The CVD Trio [ez_date] As noted in Part 1 of this 3-part series – Making Sense of Your Cholesterol Scores – cholesterol measures alone have been insufficient for predicting and preventing cardiovascular events like heart attack and stroke. Over half of these occur in people with normal cholesterol levels. As a result, researchers continue to […]
Fighting Cancer With Ethical Bribes
Cut Cancer With Cash [ez_date] If you’ve read a single post here – much less the entirety of Our Healthcare Sucks – you no doubt recognize the central and predictive role that money plays in American healthcare. Patients, employers, and the government all pay dearly for insurance coverage. Insurers, patients, and the government all pay […]
Making Sense of Your Cholesterol Scores
The Cholesterol Conundrum Because aggressively reducing patients’ LDL cholesterol has failed to prevent many cardiovascular events, there’s been renewed effort over the past decade to find better ways to “risk-stratify” patients – especially those at “moderate risk” using the conventional Framingham Risk Score (FRS). The FRS has been found satisfactory for identifying people at high […]
Where Does It Hurt? – Painful Times for the FDA
The FDA Needs to Put Pain in Perspective [ez_date] FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg is under renewed pressure from public health advocates and law enforcement officials over the agency’s lax and inconsistent approach to powerful and addictive opioid painkiller medications. This follows on the heels of appeals to repeal the FDA’s approval of a controversial […]
Healthcare Malaise Promises More Misery
Healthcare Performance Anxiety? [ez_date] This summer seems to be ending on a dour note for America’s healthcare system. The past week has seen a spate of reports about lingering problems across many fronts. Let’s see if I can do them justice… A System in Name Only First up is a report by the estimable Sarah […]
Does Your Medication Actually Work?
Medication Effectiveness Ain’t What It’s Cracked Up To Be [ez_date] Many of the medications we’re prescribed have a reasonable probability of not working for the problem for which they’re being prescribed. According to a senior physician executive with GlaxoSmithKline… “The vast majority of drugs – more than 90% – only work in 30 or 50 […]
Is Malpractice Reform a License to Kill?
Malpractice Reforms That Enable Malpractice [ez_date] It appears that many malpractice-prone doctors flee to nearby states that enact laws that purport to “reform” medical malpractice by capping non-economic damages patients may receive. That, at least, is the conclusion of a recent malpractice report in the Journal of Law and Economics. This means doctors guilty of […]
Defensive Medicine Makes Us All Sitting Ducks
Defensive Medicine Quackery [ez_date] “Defensive medicine” is the term applied to medical tests and procedures ordered by many physicians in order to protect themselves in the event of a malpractice claim filed by or on behalf of their patients. These tests and procedures are often not necessary and can lead to further testing and […]
Healthcare USA: Pricey, Preferential, and Provocative
Healthcare USA – Beyond the Politics This week’s report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that the rate of growth in US healthcare spending has tapered off compared to that of other high-spending countries (Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Canada in this case). This is considered a good thing, even though […]
Obama’s Feds’ Reefer Madness Marijuana Fixation
Feds’ Vestigial Marijuana Policy Still Mired in War on Drugs That’s Nixon with Elvis, not J. Edgar… [ez_date] It’s ironic that federal marijuana policy under admitted-former-pothead President Barack Obama reeks more of Tricky Dick Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover than Cheech and Chong. Last week brought the feds’ vestigial – as in no longer of […]
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