While the Covid-19 pandemic rages on, other major killers of Americans — threats posed by vehicles and guns, as well as searing weather and nasty critters like mosquitoes — have not stopped. People need to be aware and safeguard themselves as they can from these risks. The data keep growing and the news, for example,….
Continue ReadingArchives for July 2020
Patients to hospitals: Please quit, already, with the grubbing for donations
It may be surprising that the questions went unasked before. The outcomes may be less than shocking. But patients, in a new and nationally representative survey, have told hospitals to bug off with their relentless grubbing for donations from the people they care for. Doctors and ethicists long have been wary of the huge energy….
Continue ReadingAs stakes soar for Covid-19 vaccine, concerns rise about this one big bet
As the novel coronavirus infections and deaths keep skyrocketing, Americans more and more have been forced into tough risk analyses, and frankly, too often thinking like gamblers. They are, for example, looking a lot at the much-promoted possibility of a Covid-19 vaccine in desperate poker ways — “betting on the come” and playing “river, river….
Continue Reading600 of 15,000 nursing homes get gear as U.S. demands virus tests for staff
Five months after national media sounded alarms about a novel coronavirus savaging a Washington state long-term care center, federal regulators have begun to roust themselves with more vigor to safeguard hundreds of thousands of elderly, sick, and injured residents of nursing homes and other similar facilities. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — which….
Continue ReadingVideo evidence casts harsh light on authorities’ use of excessive force
In the running battle between authorities and individuals over excessive use of force, the eyes suddenly now have it: The advance of smart phone technology to ubiquity and with quality video recording is giving claimants powerful new evidence. It is not pretty for law enforcement excesses — and even potentially extra-legal escapades. Not one, not….
Continue ReadingVA hospital care under fire again after aide pleads to killing seven patients in West Virginia
She was a 46-year-old Army veteran hired by the Louis A. Johnson Medical Center in 2015 with no certification or license to care for patients. Reta Mays worked in the middle of the night, tending to elderly, onetime service personnel, sitting bedside and monitoring their vitals, including their blood sugar levels. Mays went room to….
Continue Reading57,000 reasons why U.S. needs to fire the top U.S. nursing home watchdog
With the calendar pages flying off to the fall presidential elections, why isn’t today an excellent time for President Trump to thank Seema Verma for her service and send her packing as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the Department of Health and Human Services? Two news organizations — Vox….
Continue ReadingMaryland malpractice case gives a reminder about the ugly underside of secrecy in our public courts
The Pound Civil Justice Institute (I’m immediate past president) held its annual forum for state court appellate judges on July 11 (virtually, for the first and hopefully last time) on the topic of “Dangerous Secrets: Confronting Confidentiality in Our Public Courts.” This important topic has long been close to my heart. I’ve written and talked to….
Continue ReadingThe doctor is in. Still. For now. But science denial and the pandemic rage on …
To paraphrase the White House press secretary, science denialism is not getting in the way of the rampaging Covid-19 pandemic. Eighteen states have hit “red zone” status where infections, hospitalizations, and deaths have soared to such dire levels (more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people per week) that a study held in private by….
Continue ReadingLung-cancer test may be advisable for more smokers and quitters, experts say
Tens of millions of Americans who have not kicked the harmful smoking habit or who have only recently done so may want to keep a watch on the work of a blue-chip advisory group as its medical scientists consider how much lung-cancer screening best benefits tobacco users. The panel is seeking expert comment on its….
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