Doctors who sexually abuse their patients too often get away with it because of weak oversight, sympathetic regulators, and their capacity to move around to elude punishment, a new investigation has found. The Atlanta Journal Constitution says it spent months, scrutinized more than 100,000 medical board disciplinary orders from across the nation, and found too many….
Continue ReadingArchives for July 2016
A little Rx for all the awful headlines: four stories of remarkable resilience
The events of recent days ─in Texas, Louisiana, and Minnesota─ have been so tragic that it’s easy to despair. Here are four health-related people stories worth reading to remind us of humanity’s enduring better side: In the horrors of Syrian combat, medical Samaritans strive to maintain some kind of care First, let’s stipulate that there’s….
Continue ReadingStop snarfing down that raw dough, all you cookie monsters
In case you missed it, Uncle Sam has found a health monster of sorts in your home-made cookies: the raw dough that so many chefs and kids like to lick off the spoon or out of the bowl. It turns out that more than three dozen Americans in 20 states have been felled with illnesses….
Continue ReadingWhere are regulators as hundreds offer so-called ‘stem cell’ care?
Beneficial therapies can topple over to medical nightmares in a blink, especially when regulators seem to have looked askance or even shut their eyes and slumbered. The Food and Drug Administration may need to look into what is going on with the burgeoning business of so-called stem cell treatments. Two academics took to the Internet….
Continue ReadingDocs in Jersey, Dixie rake in pay from Big Pharma, medical device makers
Big Pharma is not just whistling Dixie, as Southern, for-profit hospitals lead the nation in rolling out the welcome mat so doctors can take meals, consulting, and promotional payments from drug and medical device companies, an investigation shows. Pro Publica, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative site, has put up its latest findings from its multi-year tracking….
Continue ReadingFor healthy women, a call to rethink whether to have dreaded pelvic exam
There’s insufficient evidence of the health benefits for millions of women who aren’t pregnant and who aren’t experiencing problems to undergo regular pelvic exams, a top federal task force on preventive care says. Tens of millions of women get the exams each year, even though they are intrusive and uncomfortable. More important, research has failed….
Continue ReadingFDA approves trial for zika vaccine
Federal officials have advanced a key way to combat the zika virus, permitting clinical trials of a vaccine against the tropical infection. The Food and Drug Administration has approved the preliminary testing of GLS-5700, an experimental vaccine by Inovio, of Plymouth Meeting, Pa., and GeneOne Life Science, of Seoul, South Korea. It is the….
Continue Reading