As the nomination of Dr. Robert Califf to head the federal Food and Drug Administration advances, he and the agency already are confronting a major regulatory crisis over Aduhelm, a prescription drug targeted for Alzheimer’s treatment and approved on the thinnest of evidence. An FDA sister agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS),….
Continue ReadingEnd of Life
Hospices a hot investment as profiteers seek a buck to life’s very end
Profit-raking private investors, aka hedge funders, have taken aim at operations intended to help the elderly, desperately ill, and grievously injured experience a dignified death. The rapacious takeover of the hospice industry nationwide ought to be setting off political and regulatory alarms in a rapidly graying nation. As is typically the case when MBA-driven interests….
Continue ReadingNursing homes hide violations with behind-scenes maneuvers
The battle to safeguard the elderly, sick, and injured residents of the nation’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities is far from over — and the fight may be even tougher than advocates for the vulnerable may have imagined. That’s because the facilities employ aggressive tactics to contest safety and other violations found by….
Continue ReadingPandemic toll nears 800,000, as Delta rages and Omicron threatens
The coronavirus pandemic is nearing another grim mark: 800,000 deaths in this country in its two-year run, with 1 in 100 of the fatalities occurring among those 65 and older. The pandemic toll exceeds the population of cities like Washington, D.C., Seattle, Denver, Boston, and Memphis, and is heading toward the equivalent of spots like….
Continue ReadingFDA under renewed fire over dubious approval of Alzheimer’s drug
Taxpayers and patients are suffering the rising negative consequences of the federal Food and Drug Administration’s dubious decision to overrule its own independent expert advisors and to approve on scant evidence Aduhelm. It is a prescription drug targeting Alzheimer’s disease, and concerns are rising about the medication’s safety and costs, not to mention whether it….
Continue ReadingPandemic battles focus on boosters for all and more shots for kids
The coronavirus pandemic continues to kill an average of 1,200 Americans each day and the disease infects more than 76,000 people daily — unwavering numbers that have led public health officials — wary of what the hectic holidays will bring — to double down on their campaign for vaccinations against the virus. This is especially….
Continue ReadingHospitals struggle to keep nurses, as nursing homes stall on staff shots
The U.S. health care system and all who rely on it may be reaching painful reckonings on how the coronavirus pandemic keeps affecting caregiving personnel, whether with highly trained nurses who are forcing hospitals to pay them more or see them leave or with poorly paid and ill-trained aides who still aren’t getting Covid-19 shots….
Continue ReadingAnother milestone of lives lost needlessly
It’s one thing when toddlers in their terrible twos react to common sense directions for their own good, throwing themselves to the floor, declaring, “I won’t, I won’t — and you can’t make me …” When grownups behave in, basically, the same way, the results can be catastrophic. The estimated death toll of the coronavirus….
Continue ReadingPfizer booster OKayed for millions, as U.S. struggles with toll of the unvaccinated
The battle against the coronavirus pandemic is further splintering Americans into brittle groups, segments familiar because they long have been components of the inequitable U.S. health care system — let’s call them the have nots, the have somes, the have much, and the won’ts. Regulators have decided that those who have some protection with lifesaving….
Continue ReadingNursing homes recorded a horrific pandemic toll. But it may be even worse.
In recent days, academic researchers and politicians have made distressing disclosures about the terrible toll the coronavirus pandemic took on the aged, injured, and sick in nursing homes and other long term care facilities with new data suggesting the disease infected more of the vulnerable and killed more of them than previously known. Government officials,….
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