USC, Ohio State, Michigan State, and now, UCLA: How can big universities, with all the supposedly smart folks who head them, be so blind and deaf to student complaints that school personnel may be sexually abusing them? And why do academics keep getting caught up in situations where they appear to or may be covering….
Continue ReadingGynecology
After thousands of lawsuits, FDA bans mesh used in pelvic prolapse procedures
After years of patient complaints about injuries and tens of thousands of lawsuits, the federal Food and Drug Administration yanked from the market a surgical mesh widely used to repair pelvic conditions in women. The agency has been slow to act on transvaginal mesh, which has been in use since the 1970s, with surgeons increasing….
Continue Reading$29 million jury verdict in talc case underscores need for asbestos regulation
Although research has shown that asbestos can cause cancer and other harmful illnesses and the federal government has sought to limit and even ban its use, yet another sizable judgment in a tainted talc case and the discovery of the substance in a popular cosmetics line shows how America’s oversight and regulation of risky materials….
Continue ReadingFDA warns surgeons against experimental robot-aided cancer operations
The federal Food and Drug Administration finally has pushed back at surgeons and hospitals for experimenting on patients, spending $3 billion a year for surgical robots. The devices should not be used for mastectomies and other cancer-related procedures without caution, regulators warn. The FDA acted after studies have shown that minimally invasive procedures for early-stage….
Continue ReadingMothers get a big boost for counseling to help with childbirth depression
Roughly 1 in 7 moms, who, during or after pregnancy, suffer debilitating depression — losses of energy or concentration, changes in sleeping and eating patterns, feelings of worthlessness or suicidal thoughts — now may get counseling that has proven helpful to women and their babies. Preventive health experts have called on medical providers to guide….
Continue ReadingFor too many women, an unending and painful tangle with surgical mesh
Tens of thousands of women complain that a surgery to implant mesh to bolster weak abdominal tissue, instead has inflicted on them incontinence, chronic pelvic pain as well as pains in the groin, hip, and leg, and with intercourse. Others say they suffer complications as if they had the immune system attacking disease lupus, leaving them with….
Continue ReadingProfiteering hospitals hit new low: billing and dunning women for rape tests
Profit-hungry hospitals have dived to some real lows in billing and mistreating patients. Seven New York facilities have gotten slapped down by the state attorney general for breaking the law by charging more than 200 women anywhere from $46 to $2,892 for collecting evidence that the patients may have been raped. New York Attorney General….
Continue ReadingThere they go again: Surgeons ‘innovate,’ but women patients get put at higher risk
Women may need to double-up on their consultations with their specialists about treatment for serious gynecological concerns, as new studies have raised troubling questions about a much-touted minimally invasive surgery for early-stage cervical cancer. These concerns, in a more perfect world, also would prompt greater questioning and oversight by doctors, hospitals, regulators, and lawmakers of….
Continue ReadingUSC bids $215 million to settle gynecologist scandal, with up to 17,000 claims
Yet another big university is learning a costly lesson about the perils of ignoring rogue doctors and their harming of vulnerable young people: The University of Southern California has offered to pay $215 million to settle federal lawsuits by hundreds of coeds who say they were sexually harassed and abused by the head gynecologist at….
Continue ReadingDoctors too readily provide dubious treatments to vulnerable seniors
Doctors subject older patients to risky, costly, invasive, and painful tests and treatments, perhaps with good intention but also because they fail to see that the seniors in their care are individuals with specific situations with real needs that must be considered. If physicians too readily accept conventional wisdom in their field, for example, they….
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