The kids may obsess about social media platforms. But just how much do patients want them to snoop into their most personal medical information, accessed due to hidden snippets of computer code embedded on the sites of some of the nation’s biggest and most respected hospitals, as well as facilities purportedly dealing with women’s reproductive….
Continue ReadingConflicts of Interest
U.S. finds high risks in tally of wrecks involving self-driving vehicles
Though it may be tempting for owners of and passengers in expensive, high-tech vehicles to leave the driving to increasingly smarter cars, Americans still must beware of lethal, injurious shortcomings in this new autonomous age. In just 10 recent months, federal officials say, almost “400 crashes in the United States … involved cars using advanced….
Continue ReadingU.S. hits hospitals with a million reasons to heed price-disclosure rule
Federal officials will fine two Georgia hospitals, both in the same health system, a total of more than $1 million for failing to post online legally required pricing information. Patient advocates and the former administration hoped this incremental disclosure would help check ever-rising health care costs and give consumers important data to make better choices….
Continue ReadingBig Pharma, hit for tenfold price hikes, also faces FTC middleman probe
While U.S. patients are seeing their finances blown up by skyrocketing prescription drug prices, the members of Congress continue to wring their hands, ponder responses — and do nothing. The Federal Trade Commission, though, has at least launched an investigation of one part of Big Pharma to see if pharmacy benefit managers, the industry middlemen….
Continue ReadingSeniors, overcharged by billions on Medicare, won’t see ’22 refund
Tens of millions of seniors, hit by one of the largest increases in recent memory of their monthly Medicare charges due to a prescription drug regulatory debacle, will not see a penny refunded this year on what amounts to a federal overcharge. This will occur, even though it was floated as a possibility and the….
Continue ReadingIn celebrity courtroom slugfest, legal glare also falls on expert medical testimony
When two wealthy celebrities engage in no-holds barred combat in a courtroom over the most personal aspects of their private lives together, the results can be disconcerting — but also riveting — for regular folks watching the legal wrangling. The Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard defamation case, with its mixed verdict from jurors, not only….
Continue ReadingBaby formula mess shows big profits, a filthy plant, and bungled oversight
The giant drug maker Abbott and the federal Food and Drug Administration both should hang their heads in shame as more information becomes public as to how they left millions of vulnerable infants hungry and put kids’ health at risk by wrongs involving the manufacture and distribution of a vital foodstuff — baby formula. Millions….
Continue ReadingFor UCLA and Southern Baptists, sexual abuse scandals exact big toll
The University of California has agreed to pay yet more to hundreds of women patients who have credibly accused a UCLA gynecologist of sexual wrongdoing, with the now $700 million in approved settlements setting what is described as a national record for the largest such payouts involving a public university. The UC system, one of….
Continue ReadingAn advanced democracy can’t shrug at mass deaths, especially kid killings
Experts fear the country is veering dangerously into a widespread acceptance of mass death as just a regular part of life — not only by moving on with little more than faint acknowledgement of more than 1 million coronavirus pandemic fatalities but also with a tragic resignation about fatal shootings at schools, groceries, movie theaters, and….
Continue ReadingSocial media blamed for fueling opioid crisis for the young
The social media sites that young folks so adore also have turned into virtual illicit drug bazaars, helping to explain the exploding problems with the powerful synthetic painkiller fentanyl and why opioids and overdoses of them have become a leading killer of Americans ages 18 to 45. During the coronavirus pandemic, especially, and continuing onward,….
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