American adults’ cigarette smoking keeps declining, but this “persistent and preventable health threat” takes a terrible toll on those who still light up, with 40 percent of cancer diagnoses in the country linked to tobacco use, public health experts say. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that between 2005 and 2015, “smoking….
Continue ReadingStatistics
Sexually transmitted infections hit record in U.S.
Sexually active Americans set new records in 2015. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that in the most recent year of monitoring the “total combined cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis reported … reached the highest number ever.” Young people of both sexes, and men who engage in sex with other men, as….
Continue ReadingFederal auditors assail $359 million in Medicare costs for chiropractic care
Federal auditors have found that 80 percent of Medicare spending in a recent year on chiropractic care−some $359 million−was medically unnecessary. The federal insurance program for senior citizens should not have thrown taxpayer dollars at chiropractors to treat strains, sprains, or joint conditions, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General says. Its….
Continue Reading‘Theater,’ video help to clarify risk-benefit of treatments like mammograms
Just as patients are unwell and struggling, their well-intentioned doctors may confront them with difficult choices about their care. They often do so with daunting data, and hard to decipher numbers that don’t really answer the vital question: How well does this treatment work, especially for me? Kudos to two Maryland experts, internist Andrew Lazris,….
Continue Reading‘Number Needed to Treat:’ a clear way to figure whether care’s effective
Modern medicine can get mired in a lot of mumbo jumbo, so much so that it gets daunting for patients and consumers to try to understand something simple but critical: How effective is a therapy that my doctor wants me to have? Because I’ve written before about the virtue in a clear and decisive figure,….
Continue ReadingPublic shaming works, a little, to rein in collectors of unpaid medical bills
A despicable element of Big Medicine’s big business has been getting some badly needed scrutiny, with the public glare highlighting how debt incurred due to medical treatment crushes far too many Americans and how reforms are desperately needed. Is public shaming becoming one of the key ways to deal with a horrible problem for Americans?….
Continue ReadingBig Pharma flooded West Virginia with millions of addictive pain-killing pills
Big Pharma should hang its head in shame over recent revelations of its nasty role in inundating rural West Virginia with tens of millions of prescription painkillers. So many pills were shipped in that every man, woman, and child in the small, poor state could have swallowed two dozen doses of hydrocodone and more than….
Continue ReadingHygiene at public swimming pools may be an issue
Kids and parents may want to think twice before jumping into that cool looking public pool or local watering hole. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has just issued its new study on public swimming pools, hot tubs, and other bathing facilities in the states with the most of these, including Florida, Texas, New York,….
Continue ReadingDo surgeons’ (mis)perceptions of risk play too big a role for patients’ good?
A globally renowned seismologist, weary of recent scaremongering reports that a major fault in California was “locked, loaded, and ready to roll,” offered a pointed scientific evaluation of risk: “You’re about as likely to be shot by a toddler than die in an earthquake,” she observed. She explained that, in geologic terms with earthquakes, imminent can mean….
Continue ReadingAs hype mars health care, Comedian John Oliver shows why skepticism’s needed
Who can you believe these days for health news? A biotech company that promised the stars when it comes to one of the most common medical diagnostics—it promised cheaper, faster, more convenient blood testing—has, instead, retracted tens of thousands of its results that doctors and patients had depended on for two years. The Wall Street Journal….
Continue Reading