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 ReadingMedications
More shots coming to battle stubborn, still deadly coronavirus pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic stubbornly persists, infecting 110,000 Americans daily — and likely many, many more — and hospitalizing 29,000 a day on average. Vaccinations, also, have stayed at the forefront of efforts to deal with the disease, with shots on the brink of being regulator-approved and imminently available for the littlest of kids, and against….
Continue ReadingNewer diabetes drugs can lead to weight loss. Wish it was that simple.
As medical scientists increase the understanding of diabetes and the role that hormones can play in treating the disease and clinical obesity, doctors, drug makers, insurers, and others in U.S. health care are running smack into familiar, significant problems. These include issues with public perceptions about weight, diet, and appropriate prescribing of powerful medications, as….
Continue ReadingSeniors, overcharged by billions on Medicare, won’t see ’22 refund
Tens of millions of seniors, hit by one of the largest increases in recent memory of their monthly Medicare charges due to a prescription drug regulatory debacle, will not see a penny refunded this year on what amounts to a federal overcharge. This will occur, even though it was floated as a possibility and the….
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 ReadingSocial media blamed for fueling opioid crisis for the young
The social media sites that young folks so adore also have turned into virtual illicit drug bazaars, helping to explain the exploding problems with the powerful synthetic painkiller fentanyl and why opioids and overdoses of them have become a leading killer of Americans ages 18 to 45. During the coronavirus pandemic, especially, and continuing onward,….
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 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 Reading