Gleeman's Daily News--07/03

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Robert Gleeman Posted: 07-03-2009 1:37 AM

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Happy Fourth of July in the time of recession

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.

Novartis in Germany makes 1st swine flu vaccine in Europe

“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.

Senate bill would fine people who refuse to pay for affordable medical coverage

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?

Former Cigna exec will blow the whistle on Capitol Hill

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.

Doctors assure patients they will be OK if Vicodin and Percocet are banned

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.