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….
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Big 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 ReadingWith medical ‘news’, paying attention to two N’s can matter to nth degree
While hope can be a remarkable element in healing the sick and injured, can there be anything crueler than raising false hopes among the vulnerable? Patients with serious illnesses like cancer — of the pancreas, breast, and rectum — may need to take in with extra care journalistic reports on medical advances that might affect….
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 ReadingWho trusts profit-grabbing companies to prevent perilous supply snafus?
Americans keep suffering the dire consequences of corporations’ relentless pursuit of profits, their stifling of beneficial competition, and their failure to secure the production of their products. These now include desperately needed, specialized baby formula and contrast dyes used in diagnostic imaging studies for seriously ill and injured patients. A special place in perdition needs….
Continue ReadingOpioid death toll shatters records as judge weighs pharmacy chain penalties
Even as the opioid abuse and drug overdose crisis worsens and breaks annual records for its resulting death toll, the reckoning for parties blamed for fostering the national nightmare is grinding forward. A federal judge in Cleveland has begun hearing arguments whether three giant pharmacy chains should be fined billions of dollars after a jury….
Continue ReadingAs pediatricians seek to end race bias in care, a caution on parent burnout
While the nation’s pediatricians have announced an important, high-minded goal of eliminating racial bias in the medical treatment of children, working parents and other full-time caregivers for kids need a different kind of help, too, for a growing, serious problem — burnout. These seemingly different issues share a common discovery point, rooted in challenges made….
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