York Times investigation finds. The Times scrutinized the underlying information the league and its top officials provided to researchers on five years of….
Continue ReadingWill Big Pharma’s free speech rights trump FDA, regulatory safety?
Recent developments in the law may have opened a new path for drug makers to exercise corporate free speech rights in ways that don’t look healthy for consumers. The case that concerns health watchdogs started when Amarin, the small maker of a prescription fish-oil medication called Vascepa wanted to promote the drug as a way….
Continue ReadingSuperbugs flourish as hands stay unwashed
Experts say antibiotic-resistant microbes may be spreading from hospitals to other health care facilities because of transferring patients’ dirty hands. And new research in Southern California raises the concern that existing treatment municipal treatment plants may lack the sanitizing punch needed to kill superbugs (such as the CRE microbes shown) flushed from hospital and other health care….
Continue ReadingAddiction treatment centers under fire over safety, hype, effectiveness
For-profit clinics that market to patients with eating disorders or alcohol or drug abuse problems have grown in popularity in recent years. They can be pricey, but their operators insist the residential facilities offer expertise, attentive, needed, and specialized care that hospitals and medical centers cannot. But as the centers have proliferated, health care experts are….
Continue ReadingAnti-smoking campaign aimed at the young gets $50 million
It isn’t often you’ll read praise here for anything connected to pharmaceutical enterprises. But let’s give credit where it’s due, in this case to a giant drug store chain and its foundation: They’ve pledged $50 million over five years to an anti-smoking campaign aimed at snuffing out the lethal habit in the young. CVS Health’s….
Continue ReadingFor a growing number of faithful, ‘health ministries’ supplant insurance
Although religious groups have challenged the Obama Administration over a variety of insurance-related issues, such as employer requirements to provide contraception, some of the faithful have taken a surprising path in response to the Affordable Care Act and its approach to health insurance: Christians, the New York Times has reported, are foregoing traditional insurers and….
Continue ReadingU.S. urges doctors to slash prescriptions for addictive painkillers
Uncle Sam has sent one of the sternest messages possible to doctors nationwide that they must slash their dispensing of powerful prescription pain-killers. These drugs, for which doctors wrote 249 million prescriptions in 2013, have been blamed in 165,000 fatal overdoses between 1999 and 2014, more than 420,000 emergency room visits in 2013, and the addiction….
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