Mylan, the maker of the EpiPen, the hyper-allergy protection device, hasn’t gotten itself out of the public fire over its decision to jack up its product prices. Instead, the continuing revelations about this company, its product, and schemes is providing some blood-boiling information about the avarice and mendacity that seems almost integral to Big Pharma….
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EpiPens: the latest epic fail to halt Big Pharma’s relentless jacking up of prices
Martin Shkreli, the smirking Pharma CEO, has been replaced for now as the national symbol for outrage over Big Pharma’s price gouging. Enter, stage right: Heather Bresch, a 47-year-old executive−who also happens to be the daughter of a prominent U.S. senator. Bresch has become the villainess of the moment for her firm’s jacking up the….
Continue ReadingGood to know, sad to see: Hospitals in convention cities brace for calamities
They’re stocked with sufficient material to respond to days of crisis. Key personnel have been told to stay in town and be at the ready. They’ve developed response plans and drilled on readiness. It’s a sad reflection of the horrible headlines of recent days─from France, Dallas, and Orlando, and tragically too many more locales─that hospitals and….
Continue ReadingOrlando shootings raise health care concerns
Here’s hoping that the mass shooting in Orlando will focus attention on some health care issues that the event flushed into open view: Do we need to update and rethink policies that restrict or bar certain groups from blood donation? Gay activists and others have denounced anew these restrictions. They say these rules unnecessarily stigmatize….
Continue ReadingAdvocacy group warns about lack of oversight, harms from hospital mergers
Few states are monitoring, much less acting to protect, patient-consumers from one of the hot trends in today’s health care: the mergers, acquisitions, consolidations─and yes, closings─that are creating super-sized hospital organizations, chain-institutions that for business reasons seek greater efficiencies but also may be lessening access to care, sometimes as a result of religious reasons. That’s….
Continue ReadingCongress acts on opioid drug epidemic as judge unseals OxyContin files
Here are some developments worth watching in the nation’s battle against the epidemic of opioid drug misuse that killed 28,000 Americans in 2014 alone: CONGRESS ACTS: Congressional negotiators now must confer to determine which parts of House and Senate measures to combat opioid drug abuse will go forward. The House just passed a package….
Continue ReadingFast-takes on health care developments worth watching
Here are some fast takes on some developments in health worth watching: Good news: Birth rates among teen moms have declined to historic lows, falling most sharply (by almost half) for blacks and Hispanics, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported. Many factors may have contributed to this important trend, including greater….
Continue ReadingL.A. hospital under fire for ‘dumping’ poor patient after emergency treatment
Is this any way to treat the most needy? Los Angeles prosecutors have announced a $450,000 settlement with yet another of the city’s hospitals accused of “patient dumping,” the practice of hustling individuals, particularly the poor and homeless, out of an institution as quick as possible and without full regard to the effect. In this instance,….
Continue ReadingA U.S. privacy crackdown: Hospital fined $2.2 million in filming of dying patient
Hospital patients who are dying or in extreme duress should not have their privacy exploited by reality television camera shows, federal health care regulators now have made clear. They have just settled with a noted New York hospital on $2.2 million in penalties and fines for its role in cooperating with a celebrity doctor whose….
Continue ReadingWith kids, asthma, and ERs, ‘meds in hand’ can really matter
With almost 1 in 8 children in the United States suffering from asthma or its symptoms, any step that reduces the need for kids and their parents to seek emergency room care ought to be welcome. And a new study, albeit relatively small, suggests that a straight-forward, common sense step might be useful: Don’t just….
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