It may sound catchy when politicians claim to want to get Uncle Sam out of our wallets and off our backs. But the deregulatory reality may look different when hundreds of thousands of baby strollers have front wheels that suddenly fall off, or millions of family cars may be at risk of bursting into flames…..
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FDA battles sketchy stem cell claims, while big hospitals jump into unproven treatments too
When doctors and regulators crack down on the burgeoning and risky use of purported stem cell therapies, some well-known and respected big hospitals and health systems may have their own practices to explain, too. As Liz Szabo reported for the nonpartisan Kaiser Health News Service: Swedish Medical Center, the largest nonprofit health provider in the Seattle….
Continue ReadingConcern rises about vaccination exemptions, as infectious diseases spread
As outbreaks of preventable infectious diseases rise to concerning levels, doctors, regulators, and lawmakers may need to toughen important laws requiring youngsters to be inoculated, protecting better our collective health and closing off legal loopholes for sketchy vaccination exemptions. It would be ideal if more than a century of lifesaving experience and decades of rigorous….
Continue ReadingWith costly medical over-testing, causes can be blurry, solutions complex
Although experts estimate medical over-testing adds more than $200 billion in wasted spending in the U.S. health care system, reducing it can be hard, as we can see from one example in eye surgery. Let’s zoom in on cataract surgery, a procedure in which eye surgeons (ophthalmologists) aim to relieve the visual clouding that many….
Continue ReadingPoliticians disconnect from good sense, even as U.S. health care worries soar
When it comes to something as crucial as health care, let’s keep it simple: Americans deserve better than this … Can President Trump keep up his barrage of counter-factual assertions and political reverses on federal help for those needing health insurance, a key part of the Affordable Care Act? After resurrecting in federal courts the….
Continue ReadingAs GOP keeps slashing at health coverage, big strains of caregiving ignored
Americans have real reason to fear a health care catastrophe: If loved ones suffer major injury or illness, who will feed, bathe, and care for them 24/7 after they get out of the hospital and recuperate at home? Who will take time off from work to set up and take them to unending and long….
Continue Reading$1 billion+ may seem like a lot of money. It still can’t resolve many questions.
Although lawsuits can result in needed financial support and welcome recognition of harms suffered by patients seeking medical services, the civil justice system has its limits. They showed in cases in the news in which disputing parties agreed to more than $1 billion in resolutions that left issues unanswered. What to make of the: $270-million….
Continue ReadingFDA ripped over breast implant safety as agency seeks mammogram change
Uncle Sam has paid what critics have called long overdue attention to women’s breasts and how surgeons and diagnosticians treat them. In an angry and emotional public hearing, women ripped the federal Food and Drug Administration for lax oversight of implants that surgeons use to augment and reconstruct breasts, even as the agency proposed its….
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