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From Arizona to Ohio, savvy bureaucrats have spent the last week trying to save their good ole fashioned fireworks displays. What if, like some folks in Connecticut, they charged each car $5? What if, like Houston, they scaled back the display to something more affordable? What if they begged and bartered with any sponsor or city agency that could swoop in to save the show? Hey, it worked in Tucson, Ariz., where the Pascua Yaqui Tribe donated $20,000 to subsidize the once-canceled show.
Is it worth the money? Sure, why not. For the sake of all our safety, keep the public fireworks display, and get rid of the private fireworks—cheaper in the long run.
“With the adjuvant vaccine we have developed there's a good chance that you will be protected even if it comes back in a different form.”
Dr Andrin Oswald Novartis Vaccines
Now work will focus on creating a vaccine from the seed virus.
So although Novartis is claiming to have created the first swine flu vaccine, it will not be until clinical trials are completed on a vaccine made from the seed virus and the first doses are delivered, that the race to get a vaccine will truly have been won.
Of interest to our doctors, this is a new way of making vaccine that does not use any eggs, but rather, a cell culture. The method of production is a big story.
In this file photo, patients wait at the Emergency Room entrance at Riverside County Regional Medical Ctr in Moreno Valley, just outside Los Angeles. Senate Democrats today are unveiling a new non-partisan analysis of their health care reform plan that dramatically cuts the estimated cost -- and that includes a ?public option? for health insurance. (Getty Images)
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the fines will raise around $36 billion over 10 years. Senate aides said the penalties would be modeled on the approach taken by Massachusetts, which now imposes a fine of about $1,000 a year on individuals who refuse to get coverage. Under the federal legislation, families would pay higher penalties than individuals.
I hope the government does not create a new class of criminal—the health insurance evader—and what if you don’t pay the fine, jail time?
Wendell Potter, the former Vice President of Communications for Cigna Insurance Company in Philadelphia is scheduled to testify at 2:30 pm before the Senate Commerce Committee. He is expected to describe how the health insurance industry purposefully uses "confusing language" for consumers as part of its business strategy. He worked in the health insurance industry for 20 years for both Cigna and Humana health insurance companies.
There is no doubt that confusing language is the least of the deceptive activities of insurance firms, to whom the avoidance of care equals making a profit.
Following a vote by an FDA expert panel that favored banning drugs that combine drugs that combine acetaminophen with narcotics such as Vicodin and Percocet, doctors are reassuring chronic pain patients that alternative options do exist.
(ABC News Photo Illustration)
Rosenberg is one of millions of Americans who fill prescriptions each year for an acetaminophen-based narcotic – or combination drugs – such as Vicodin or Percocet, the two most popularly prescribed drugs in the country.
This story tells of a patient who would have a very painful life without his meds, but it talks of alternative pain meds, of which there seem to be many.
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the leading authority on fire, electrical and building safety, says legal or not, fireworks are too risky for amateurs.
The Alliance to Stop Consumer Fireworks (ASCF) is a group of health and safety organizations, coordinated by NFPA, that urges the public to avoid the use of consumer fireworks and instead, to enjoy displays of fireworks conducted by trained professionals. They also warn that after a firework display, children should never pick up fireworks they may find on the ground. The pyrotechnic devices may still be active and are extremely dangerous.
Also see: http://www.crescent-news.com/news/simple_article/4620257
This is fireworks season, and I hope our doctors will be spared the usual burns and self-destructive blast effects of “consumer fireworks”. Happy 4th.
And the number of obese and overweight children has now climbed to 30 percent in 30 states, a troubling trend that could signal decades of weight-related health problems such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease as these children become adults.
Those are just some of the worrisome findings in an annual report on obesity in America, released Wednesday by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
This study shows that our country is struggling with weight gains, and as I found out, if you want to make your doctor happy, just lose weight, you’ll be a star.
The drug has been offered to those with close contact to swine flu
Roche Holding AG confirmed a patient with H1N1 influenza in Denmark showed resistance to the antiviral drug.
David Reddy, company executive, said it was not unexpected given that common seasonal flu could do the same.
The news comes as a nine-year-old girl has become the third to die in the UK with swine flu.
This was bound to happen, but I still haven’t figured out how you’re supposed to get the Tamiflu when you’re not supposed to leave the house with the flu.
An FDA panel has recommended that Tylenol be used in lower doses than now recommended. The panel also recommends banning Percocet and Vicodin. (JB Reed/ Bloomberg News/ File 2008)
Outside advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted 20 to 17 yesterday in Adelphi, Md., for the ban on Percocet and Vicodin, which also contain a narcotic. The panel agreed earlier that Johnson & Johnson’s Tylenol should be given in lower doses than now recommended and the extra-strength version should be sold by prescription only.
Acetaminophen, an aspirin alternative in use for five decades to reduce pain and fever, has been a leading cause of liver injury for more than a decade, the FDA said. The agency under President Obama is “taking a harder look at safety’’ than in previous administrations, said Les Funtleyder, a healthcare analyst at Miller Tabak & Co. in New York.
I always thought acetaminophen was added to powerful narcotics in order to limit the abuse—too much abuse, you die of liver failure. Am I right?
Packaging of Tylenol rolls down a conveyer at the McNeil Consumer and Specialty Pharmaceuticals in Fort Washington, Pa. on Monday, Oct. 31, 2005. (AP / Bradley C Bower)
Canada plans to bring in new warning labels on acetaminophen -- the key ingredient in Tylenol, Excedrin and other medications -- while government experts in the United States on Tuesday said the maximum dose should be reduced to avoid lethal overdoses.
Acetaminophen is one of the most widely used drugs in the U.S and Canada. Many patients find it easier on the stomach than other painkillers like ibuprofen and Aspirin, which can cause ulcers.
Also in question are the many OTC drugs which contain acetaminophen, which when combined, can overdose the liver and cause permanent damage. Ouch.
The letter to President Obama states clearly, "We are for shared responsibility...We are for an employer mandate which is fair and broad in its coverage." It also recognizes the varying ability of employers to contribute by saying, "Not every business can make the same contribution, but everyone must make some contribution."
Read the letter at the link above to see what the nation’s largest employer thinks about mandated insurance and lowering costs. They big enough to be the news.
Kristen Wyatt/AP Photo
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Homeless teenagers at a central Colorado shelter are feeling the effect of the government's economic stimulus package. It's the feeling of a dentist's drill.
The 20 runaway youths living at the Urban Peak shelter had no regular dental care until this spring, when a $1.3 million stimulus grant to a community health center paid for a mobile dental and medical clinic to visit once a month. The residents now get medical and dental screenings, and cavities filled, right from their shelter's parking lot.
Interesting to me the extent to which dental care has been pushed to the back, yet it is so important to a person’s general health. Much room for reform there.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—A new report from the Institute of Medicine recommends 100 health topics that should get priority attention and funding from a new national research effort to identify which health care services work best.
The report also spells out actions and resources needed to ensure that this comparative effectiveness research initiative will be a sustained effort with a continuous process for updating priorities as needed and that the results are put into clinical practice.
Here is a report doctors may be interested in reading, this detailed story gives a good description of how it was compiled and the politics involved in implementing some of these plans.
Falls are the top cause of nonfatal injury in the U.S. Studies find the most common place they occur is in the home. Gayton says because so many falls happen in the home, if you think you may be at risk for a fall, it`s wise to have a in-home assessment done by an occupational therapist. He or she can point out possible hazards to make your home safer.
I was going to say Just Stay Home, but in the last sentence of the story, it is reported that most of these falls happen in the patient’s own home. So go out.
Bradley C. Bower/Associated Press
Dr. Gary D. Kao, accused of mishandling radioactive seed implants, told a Congressional panel on Monday that his patients over all had effective cancer treatment.
“I did not believe our procedures were botched,” said the physician, Dr. Gary D. Kao, who no longer treats patients at the veterans’ hospital or its affiliated hospital run by the University of Pennsylvania. “I’ve always acted in the best interest of the patients.”
No treatment is perfect, but did Dr. Kao do his best? Read this story and tell us what you think. Did someone do something wrong, or is that just medicine?
(Chris Kleponis/Getty Images) Students march during a rally for affordable health care on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. President Obama's plan has been facing stiff resistance on Capitol Hill.
President Obama claims most Americans like their current private health insurance plan and should be able to keep it if they want.
Yet over three quarters of the families who were bankrupted by medical problems in 2007 had health insurance when illness struck.
Did those mostly middle-class people realize how vulnerable they were? Before the illness struck, did they think that their plan was good? Would they have wanted to keep it, instead of allowing Congress to set up a system that provides real protection to everyone, even to people who lose their job?
This article updates us as to where the discussion is leading in Washington, D.C., it from a guest blogger, so there may be some opportunities for our many fine writers.
First lady Michelle Obama smiles as she is introduced to make remarks after touring the Unity Health Care Upper Cordozo Health Center in Washington on Monday, June 29, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
WASHINGTON -- First lady Michelle Obama visited a community health center Monday to announce the release of $850 million in stimulus grants to help such clinics across the country provide care.
By building on a framework of existing community health clinics, I believe health care reform will reinforce the best parts of our system.
Driven ... Steve Jobs. Photo: Getty Images
The news of the transplant was just the latest of a series of events that saw Jobs and Apple dig themselves deeper and deeper into a pit of secrecy surrounding his health. The first the world knew about his problems was in August 2004, when it was announced he had been treated for a rare form of pancreatic cancer.
This article shows how a person’s health privacy can be “hacked”, and hints at how a corporate star is privileged by wealth to travel to where there is a ready organ donor for a transplant. Our own forum has discussed this man’s recent liver transplant in a thread with the word “fishy” in the title.
Canadian and international cancer experts recommend limiting intake of red meat. (CBC)
"We observed positive associations between pancreatic cancer and intakes of total, saturated and monounsaturated fat overall, particularly from red meat and dairy food sources. We did not observe any consistent association with polyunsaturated or fat from plant food sources," Rachael Stolzenberg-Solomon of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., and her colleagues wrote.
"Altogether, these results suggest a role for animal fat in pancreatic carcinogenesis."
Oh my, almost every day we hear something bad about eating too much meat, so far it looks like the Mediterranean diet has the most balance of meat and veggies.
President Obama meets at the White House with five governors, two Republicans and three Democrats, to hear their concerns about health-care reform. (By Pablo Martinez Monsivais -- Associated Press)
A bipartisan group of governors told President Obama yesterday that they share his urgent desire to restructure the nation's health-care system but warned that any changes should not place more burdens on strained state budgets or eliminate innovative programs they already have in place.
This article reminds us that some states have evolved their own health care plans, and where they are working, they need to be respected—or copied.
Giancarli for News
City hoops legends, ex-Knicks guard John Starks and ex-Liberty center Kym Hampton, celebrate the anniversary of The Bronx Knows, a program that uses community leaders to test Bronxites for HIV/AIDS.
Nurah Amat'ullah, Executive Director, Muslim Women's Institute for Research and Development, is among those helping convince Bronxites to get tested for HIV/AIDS.
Testing is up 28% over the prior year and nearly 160,000 people received HIV testing throughout the borough.
"Knowing your status is one of the best things you can do to stop the spread of HIV," said Dr. Thomas Farley, the city's health commissioner. "Bronx residents are taking the lead by getting tested."
New York City has long been the epicenter of this country's HIV epidemic.
Here is a testing program and a philosophy that is hard to argue with, they are finding people 10 years sick with AIDS before being finally diagnosed.
The seizure may cause a shortage of one pain drug, choline magnesium trisalicylate, in particular. However, the drug is used by only a small percentage of patients and patients can find alternatives by consulting their doctor, Autor said.
The FDA took the action due to Caraco's failure to meet the agency's Good Manufacturing Practice requirements after several warnings, Autor said. The FDA's action stops Caraco from distributing drugs until the company provides the agency assurance that it is complying with good manufacturing requirements.
FDA does some good work out there, but how they keep up with the manufacturing standards of each and every drug maker, it must be a huge job.
Bernice Brown, arrested after a Medicare fraud investigation, is escorted from Detroit's federal building to a government van. Dozens of such arrests occurred in Miami and Detroit as part of the federal investigation. (By Paul Sancya -- Associated Press)
The Justice Department yesterday unsealed criminal indictments against 53 people for allegedly bilking the Medicare system, the latest step in a wide-ranging effort to prevent fraud that costs the federally funded health program billions of dollars each year.
It seems the federal government is cracking down on all forms of Medicare fraud, and they are willing to run a sting to catch dishonest medical billing.
Most animals that have been treated with stem cells suffer from joint ailments. Damage to cartilage, tendons, ligaments, or arthritic inflammation top the list. Stem cells are seen as a way to provide almost magical regenerative healing to combat these ailments.
Interesting story about the use of stems cells in veterinary medicine, but this is a look into the future of human beings. We will thank those animals some day.
Gulf News Archive
Governments around the world have adopted strict health security checks at airports and other points of entry to curb the spread of swine flu.
Abu Dhabi: The Ministry of Health (MoH) along with Health Authority Abu Dhabi and the Dubai Health Authority has initiated a national educational campaign against swine flu under the slogan, "You care, we care, and the world cares."
Comprehensive article gives travel safety tips dealing with how to travel with or avoid catching the flu. Add this to the already huge hassle of traveling.
"It's giving patients who have already tried many conventional treatments long periods of remission, free from the symptoms of cancer or major side-effects."
Olaparib is the first successful example of a new type of personalised medicine using a technique called "synthetic lethality" - a subtle way of exploiting the body's own molecular weaknesses for positive effect.
In this case the drug takes advantage of the fact that while normal cells have several different ways of repairing damage to their DNA, one of these pathways is disabled by the BRCA mutations in tumour cells.
This is an easier ordeal than chemo, a first in personalized medicine, and a completely new way to treat some forms of cancer. Good work!
AbioCor is considered self-contained because it has a built-in battery, unlike earlier artificial hearts such as the Jarvik (now called CardioWest), which are tethered to external consoles. It also contains a microprocessor that sends radio signals to a computer monitoring the patient’s health.
The device is not designed to keep a patient alive indefinitely, but to extend the lives of dying patients who are too sick to receive transplants.
In addition to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, two other hospitals have been approved and trained by Abiomed to implant AbioCor: Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital.
A miracle of a machine, the unit is for dying patients, I wonder if they are working on a more permanent concept for longer use.
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene The H.I.V. testing initiative is carried out under the slogan “The Bronx Knows.”
An ambitious effort to give an H.I.V. test to every adult living in the Bronx, which has a far higher death rate from AIDS than any other borough, has resulted in a roughly 28 percent increase in H.I.V. tests, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced on Wednesday, the one-year anniversary of the three-year testing effort.
I am not for mandatory HIV testing, but by making the test free and the medication freely available, we can beat down this terrible killer virus.
Research has found that sticking to the diet can protect the brain against developing Alzheimer's and other memory problems Photo: GETTY
The latest study, which followed 23,000 people, found that those who adhered most closely to a typical Mediterranean diet were 14 per cent more likely to still be alive at the end of eight years.
Prof Dimitrios Trichopoulos, from the Harvard School of Public Health, who led the study, said: "The analysis suggests that the dominant components of the Mediterranean diet... are moderate consumption of alcohol, mostly in the form of wine during meals, as it traditional in the Mediterranean countries, low consumption of meat and meat products, and high consumption of vegetables, fruits and nuts, olive oil and legume."
This diet keeps coming up in the news as a research item, probably because there is some scientific reasoning behind it, and lots of people eating it up.
Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, said in January 2009 that his dramatic weight loss was due to a hormone imbalance. Photo: REUTERS
Mr Jobs, who has previously battled pancreatic cancer in 2004, went on medical leave from the electronics giant in six months ago, to treat an undisclosed medical condition, thought to be a hormonal imbalance.
This story mostly shows by photographic record, the dramatic weight loss cancer can cause. We wish Steve Jobs the best of good fortune.
This Friday, June 27, is National HIV Testing Day.
Why does HIV testing need to be promoted? The answer may shock you - 1 million people in the United States are infected with HIV and 25% of them, approximately 250,000 people, have no idea they are HIV positive. People who don’t know they are HIV positive are at increased risk for infecting others. In addition, if they are unaware of their status they are not receiving lifesaving antiviral medications.
This article points out that it is better to know your HIV status, yet 1/4 of a million Americans have the virus and they do not know it. No wonder it spreads.
Daniel (above) said he believes his tumour's improvement comes from alternative treatments he's doing such as supplemental drinks and pills. -- PHOTO: AP
NEW ULM (Minnesota) - A 13-YEAR-OLD boy with cancer who fled Minnesota to avoid chemotherapy said he was angry about a judge's Tuesday ruling he must continue getting the treatment after court documents showed his tumour has shrunk significantly.
He is getting better, but he gives the credit to alternative treatments, not chemo. Meanwhile, some Americans would love to have his medical care.
A landmark study has successfully demonstrated a 29 percent reduction in heart failure or death in patients with heart disease who received an implanted cardiac resynchronization therapy device with defibrillator (CRT-D) versus patients who received only an implanted cardiac defibrillator (ICD-only).
As time goes by, we are learning the value of these devices, and it is this learning process we call progress. I will call this story good news.
A US company that was awarded a 35-million-dollar contract to develop an influenza vaccine using insect cell technology has produced a first batch against (A)H1N1 flu, company boss Dan Adams said.
This company was having financial troubles, then got a 35M dollar contract, read about the novel insect cell method of vaccine production. Very weird and wonderful science being used here.
Untreated appendicitis can be life-threatening
Now a team at the Children's Hospital Boston has pinpointed a protein in the urine which might be a tell tale sign of the condition.
The research features online in Annals of Emergency Medicine.
An easier way to detect appendicitis would represent a major breakthrough, reducing the risk of serious complications if it is missed, or of unnecessary surgery if it is wrongly diagnosed.
This story points out that young people are difficult to diagnose with appendicitis, and a simple urine test could save many lives. A urine test for everything.
HIV test (WHO)
Iowa is experiencing a spike in HIV cases. In response, Polk County health officials are holding a free testing day in conjunction with National HIV Testing Day.
So this is what an HIV test looks like? Seems quite simple, perhaps it’s something people could do themselves at home?
Keh for News
Daily News sponsors free prostate tests throughout the five boros and more. Dan Wells, 68, gets his prostate test/blood drawn by Anthony Ola at St. Vincent.
The Daily News on Monday begins its ninth year of free prostate screenings at 37 hospitals, medical facilities, recreation centers, churches and office locations across the metro New York area.
Our medical forum has debated the value of the PSA test, but the intention of this program is to get men interested in their own health, and that’s good.
So, Dr. James Cardelli, and his colleagues at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, carried out a clinical trial to determine the effects of short-term supplementation with increased amounts of the active compounds in green tea on the progression of prostate cancer.
Article describes a small study using larger amounts of the active ingredients of green tea, another very ancient remedy which may be useful now.
Everyone recognizes that preventing disease is important for their future health and well-being. Several recent studies have identified the usefulness of aspirin in preventing some of the most serious illnesses we face.
What do our doctors think about the aspirin a day rule? Good advice or bad? This article seems to endorse the practice.
(John Kuntz/The Plain Dealer MetroHealth Medical Center family practitioner Rita Beckford talks with patient Vanessa Greer Jones of Maple Heights during a checkup at a MetroHealth center in the Lee-Harvard Plaza in 2003. National organizations predict a severe shortage of primary-care physicians like Beckford in coming years.
WASHINGTON -- As the debate on overhauling the nation's health-care system exploded into partisan squabbling, virtually everyone still agreed on one point: There are not enough primary-care doctors to meet current needs, and providing health insurance to 46 million more people would threaten to overwhelm the system.
Finally the real issue: what are you going to do with 46 million additional patients? Start a paper chart for each person? Help from computers, perhaps?
How to conduct EMR Vendor Demos: Mark Anderson of the AC Group, Inc. offers his advice on how to get the best out of your EMR Vendor Demos. Start with Patient Check-in. Do some sample Patients. More …
7 Costly Mistakes when Purchasing EMR: Mike Uretz introduces one of the Costly Mistakes made when purchasing an EMR; not planning for the worst case scenario. More …
Which add-ons for EMR and EHR: Which add-ons do you really need for your EHR or EMR? Mark Anderson talks about the 30+ Add-ons available for EMR. Are they worth it? More …
Recommend a useful EMR & EHR resource. Email your link to Nick Harrington or Robert Gleeman.
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