When it comes to inoculations for kids, cancer doctors want more preteens to get the vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV), while public health officials are encouraging shots and discouraging the use of a nasal mist to protect children against seasonal flu. The campaign for HPV shots has shifted among medical experts, the Washington….
Continue ReadingArchives for June 2016
For Golden State, a $1 billion tab from Big Pharma to Treat One Disease
Californians have gotten an unpleasant taste of the policy complexities caused when Big Pharma sets sky-high prices for life-changing drugs: State health officials say they need to set aside $1 billion to pay for increasing numbers of qualified patients on the state’s Medi-Cal program to receive a costly new treatment for Hepatitis C. Two drugs,….
Continue ReadingTwenty Bucks Says Your Doctor’s Prescription Pad Is for Sale
A primary care physician in the United States receives an average, total, annual compensation of roughly $195,000, and likely will take in more than $6.5 million over a lifetime of practice. Ask most Americans and that’s a respectable, and deserved, income. Which makes it all the more eyebrow-raising that a leading journal, JAMA Internal Medicine,….
Continue ReadingBrexit will be bad for health of Britons
British experts predict the exit from the EU will be bad for Britons’ health. Brexit advocates, in fact, celebrated their win by immediately conceding a giant campaign falsehood: They suddenly denied claiming that almost a half-billion dollars wrongly was going to the EU, and that these sums would, post Brexit, help to support the embattled British National….
Continue Reading‘Number Needed to Treat:’ a clear way to figure whether care’s effective
Modern medicine can get mired in a lot of mumbo jumbo, so much so that it gets daunting for patients and consumers to try to understand something simple but critical: How effective is a therapy that my doctor wants me to have? Because I’ve written before about the virtue in a clear and decisive figure,….
Continue ReadingFor congressional overseers, red flags fly over issues at FDA
Congressional overseers of the federal agency that regulates drugs and medical devices have gotten red-flag warnings about problems at the Food and Drug Administration, including: two separate calls for improvements from lawmakers’ top watchdog; and an eyebrow-raising corruption case brought against an agency official by U.S. prosecutors and securities enforcement authorities. As Stat, the health news….
Continue ReadingWill Philly’s decision to tax sodas sizzle or fizzle as U.S. health trend?
The City of Brotherly Love has passed a tax demonstrating its affection for new revenues and its dislike for unhealthy, sugary soft drinks: It’s unclear, however, whether other governments will follow Philadelphia in imposing soda taxes and whether these levies achieve their public health goal of discouraging harmful sugar consumption, especially by kids. Big Soda….
Continue ReadingLessons learned from ‘The Greatest’
As the world mourns the death of Muhammad Ali, this remarkable public and sporting figure left two more key lessons as part of his legacy: George Skelton, the Pulitzer Prize-winning state government columnist of the Los Angeles Times, left his usual topics to argue that Ali’s boxing-related Parkinson’s should serve as a reminder of the dangers….
Continue ReadingOrlando shootings raise health care concerns
Here’s hoping that the mass shooting in Orlando will focus attention on some health care issues that the event flushed into open view: Do we need to update and rethink policies that restrict or bar certain groups from blood donation? Gay activists and others have denounced anew these restrictions. They say these rules unnecessarily stigmatize….
Continue ReadingProsecutors win $67 million settlement with pharma firms accused of deceit
Federal prosecutors have wrung $67 million in a settlement with two pharmaceutical companies accused of deceiving doctors to prescribe a drug that the firms knew would be ineffective in treating lung cancer patients. Genentech and OSI Pharmaceuticals pushed the drug Tarceva for non-small-cell lung cancer, “even though studies had shown that it worked for just those….
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