The news media enthusiasm for novel treatments, especially for cancer, has been on full display: Stat, the online health news site, has just written about one patient, a noted ophthalmologist, and how he had a favorable outcome with a lingering hospital acquired infection—not due to antibiotics but after treatment with viruses a researcher found in….
Continue ReadingArchives for December 2016
Americans’ life expectancy declines and opioid drug deaths rise
Important indicators about Americans’ health and well-being are trending the wrong way: For the first time in almost a quarter century, the nation’s life expectancy has declined. Meantime, fatal overdoses by Americans taking opioid drugs continued to surge and exceeded 30,000 in 2015. And abuse of heroin has exceeded that of traditional prescription painkillers, with deaths….
Continue ReadingDid Big Pharma & medical device makers win most in 21st Century Cures Act?
President Obama is expected to sign the $6.3 billion 21st Century Cures Act, capping a rare, multi-year, bipartisan push to significantly improve the nation’s health care. The Senate, with Vice President Biden presiding and winning salutes from political colleagues and patient advocacy groups, approved the act 94-5. Proponents say it has many benefits to go around,….
Continue ReadingUncle Sam, citing safety and health concerns, bans smoking in public housing
Let’s give a cheer to federal officials for their decision to ban smoking in public housing, a move that affects 1.2 million households nationwide, and, notably, an estimated 760,000 children. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development long had pressed for this public health measure but finally decided to put it in place next….
Continue Reading$1 billion verdict in lawsuit against maker of metal-on-metal hip replacements
The pain and suffering that a flawed medical device can cause can last a long time. A Dallas jury provided a timely reminder of that, deciding six California plaintiffs should be paid more than $1 billion for the harm they suffered because of metal-on-metal hip replacement hardware made by Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy Orthopedics unit…..
Continue ReadingPsychedelic drugs gets serious clinical consideration in PTSD, cancer care
Mental health experts aren’t suffering Sixties flashbacks. But they are seeing a new day for Molly (aka MDMA, Ecstasy, or 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) and magic mushrooms (psilocybin). These hallucinogenic drugs are getting serious consideration in helping those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression and anxiety due to cancer. The federal Food and Drug Administration, which won’t….
Continue ReadingCongress weighs approval for sweeping, $6.3 billion 21st Century Cures Act
It’s almost 1,000 pages, culminates at least three years of work, and provides a $6.3 billion boost for an array of health-related agencies and initiatives. Will the U.S. Senate join the House in bipartisan passage of the 21st Century Cures Act, a sweeping measure that some say could affect American health care as much….
Continue ReadingWomen need better care, research on head trauma, advocates say
It may sound macabre. But advocates say a critical step to address important gender disparities in the care and research on concussions’ harms may rest in convincing more women to donate their brains to science. This has already helped to prove the debilitating and deadly effects of head trauma among men in pro sports. In….
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