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….
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FDA lets medical device-makers report safety woes in lax, secretive ways
Instead of acting as a tough federal watchdog that protects and informs patients about problems with medical devices−from heart valves to drug pumps−the federal Food and Drug Administration all too often has served as an industry lap cat offering late, lax oversight in reporting safety woes, a new report finds. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune and former agency….
Continue ReadingBig Pharma, undeterred, racks up a half-billion dollars in regulator penalties
Big Pharma’s dubious hype of its sometimes risky products marched on last week, with the industry racking up a half-billion in regulator penalties and settlements but no seeming end to its questionable strategies and tactics: $465 million penalty, settlement for EpiPen maker Mylan, the controversial maker of the EpiPen, settled with the U.S. Department Justice….
Continue ReadingProsecutors win $67 million settlement with pharma firms accused of deceit
Federal prosecutors have wrung $67 million in a settlement with two pharmaceutical companies accused of deceiving doctors to prescribe a drug that the firms knew would be ineffective in treating lung cancer patients. Genentech and OSI Pharmaceuticals pushed the drug Tarceva for non-small-cell lung cancer, “even though studies had shown that it worked for just those….
Continue ReadingNIH takes stronger steps to improve patient safety at Bethesda Clinical Center
Federal officials have decided to sweep out the executive ranks at the flagship hospital of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, this after a blue-chip investigating committee rebuked the institution and declared that research concerns there had wrongly taken precedence over patient safety. Initial reports about the NIH Clinical Center, as I wrote recently,….
Continue ReadingFDA outrages critics over sneaky rule change on drugs, medical devices
It’s a short paragraph, fine-print tucked in a 10,000-word document on tobacco product regulations. But these 245 words (see Intended Use Regulations, ง 201.128) have lit up critics of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They say officials are trying to pull a fast one, seeking to relax labeling rules for drugs and medical devices. This….
Continue ReadingBar upholds lawyer’s constitutional right to blog about untruthful witness
A Michigan lawyer may write about the untruthful testimony of an “expert” medical witness because his online blog post and his comments are protected speech under the First Amendment, officials from the Michigan Bar have decided. That’s good news for the lawyer, who had his law license challenged by the witness─a psychiatrist who also happens to….
Continue ReadingIn Michigan, a troubling case involving medical expert testimony
In protecting its citizens, Michigan already is taking a deserved drubbing for its shameful government negligence in allowing the lead pollution of Flint‘s drinking water. Officials now need to get their act together to stop a different kind of public policy embarrassment: Expert medical witnesses who abandon any pretext of objectivity and instead work hard….
Continue ReadingWhistleblowers — and Taxpayers — Win Lawsuit over Medicare Fraud
Here’s another story with a satisfying ending and the take-home lesson that it’s a bad idea to cheat taxpayers and abuse medical resources. A chain of hospices agreed to settle a lawsuit over its overbilling of Medicare, and driving up payments by providing care to patients for whom it wasn’t appropriate. St. Joseph Hospice, which….
Continue ReadingDoctor Who Defrauded and Disabled Is Sentenced to Prison
In a particularly offensive and harmful misuse of professional authority, a doctor in Detroit was sentenced earlier this month to 45 years in prison for defrauding insurance companies of millions of dollars and poisoning hundreds of patients with chemotherapy treatments when they didn’t even have cancer. Those weren’t the only crimes committed by Dr. Farid….
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