With opioid drugs now the leading cause of death for Americans 50 and younger and killing more than 64,000 people last year, was it inevitable that some shady characters are profiteering off the miseries of those struggling to get off potent painkillers? And is it predictable that key politicians keep talking big but still haven’t….
Continue ReadingArchives for November 2017
First-responders, trauma response wins praise in Texas church shooting
In the torrent of the relentless 24/7 news cycle, let’s not allow a new normal to prevail. We can’t forget that just days ago, a madman opened fire on a church in a small town south of San Antonio, Texas, killing at least 26 and wounding 20 or so. It was the worst mass shooting….
Continue ReadingHealth care access appears to have played a big role in elections last week
Millions of Americans may qualify for federal help in paying for the health insurance, but they must sign up for coverages on exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, by Dec. 15. Doing so, starting with a visit to healthcare.gov, has become a surprisingly popular and perhaps a strongly political act. That’s….
Continue ReadingSome straight dope on pot products, soy foods, essential oils, stem cell hype
Let’s give them their just deserts and dispatch them with alacrity. In this week’s hokum alert: The federal Food and Drug Administration couldn’t make it clearer: Companies pushing products with cannabis in them can’t make unfounded claims about their use in treating or “curing” cancer. It’s just rubbish. The agency ordered the makers of dozens….
Continue ReadingFederal, state officials targeting anew EpiPen safety, soaring insulin costs
Big Pharma’s rapacious profit-seeking can seem to hit no bounds, even if it afflicts millions: Just consider what federal and state regulators are mulling about the makers of a popular anti-allergy therapy and those who supply a critical diabetes medication. The federal Food and Drug Administration has replied to Bloomberg News Service that, so far,….
Continue ReadingWhy are doctors and hospitals so quick to turn to heart stents and robotic devices?
Hundreds of thousands of times each year, doctors install stents (tiny wire cages) in blocked heart arteries, not only to provide better blood flow to the body’s most important muscle but also ostensibly to provide pain relief to patients. Surgeons also perform tens of thousands of different, minimally invasive procedures with the help of elaborate….
Continue ReadingUnited Medical Center’s woes deepen as ratings group rips DC-area hospitals
Even as District of Columbia officials struggle with deepening woes at the United Medical Center (UMC), advocates from a national, independent, and nonprofit group have offered a dim review of hospitals in the DC area. The bad news keeps piling on at UMC, a leading provider of medical care for communities of color in the….
Continue ReadingElmo and George Washington University get caught up in researcher-PR hype
Elmo and the Colonials won’t make it as a new Saturday morning hit cartoon show. But the colorful characters might play a tangential part in some important lessons for consumers and some supposedly serious institutions on preserving the public trust in published, medical-scientific research. Healthnewsreview.org, a nonprofit and independent watchdog of health information, rightly has….
Continue ReadingProfiteers debasing hospice care, insulting dead with body parts trafficking
Although countless doctors and nurses put in untold blood, sweat, and tears to provide quality care to their patients, health care profiteers can undo these good works in an instant with shameful plundering. Here is a roundup from multiple fronts. The nonprofit, nonpartisan Kaiser Health News Service deserves credit for its painful reporting on the….
Continue ReadingAs breast cancer patients know, over-testing and over-treatment are big woes
Up to a third of medical spending goes for over-treatment and over-testing, with an estimated $200 billion in the U.S. expended on medical services with little benefit to patients. But getting doctors and hospitals to stop this waste isn’t easy, nor is it a snap to get patients to understand what this problem’s all about….
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