More than a quarter million Americans die from it each year, more than succumb to heart attacks. U.S. hospitals spend an estimated $55 million a day battling it. Most Americans know next to nothing about it, and all too many medical caregivers fail to recognize its fast-moving symptoms that can lead to death. Leaders at….
Continue ReadingArchives for August 2016
FDA orders blood banks to test & safeguard supplies against Zika virus
Uncle Sam has decided to play it safe with the nation’s blood supplies and the globally spreading Zika virus that can cause abnormalities in babies born to infected moms. The Food and Drug Administration has ordered blood banks to use two experimental tests to detect Zika in donated supplies, or to decontaminate plasma and platelets….
Continue ReadingEpiPens: the latest epic fail to halt Big Pharma’s relentless jacking up of prices
Martin Shkreli, the smirking Pharma CEO, has been replaced for now as the national symbol for outrage over Big Pharma’s price gouging. Enter, stage right: Heather Bresch, a 47-year-old executive−who also happens to be the daughter of a prominent U.S. senator. Bresch has become the villainess of the moment for her firm’s jacking up the….
Continue ReadingA timely reminder that as number of studies climbs, so too does hype
In case health information consumers already haven’t learned to turn a jaundiced eye on the flood of “news” about the latest, greatest medical research, the Vox news site has compiled some eye-opening charts and concrete examples to show what a fool’s errand it can be to look at a lone published study and think it….
Continue ReadingNew study reinforces need for vigilance about stroller, baby carrier safety
Whoa, mom and dad and grandma and grandpa: Take it easy with the toddler in that stroller. Accidents in strollers and baby carriers send four dozen youngsters a day to emergency rooms for treatment, including for brain injury or concussion, new research has found. Researchers looked at data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System,….
Continue ReadingWho puts hospitalized elderly at risk? Over-prescribing doctors.
Among the plenty of worries when an older patient has to be hospitalized, here’s one to think about: treating physicians and their ever-ready prescription pads which put patients at risk for serious side effects that can be worse than the problem they’re treating. Kaiser Health News has continued writer Anna Gorman’s series on the woes….
Continue ReadingZika outbreak spreads to heart of Miami Beach’s tourist zone
The Zika outbreak in Miami-Dade County, Fla., has spread, with federal and state officials confirming infections by mosquitoes now in South Beach, the tourist-popular heart of Miami Beach. Pregnant women have been advised to stay out of the 20-block resort area, and, more generally, to consider avoiding unnecessary travel to all of Miami-Dade. This isn’t….
Continue ReadingCalif. public employees group finds a way to slash medical costs
With 450,000 California members, a giant public employee group in the Golden State has successfully found one way to curb medical costs, slashing prices for a set of common procedures by 20%, and saving its members millions of dollars. It all starts with an idea radical in many parts of American health care: that hospitals should….
Continue ReadingA devastating critique of dismal hospital care for the aged
Although America grows grayer by the day, the care that elderly patients get at all too many hospitals after they’re admitted leaves them worse off when they are discharged, the Kaiser Health News service finds in a devastating report. Kudos to writer Anna Gorman who puts together published studies and tough reporting to detail that,….
Continue ReadingHospitals now must tell seniors when they’re ‘under observation,’ not admitted
Uncle Sam is stepping up to try to help ailing elderly patients who may get stuck with big hospital bills and gaps in their medical coverage due to a linguistic loophole. A Medicare law, newly in force, requires hospitals to tell Medicare patients that they are “under observation,” and not formally admitted. The difference to….
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