Nursing homes put their residents at heightened health risks by scrimping on personnel costs and failing to deal with significant staffing shortfalls, especially as the coronavirus inflicted some of its highest death and infection tolls on the elderly, sick, and injured in long-term care, media investigations have found. The profit-focus by health providers is not….
Continue ReadingArchives for November 2020
D.C. voters join a growing push to reconsider use of hallucinogenic drugs
Voters in the nation’s capital joined with peers across the country to nudge forward a further reconsideration of mind-affecting substances popularized in the Sixties but made illicit thereafter. Support ran strong for a District of Columbia ballot initiative directing local law enforcement to make among its lowest priorities the prosecution of those who use or….
Continue ReadingAs nation focused on vote tallies, coronavirus cases and deaths kept soaring
While Americans have been riveted for days about incremental shifts in election results, other confounding numbers raced ever higher and into worrisome places. Just consider these numbers: 128,000, 9.6 million plus, and 235,000 and more. “Covid, covid, covid. By the way, on Nov. 4 you won’t hear about it anymore,” President Trump asserted during his….
Continue ReadingColorectal screening may need to start at age 45, U.S. panel advises
An important federal advisory group has joined with medical specialists in recommending a change in the age at which patients should start screening for colorectal cancer, to age 45 and not the current 50 years old. Earlier detection of bowel issues could save lives, the U.S. Protective Services Task Force (USPSTF) has decided, with the….
Continue ReadingAs virus burned through nursing homes, inspectors cleared most of infection violations
Disturbing new data shows that a much-promoted plan by federal watchdogs to protect vulnerable residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities from Covid-19 resulted in dismal outcomes, with inspectors dispatched by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services largely dismissing infection-control concerns as the deadly pandemic raged. “During the first six months of….
Continue ReadingWill covid-stressed health providers ever account for U.S. aid and high costs?
The expected surge in coronavirus cases is slamming hospitals across the country, and they and the entire U.S. health care system will need major public support in difficult days ahead. Still, important markers also have gone down, so pillars of the medical establishment eventually may have to account for billions of taxpayer dollars they have….
Continue ReadingOptimize November: Vote with care, plan holidays, scrutinize health coverage
As coronavirus infections rage unchecked from coast-to-coast, Americans may need to redouble the attention they pay to their health and safeguarding it. To deal in optimal ways with what threatens to be a tough November, we all may wish to: Vote as safely as possible. If you plan to exercise your constitutional rights in person,….
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