The scourge of cervical cancer — a leading cancer killer of women in the third world without access to Pap smears and HPV vaccinations — is being whipped with an unlikely low-tech, low-cost preventive treatment: Ordinary vinegar plus freezing of the cervical warts before they turn cancerous. The vinegar is brushed on the cervix by….
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Is Tobacco Promotion an Issue of Free Speech, or Protecting the Public Health?
Last November, the FDA ruled that tobacco manufacturers must include on their packaging graphic depictions of the horrors smoking can wreak. The new packaging was to take effect in autumn 2012. Five tobacco companies now have taken the FDA to federal court, challenging the regulations. Among other things, they claim that the depictions: would unfairly….
Continue ReadingMore Generous Insurance Coverage for Preventive Care for Women
The news that health insurers will be required to cover contraception and related counseling, courtesy of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed last year, received a lot of media attention and political blowback. Because some people find that provision of preventive care for women objectionable, it overshadowed other elements of the new guidelines, which pertain….
Continue Reading10 Weird Health Theories That Just Won’t Go Away
Blogger Jim Edwards has a list of “10 Weird Health Theories That Just Won’t Go Away.” Many of them flower from the backlash to the medical industrial complex’s desire to medicalize, and provide a pill for, all slightly different human behaviors. Others underscore how appropriate skepticism about modern medicine can lead to an over-correction and….
Continue ReadingMammography–One Size Does Not Fit All
Ever since the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force suggested relaxing the rigid schedule for mammography testing in 2009, patients seeking a unified, authoritative voice on the topic have been rewarded with confusion. Probably because the medical community, too, is unresolved about who needs what kind of breast screening and when. A study published this week….
Continue ReadingAs much as 45% of all U.S. health care costs due to medical errors, studies show
Medical mistakes account for between 18 and 45 cents of every health care dollar spent in the U.S., and a medical error or adverse effect occurs in one out of every three hospital admissions, researchers say. According to studies published in the journal Health Affairs, the single most expensive cause of harm is infection after….
Continue ReadingMandated use of unproven screening practices drives up medical costs with little patient benefit
A new Texas law that mandates insurance coverage for coronary artery calcium scanning and carotid artery ultrasound was “premature” and will have major ramifications for public health, a noted Texas cardiologist says. In a commentary published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Dr. Amit Khera, a cardiologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center….
Continue ReadingFewer central line infections in ICU, but not in other wards
The number of bloodstream infections in intensive care units (ICUs) caused by tubes inserted into major blood vessels decreased significantly between 2001 to 2009, but unacceptably high rates of infection are still occurring for patients in other hospital units and for dialysis patients, government researchers say. Central lines are tubes that are usually placed in….
Continue ReadingNew Dietary Guidelines May Be Overly Influenced by Agribusiness
One thing you won’t see mentioned much in the new U.S. Dietary Guidelines: red meat. Nutrition experts know that to fight back against our national epidemic of obesity, it’s important that we eat red meat only sparingly. But the guidelines, a product of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department….
Continue ReadingPhysicians wouldn’t order fewer tests under malpractice reform, study finds
One of the main arguments made by proponents of malpractice reform is that physicians would order fewer medical tests if patients could receive only a limited amount of money in a potential lawsuit. But that assumption may not be true, according to a recent study published in the journal Health Affairs. In that study, researchers….
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