Medicine:
One thing about hospitals, is that they use an awful lot of electricity. We already know about some of the challenges that will occur in health care in the post-peak-oil era; I wrote about that in October 2007. ...Petroleum...
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Posted on May 8, 2008 7:50 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
“Doctors think, ‘Well, of course she’s depressed — she’s dying of breast cancer,’” he said. I do see that kind of response sometimes, not just with regard to terminally ill patients. The physician does not think the depression should be...
Posted on April 16, 2008 7:27 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This is something that has been brewing for a while. I noticed a trend among medical students, over the years, with increasing numbers of them expressing support for universal health care in the USA. Now it is official. A study...
Posted on April 1, 2008 7:50 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A reader pointed me to this article, by Miriam Axel-Lute, about the Nonsensical Gyrations that Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield (of New Jersey) is going through to try to avoid paying for health care: What’s Healthy? If you were an...
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Posted on March 20, 2008 7:45 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
When generic drugs started to become popular, many people were skeptical. Many people got switched from brand name to generic products, and complained that the generic did not work as well. These complaints often were treated with skepticism. After all,...
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Posted on March 17, 2008 8:47 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
XP13512 is an experimental new drug currently in phase III trials for the treatment of restless legs syndrome. I was reminded about this after seeing a post at sleepdoctor, and following the link to Sleep Expert, and browsing from there....
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Posted on March 12, 2008 8:10 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
One of the darker chapters in the history of the AMA is their historical opposition to universal, single-payer health care coverage. The term socialized medicine came into use in the post-World-War-II period, in an attempt to falsely conflate such a...
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Posted on March 2, 2008 8:21 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The FDA has been making a strenuous effort to combat the problem of look-alike, sound-alike drug names. The reason is simple: there have been tens of thousands of documented medication errors, in which the wrong drug is substituted for a...
Posted on February 19, 2008 9:35 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The US Food and Drug Administration is a weird chimera: it contains some elements of rule-bound regulatory hell, and some elements of laissez-faire libertarianism. On the libertarian side, they allow physicians to prescribe any drug that they have approved, even...
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Posted on February 17, 2008 10:41 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Zyprexa Adhera is a new formulation of Eli LIlly's antipsychotic medication, olanzapine. It contains the same active ingredient as the pills, but it is a long-acting injection. It is supposed to last two to four weeks. There is not a...
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Posted on February 7, 2008 8:02 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Usually when we think of electronic medical records (EMR) as being three-dimensional, we think of the relational aspect of databases. Researchers at IBM, however, are testing a different concept. The idea is to have a rendered 3D representation of the...
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Posted on January 20, 2008 10:26 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Sounds too good to be true. Perhaps it is. For one, there is only one published case. For another, it has to be injected near the spine in order to have this effect. The arthritis medication, etanercept (Enbrel®) has been...
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Posted on January 14, 2008 9:00 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Several of the candidates have been found to have made egregious misstatements in the New Hampshire debates. FactCheck.org, the organization made famous by Dick Cheney when he erroneously referred to it as Factcheck.com, has an analysis of the Republican candidates'...
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Posted on January 7, 2008 8:21 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Roche Molecular Diagnostics offers a test that can determine which type of genes a person has for enzymes that metabolize antidepressant medication. The test costs $ 300 to $400, and can be ordered by healthcare professionals, or by consumers. The...
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Posted on December 23, 2007 10:02 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Last year, on the occasion of World AIDS Day, President Bush promised to reform a discriminatory policy that blocks most persons with HIV from entering the USA. The current rule does allow for waivers, but the process is cumbersome...
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Posted on December 9, 2007 9:04 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This case was written up in the NEJM, and made freely accessible. The image on the top left shows a brain scan taken three years earlier than the one on the top right. The other images show the cells...
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Posted on December 8, 2007 8:34 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Any time something related to a medical use for cannabis is found, it makes headlines. Mostly, the interest is generated by the relationship to an illegal drug. Sometimes, though, the media do a decent job of reporting the real issue....
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Posted on November 20, 2007 9:01 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It is common for tension to occur in the doctor-patient relationship occurs when the patient reports symptoms that are distressing to the patient, but which do not seem serious to the doctor. Each instance of this is different, so it...
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Posted on November 19, 2007 5:25 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The cost of health insurance has been increasing, typically at double-digit annual rates. With the expansion of information technology, particularly electronic claims processing, one would expect that the insurance companies would be operating much more efficiently now that they...
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Posted on November 18, 2007 12:35 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
In 1984, the Hatch-Waxman Drug Price Competition and Patent Restoration Act was passed. This was an important development that changed forever the economics of the pharmaceutical industry. NEJM has a nice, short, open-access article on the history and consequences...
Posted on November 16, 2007 12:51 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Is it just me, or do others find this article to be offensive? When the Patient Is a Googler By SCOTT HAIG Thursday, Nov. 08, 2007 We had never met, but as we talked on the phone I knew she...
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Posted on November 10, 2007 9:47 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Athletic regulatory bodies have a new headache. This time, the pain is being caused by placebos (an unexpected side effect!) As reported in New Scientist, athletes have found that they can exert themselves to a greater extent, while under...
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Posted on November 8, 2007 12:14 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A recent study indicates that the lifetime cost of medical care for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will be greater than the cost of the war to date. We really have no choice, but it is going to cost us. A...
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Posted on November 7, 2007 8:43 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee currently is in the process of examining the question of whether to pay for in-home testing for the diagnosis of sleep apnea. If approved, this could lead to a significant loss of...
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Posted on October 24, 2007 12:36 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Yeah. Private companies are always more efficient that government programs. According to a recent study by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee: The private Part D insurers report administrative expenses, sales costs, and profits of almost $5 billion in...
Posted on October 16, 2007 1:45 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This is from a site on Medscape, Infosite. It is a multimedia program about Vyvanse® (lisdexamfetamine dimesylate), a long-acting amphetamine. The video is positively mind-blowing: This shows a person who is about to take a Vyvanse capsule. Next we see...
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Posted on October 8, 2007 11:35 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This device, a computerized pillow, may have a medical justification. But I would recommend caution. Daryoush Bazargani, a computer science professor in Germany, has invented a device that he believes can be used to help stop a person from snoring....
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Posted on October 3, 2007 7:55 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I was prompted to rant again about health insurance, after reading a post at Blogcritics. The author was highly critical of the SCHIP proposals. SCHIP: It's for the Insurance Companies, Not the Children Written by Dave Nalle Published September...
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Posted on September 26, 2007 7:48 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The long-awaited details of the Hillary Clinton health care finance plan have been revealed. The plan has received lukewarm support from columnists at NYT (Paul Krugman) and The Economist. It has been criticized by Mitt Romney, oddly, as it is quite...
Posted on September 25, 2007 12:04 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A new report on sleep disorders in pain patients reveals a not-very-surprising finding: chronic opioid treatment is associated with very high incidences of both obstructive and central sleep apnea. Higher Risk Of Sleep Apnea When Patients Use Opioid-Based Pain...
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Posted on September 25, 2007 12:43 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I support universal coverage in a single-payer system. I won't belabor the point. Today I just want to point out another insurance industry lie, printed in the New York Times today. It's in an article about Mrs. Clinton's health care...
Posted on September 16, 2007 2:12 PM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Guardian Unlimited has a provocative article on the role of endocrine disruptors in increasing the ratio of girl babies to boy babies in the Arctic. I've written about the topic before (1 2) as have Abel and PZ....
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Posted on September 14, 2007 5:28 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I don't think this has ever happened before. I was reading an article about the organizational chart at the FDA and I laughed out loud. Unfortunately it was not a good "monkey-on-a-goat" LOL moment; rather, it was a "WTF-sounds-like-Bush"...
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Posted on September 12, 2007 12:41 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
There may be another crisis brewing in health care finance. In the early 2000's, health insurance premiums were increasing by ~10% per year. The increase in premiums was greater than the increase in health care costs. Why would...
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Posted on September 1, 2007 10:40 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Google News no longer indexes ScienceBlogs, but they continue to link to drivel like this, from the Wall Street Journal: Lone Star Spending Spree By MARY KATHERINE STOUT August 25, 2007; Page A6 Austin, Texas Give George W. Bush...
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Posted on August 28, 2007 8:39 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Health care is shaping up to be one of the big issues in the upcoming elections. No big surprise there, it was a highly -ranked issue in the last election, too. It's just that last time, voters failed to see...
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Posted on August 24, 2007 11:57 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
In 2005, there was a plague. It started inadvertently, as most do, but spread rapidly, resulting in many deaths. Officials scrambled to find a solution. Eventually it was contained. The plague was caused by a miscoded spell (Corrupted Blood),...
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Posted on August 22, 2007 7:25 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
How refreshing: a Presidential appointee speaks out unequivocally against Administration policy. This is from a Medscape News article (free registration), which is from Reuters Heath Information. The report quotes a professor of Immunology who is on the President's Cancer Panel...
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Posted on August 17, 2007 7:12 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This is from a small study, so it would be inappropriate to draw a broad conclusion from it. Still, it is kind of interesting. Bupropion in the Treatment of Outpatients with Asthma and Major Depressive Disorder E. Sherwood Brown, Lana...
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Posted on August 16, 2007 7:48 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
When unemployment is high, there is more penetrating trauma (bullets, knives). When employment is high, there is more blunt trauma (automobile crashes). Unemployment predicts hospital trauma Published: Aug. 9, 2007 at 9:48 PM NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 9 (UPI) -- A...
Posted on August 10, 2007 12:11 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The problem, specifically, is that patients with insurance have higher copays and deductibles. According to an article on Medscape (free registration required): U.S. Hospitals Struggle Over Who Can Afford to Pay By Kim Dixon CHICAGO (Reuters Life!) Aug 06 -...
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Posted on August 7, 2007 12:03 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Put this near the top of things you don't want to do to yourself. This woman developed fever and abdominal pain, but did not disclose to her physician what she had done. That was her second mistake. The oval...
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Posted on August 6, 2007 12:12 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This report (PDF 260KB file) is what set off the controversy over the former Surgeon General of the United States. It is a draft report, entitled The Surgeon General’s Call to Action on Global Health 2006. It was written by...
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Posted on July 31, 2007 11:55 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
For some reason, my Father used to say that when he made an indisputable point of some significance. It is in the Urban Dictionary in case you are curious about the expression. It is also the title of a post...
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Posted on July 26, 2007 8:20 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Infections with Streptococcus suis have been reported in a cluster in Viet Nam, plus one apparently-isolated case in China. This is not the first outbreak of the pig-borne illness. A larger outbreak occurred in 2005 in Sichuan, China. In 2005,...
Posted on July 26, 2007 12:20 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I was reading about the epidemic of vitamin D deficiency, got curious about albinism, and ended up finding this picture of a white lion. It is distributed under a creative commons license, attribution required. The photographer is Stano Novak. The...
Posted on July 24, 2007 12:33 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This image shows what can happen to your retina from a sudden increase in venous pressure. What could cause such a sudden increase? Jumping straight down, followed by sudden upward acceleration. The patient initially had 20/400 vision in the affected...
Posted on July 23, 2007 2:39 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Sanofi-Aventis obesity pill, rimonabant, will be labeled with stronger warnings as a result of a review by The European Medicines Agency (EMEA). According to the EMEA press release on Acomplia (31 KB PDF file): The European Medicines Agency...
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Posted on July 21, 2007 8:32 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
There was an outbreak of botulism in the past several days in the United States. The problem was traced to contaminated canned chili sauce intended for use on hotdogs. Product from Castleberry Food Company based in Augusta, Georgia is suspected....
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Posted on July 20, 2007 1:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Clostridium difficile cases are on the rise, according to a study in Archives of Surgery. It seems odd to me that this study would come out now, just a few days after I posted about the same topic. I...
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Posted on July 17, 2007 4:57 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This qualifies for "quote of the decade" status. Unfortunately it is in Times Select, but clever persons can figure out how to find the whole text (some, but not all of the time). Actually, the hat tip goes to Ron,...
Posted on July 17, 2007 8:32 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Apparently it is now the role of the Chief Executive to tell businesspersons how to run their business. In the context of the pro and con lobbying over the proposed expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, pharmaceutical companies...
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Posted on July 16, 2007 4:49 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
While looking for information for my last post, I encountered another interesting article at PNAS. This one is about a new molecule that improved survival in mice infected with scrapie. Scrapie is one of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE)....
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Posted on July 16, 2007 8:16 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
There is a letter published online at Nature, ahead of the print version, that describes a technique of analyzing an entire genome to find genes that may be associated with disease. The newly-identified gene, in this case, is linked to...
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Posted on July 16, 2007 12:58 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This press release (HT: medGadget) from King's College tips us off to an article in the journal, Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention. This is something that news sites picked up on. Specifically, the authors reported a relationship between the number...
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Posted on July 14, 2007 12:53 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A couple of Parkinson's Disease related items came across the news wires, briefly. There are lessons in both of them, but both leave me with unresolved questions. The first one I noticed was a report based upon a journal...
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Posted on July 14, 2007 8:15 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A study published in the British Medical Journal indicates that use of a probiotic drink can reduce the frequency of antibiotic-associated diarrhea in general, and of Clostridium difficile colitis in particular. Antibiotic-associated colitis is a complication of treatment with...
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Posted on July 12, 2007 7:51 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
