The coronavirus pandemic is surging anew, with federal health officials warning that just under half of Americans live in parts of the country where transmission rates have increased sharply enough that they should return to wearing face masks in public, indoor settings. Older Americans, officials say, should get a second booster shot if more than….
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Who 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 ReadingHospitals seek to hike prices by up to 15% as safety, quality concerns grow
Hospitals have raised major alarms with insurers, businesses, and patients by asserting that spiking costs for medical staff, especially nurses, will lead them to increase their prices in the days ahead by as much as 15%. This would be a budget-busting move, breaking contracts the caregiving institutions have struck with employers and insurers, leading not….
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 ReadingU.S. mourns 1 million coronavirus deaths. Nearly one in three may have been preventable.
President Biden has ordered flags in public buildings across the country to be flown at half staff as the nation officially mourns 1 million American deaths due to the coronavirus pandemic. As he noted in a statement: “One million empty chairs around the dinner table. Each an irreplaceable loss. Each leaving behind a family, a community,….
Continue ReadingPatients are imperiled by avoidable drug errors and hit with pricing ploy
Big Pharma has made the nation so pill-obsessed that prescription drugs pose big risks to the safety of the seriously sick and injured and the finances of retirees. Recent news stories have warned, for example, that: hospitals have failed to take needed steps to secure medications from lethal mix-ups drug makers and insures play a….
Continue ReadingWhile U.S. moves on, pandemic is inching up and is forecast to worsen
The coronavirus already has killed 1 million and counting in this country. But is that painful reality persuasive enough to get Americans, especially cantankerous politicians, to heed new federal warnings that the pandemic not only isn’t over but that it could surge anew this fall and winter with as many as 100 million new infections….
Continue ReadingIt’s everywhere and nowhere: Coronavirus and the risks that remain for seniors and unvaccinated
The coronavirus pandemic has become such a central part of so many people’s lives that the temptation is great to ignore its persistent, calamitous effect — and how some of the worst of these can be dealt with more than ever in relatively easy, safe, convenient ways. Looking recent data about the disease, it is….
Continue ReadingSpecialized cancer hospitals hike drug costs by up to 630%, study finds
While patients often seek treatment at big, fancy hospitals, in part because they are designated as National Cancer Institute centers, these institutions provide a sticker-shock surprise for those receiving their specialized care: They jack up the already sky-high cost of prescription cancer drugs with markups going up from 120% to 630% above what they pay….
Continue ReadingAs U.S. shatters death record, trauma and grief grow unrecognized
Death has not taken a holiday in this country. It has, instead, had a field day, with 2021 breaking records, recording 3.465 million American lives lost — 80,000 more than in history-setting 2020, federal statisticians say. The coronavirus pandemic gets much of the blame for the nation’s grim toll, which was made all the worse….
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