Juul, the nation’s dominant maker and seller of vaping devices, may want to deny it looks, acts, or models itself after Big Tobacco. A U.S. House subcommittee, however, has caught the San Francisco-based company in one of the prime profit-boosting practices of its health-killing precursor: targeting young users. Though it insists it neither wants nor….
Continue ReadingArchives for July 2019
Voluntary recall of textured device raises more alarms about breast implants
An Irish medical manufacturer voluntarily withdrew its textured breast implant and related tissue expanding devices from markets after the federal Food and Drug Administration tracked a spike in a rare cancer and deaths tied to the products and asked that they be recalled. U.S. regulators, the New York Times reported, lagged their European counterparts by….
Continue ReadingCan lives be saved with lessons learned from a space pioneer’s botched care?
Neil Armstrong served as a naval aviator, test pilot, federal administrator, and a university professor. He earned his place in history as space pioneer — the first astronaut to walk on the moon. The American hero, who spoke the legendary phrase about “one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind,” also now….
Continue ReadingFor patients facing high-risk operations, an alarm on hospital surgical volumes
Would a major league baseball team start a pitcher who played only once in the season for the deciding game of the World Series? Would passengers want to be aboard a jet whose pilot flew just once a year? Would any high-end sports car owner let a mechanic under the vehicle’s hood if she fixed….
Continue ReadingWaste, fraud, and abuse? For health insurers, fat profits matter more
What happens when a whistle blower provides detailed information about a burly Texan — with convictions for felony theft and felony injury of a child — and a burgeoning scam to rip off health insurers for $25 million? Pretty much nothing. For years. If that sounds outlandish, investigative reporter Marshall Allen has a doozy of….
Continue ReadingAs overdose deaths dip, new outrages disclosed on Big Pharma and opioids
The nation may be hitting an inflection point in the opioid crisis. But Big Pharma, regulators, and politicians have much to answer for prescription painkillers’ terrible toll and their sluggish efforts to reduce the tens of thousands of casualties. The spare good news about U.S. drug abuse — the first drop in overdose deaths since….
Continue ReadingRising antibiotic resistance elevates all-too-common UTIs as health concern
For kids, women, and seniors, the three letters U, T, and I long described an uncomfortable, inconvenient, and embarrassing condition. The time, though, may have past for the swift and easy relief that diagnoses of urinary tract infections once might have brought. Instead, doctors are expressing concern that the bugs that cause all-too-common UTIs are….
Continue ReadingU.S. must boost hospice oversight, watchdog warns, citing serious lapses
Lawmakers and regulators must significantly improve the oversight of the burgeoning business of hospice care, a federal watchdog says. Its report came with two notable numbers: from 2012 through 2016, health inspectors cited 87% of the end-of-life care facilities for deficiencies, with 20% of them having lapses serious enough to endanger patients. In one case cited….
Continue ReadingCutting resident doctors’ hours doesn’t harm quality of patient care, study finds
Will the medical educators finally get that it makes no sense to force residents to toil like field animals? Yet another study, this latest from Harvard experts, finds that keeping residency training hours at more humane levels does not significantly affect quality of patient care, including inpatient mortality. Let’s be clear: The grueling preparation for….
Continue ReadingWill GOP attack on Obamacare foil good plans to better kidney disease care?
More than 37 million Americans who suffer from chronic kidney disease soon may see big changes in the way their disabling condition gets treated, potentially also reducing the $100 billion that the federal Medicare program pays for care of the body’s crucial blood cleaning organs. President Trump issued an executive order calling on the federal….
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