The damage that seasonal flu causes can be difficult to forecast. But doctors, hospitals, and public health experts already are seeing the illness hit “hard and early,” especially in the Washington, D.C., area. The indicators are shaping up that this will be the most severe flu year in the last 13. This is exponentially concerning,….
Continue ReadingArchives for October 2022
Cheaper hearing aids finally go on sale, without prescriptions
Well, hear, hear! A much delayed, but important health care reform has gotten off to a rocking start. Consumers with moderate hearing loss now can buy hearing aids with greater convenience and less cost — over the counter and without prescriptions. New devices, new makers, and new retailers have raced in to tap a big….
Continue ReadingU.S. Surgeon General’s novel prescription? Healthier jobs and workplaces
Although the still-chugging U.S. economy is providing workers with more employment opportunities than many economists expected, it is always tough to leave a job, even with the highly publicized trend of “quiet quitting” supposedly in full force. Still, no less an authority than Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, has warned Americans that too….
Continue ReadingA reckoning for FDA fast drug approvals and moms’ mistreatment
Federal regulators have hit a highly public reckoning for their policies to provide speedy approvals for prescription drugs, benefiting Big Pharma’s profits but not necessarily patients — notably women in serious need of help with a shame of the U.S. health care system: the nation’s dismal state with injuries and deaths to expectant moms and….
Continue ReadingWith pandemic persisting, pediatric respiratory cases filling hospitals
Lest anyone think the coronavirus pandemic is not taking a significant toll on this country still, just look at the worrisome conditions prevailing in overflowing pediatric hospitals and the bracing data on how whites gradually have become more likely to die from the infectious disease than blacks. Doctors and hospitals say they are struggling with….
Continue ReadingSavvy consumers are getting flu and covid shots (hint, hint)
As many as 4 in 20 patients infected with the coronavirus report they have not fully recovered after months and 1 in 20 of those with the disease say they have not recovered at all. The viral illness, which has claimed more than 1 million lives and has infected more than 97 million of us,….
Continue ReadingCostly colonoscopies get skeptical scrutiny in big European study
Colorectal cancer remains the third most commonly diagnosed form of cancer in this country. It kills tens of thousands of Americans annually. Although detection of the illness is declining overall, and especially among older adults, specialists have expressed growing concern about its rising rates in younger patients. This has prompted experts to push for more….
Continue ReadingU.S. fixes ACA ‘family glitch’ as insurers start key open enrollment season
The Biden Administration has tackled the “family glitch” in Obamacare, issuing new eligibility rules that will open up more affordable health insurance for many more poor, working poor, and middle-class Americans who otherwise might struggle to pay for coverage, even as provided by their employers. This change in health care regulation is taking effect, even….
Continue ReadingU.S. sees shameful rise in ‘maternity care deserts,’ study finds
The national disgrace of expectant moms and infants suffering excessive, preventable injuries and death can’t be blamed on mysterious causes. Indeed, a leading advocacy group has put out yet another of its damning research studies, reporting on the disturbing increase in what it terms “maternity care deserts.” The March of Dimes says it has analyzed….
Continue ReadingU.S. toughens law to ensure patients’ full access to their medical records
Patients have hit a red-letter day in the long, too-difficult struggle to win control of a crucial part of their care — their electronic medical care records. Hospitals and other caregiving institutions no longer can block access to these documents, with federal law now holding them accountable for any runarounds they may try. As Stat,….
Continue Reading