Big Pharma and medical device makers have opened their wallets for a 2017 lobbying spree, throwing tens of millions of dollars around the nation’s capital, including to campaign with lawmakers and regulators to defend their soaring prices and to speed the path for their products to get to markets. But credit’s due to officials and….
Continue ReadingArchives for June 2017
Fla. justices reject keystones of partisans’ plan to undercut patients’ rights
As congressional Republicans pursue their counter factual campaign this week to strip patients of their rights to pursue legal redress for harms they suffer while seeking medical services, the Florida Supreme Court has sent a powerful message to federal lawmakers about the wrongheadedness of some of their key notions. The justices in Tallahassee have repudiated….
Continue ReadingAs summer softball gets into full swing, a caution on players getting beaned
Although fans may fret when pros like the Nationals’ Bryce Harper get hit by a pitcher—and brawls ensue—some amateur athletes are the most likely to be struck and hurt: Ball-contact injuries are highest among female softball players, followed by women who play field hockey. That’s according to new research on thousands of college athletes that….
Continue ReadingDepression now affects 1 in 3 girls — as young as 11
It isn’t a teary topic fit only for moody young adult fiction and sudsy afternoon TV dramas: Depression afflicts as many as a third of girls, becoming a rising problem for some as early as age 11 and increasingly separating out as gender difference in the mental health between boys and girls. The higher incidence….
Continue ReadingOhio sues Big Pharma firms over harms of opioid drug abuse epidemic
With more than 4,000 overdose deaths last year alone and a fifth of its residents having received prescriptions for powerful painkillers, the state of Ohio has sued five Big Pharma companies, accusing them of mispresenting opioid drugs’ risks and fueling the medications’ epidemic abuse. Ohio joins Mississippi in suing makers of increasingly lethal drugs like….
Continue ReadingIsn’t it about time that doctors & hospitals understood this about patients?
Your time is precious, and when you are a patient, you may feel it’s more so, especially if you’re ill or even in the end stage of your life. So why do health care providers keep us waiting, or worse, why must doctors and hospitals act downright oblivious to how valuable our time might be….
Continue ReadingSavvy health news consumers are seeing a run of whopper stories
Health news readers look out: media organizations seem to be struggling with an outbreak of the whoopsies—as in, “Whoopsie, if we had more sense, we wouldn’t have put out the story you just read.” The flare-up of embarrassing content, as chronicled well by the Healthnewsreview.org, a health information watchdog site, also seems to be a….
Continue ReadingThree ways to keep kids safer this summer
Keeping kids safe is a constant challenge. Here are some new cautions from recent news reports: Seat belts save lives—if used, and correctly Although seat belts can be big lifesavers and a major way to protect passengers from injury, they don’t work if they’re not used—and correctly—especially with children. More than 4 in 10 youngsters killed….
Continue ReadingA gut check on lap-band surgery, women’s mistreatment in medicine
They once got a ton of hype with radio, TV, and print ads, as well as billboard campaigns by proponents who later proved to be nothing less than sketchy. But the much-touted lap-band weight surgeries have fallen out of favor. The number of the procedures performed annually has nose-dived. Researchers, based on a longer view,….
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