Here’s something that many Americans likely would want to think twice about letting happen: Should good health and long lives be just another of the spoils reserved to the rich? Vox, a news and information site, has posted a provocative dig into national data on longevity — a measure that has raised experts’ concern with….
Continue ReadingArchives for January 2018
Safety and injury prevention should be part of our new year exercise plans
Millions of Americans may be hitting the gym as part of their new year resolve to get fitter. They also need to exercise caution and common sense to avoid injuries that could leave them in worse shape. As the Washington Post reported, the 2018 health club crush will result in “hundreds of thousands of [exercisers]….
Continue ReadingOver-screening skews disease research and puts harsh burdens on seniors
Medical over-screening and over-testing not only adds hundreds of billions of dollars in unnecessary costs to U.S. health care, it also may be skewing researchers’ understanding of what causes disease and imposing harsh burdens on older Americans. Stat, an online health and medical news service, has highlighted an intriguing study from the Dartmouth Institute for….
Continue ReadingExperts fret over how precise key basics may be in ‘precision medicine’
Although billions of dollars and lots of positive public attention have been lavished on the promise of genetic-based “precision medicine,” this therapeutic approach to treating cancer and other serious diseases may need more scrutiny for basics of quality control. National Public Radio deserves credit for airing some less-heard experts’ worries about the roles of at….
Continue Reading‘Raw water:’ Liquid looniness
The new year is bubbling with numerous reports about “raw water.” Enthusiasts are flocking to outlets — in Oregon, Maine, San Diego, San Francisco, and the Silicon Valley — for unfiltered, untreated, and unsterilized H2O from springs. They’re paying dearly, for example $36.99 for a 2.5-gallon glass orb of “off the grid” Live Water from a….
Continue ReadingWhat’s a key factor in black moms’ high death rates? Segregated hospitals
The bad news for expectant black moms isn’t confined to those living in the nation’s capital: A new investigation has found higher risks of harm for women in New York, Florida, and Illinois when they deliver at hospitals that disproportionately serve black mothers. ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative site, analyzed two years of hospital inpatient….
Continue ReadingSecret settlements in medical malpractice are bad for patient safety
An ugly truth about malpractice lawsuits is that some of the most indefensible violations of patient safety are covered up by hospitals, clinics and doctors with the complicity of the lawyers representing the injured patients. This happens when settlements are entered into that require the patient to keep confidential everything that happened, and sometimes to….
Continue ReadingFDA caught dawdling in key duty of getting contaminated foods off shelves
Watchdogs have caught the Federal Food and Drug Administration dogging one of its most basic and important tasks — getting contaminated and potentially dangerous foods off the shelves quickly. Federal inspectors spot-checked several dozen recalls among 1,557 the agency conducted between 2012 and 2015, partly to see how the FDA used wider powers given to….
Continue ReadingU.S. eases fines even as nursing homes faulted for infections, evictions
Thousands of nursing homes nationwide have failed to control dangerous and often deadly infections, with their basic contagion controls so poor and widespread that federal regulators repeatedly have issued disciplinary citations to almost 3 out 4 facilities. Thousands of other nursing homes have drawn the ire of families, advocates, and the AARP for summarily evicting….
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