MedWorm: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators

Rendering Unto Caesar - What the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute vs Thompson Says About the Loss of the Academic Medical Mission

Health Care Renewal — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:21:00 +0100

A case, reported by the New York Times as involving an intellectual property dispute, should create a lot of cognitive dissonance about the state of the academic medical mission.Litigation Involving the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute and Dr Craig B ThompsonHere is how the Times outlined the story:The president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York is in a billion-dollar dispute with his former workplace, a cancer institute at the University of Pennsylvania, over accusations that he walked away with groundbreaking research and used it to help start a valuable biotechnology company. In a lawsuit, the Leonard and Madlyn Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at Penn described its former scientific director, Dr. Craig B. Thompson, as 'an unscrupulous doctor' ...

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Should New Hampshire Create a Health Insurance Exchange?

Cato-at-liberty — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:15:42 +0100

The liberty-lovers at New Hampshire’s Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy have produced this video of my appearance before the New Hampshire House of Representatives where I argued against creating health insurance “Exchanges”: (Notice my rapt audience.) Should New Hampshire Create a Health Insurance Exchange? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty)

Milwaukee Man Shoots Armed Robber

Cato-at-liberty — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:03:48 +0100

A Milwaukee man only recently acquired his permit to carry a concealed handgun and then found himself in the middle of an armed robbery. As the robber threatened a store clerk with a shotgun, the permit holder was able to draw his weapon and shoot the culprit. The Milwaukee District Attorney said: “He disrupted an act that potentially exposed himself and others to great bodily harm.” Last week, Cato released a new study concerning the frequency with which citizens use guns in self-defense, along with a map to track such events. We’ve already received many suggestions from readers all over the web and we’ll be updating our map regularly. (H/T Anne Althouse) Milwaukee Man Shoots Armed Robber is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at...

Susan G. Komen for the Cure Official Handel Quits

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:39:14 +0100

A Komen fundraising race from the fall. Karen Handel, a top official at Susan G. Komen for the Cure who supported the breast-cancer charity’s short-lived decision to make Planned Parenthood ineligible for grants, has resigned. As the Associated Press reports, Handel is leaving her role as senior vice president for public policy after joining the organization just last year. In her resignation letter, she tells Komen head Nancy Brinker that she thought the decision to end funding to Planned Parenthood because it was the subject of a congressional investigation was the right one. “I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it,” Handel said in her letter, according to the AP. “I openly acknowledge ...

My Therapist Is Pregnant, And I Hate Her For It

Healthbolt — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:17:27 +0100

When I showed up to my session, my therapist told me we needed to discuss something. Uh oh—had a check bounced? Was she breaking up with me? I’d been thinking it was time to end our sessions; maybe she was trying to beat me to the punch. But no. Those were not the issues at hand. She was pregnant, and wouldn’t be able to hide it much longer, so she was letting all of her patients know. She’s due at the end of June and plans to be on maternity leave for two to three months, but would be available for phone sessions. I did what society and past experience had taught me is appropriate, and gleefully congratulated her. Then, within milliseconds, burst into tears and cried through the rest of my session…and well after I walked out the door, too. It wasn’t the best of tim...

Acting as the Typhoid Mary of the Global Economy, the OECD Urges Higher Taxes in Latin America

Cato-at-liberty — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:55:05 +0100

Is it April Fool’s Day? Has somebody in Paris hacked the website at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development? Have we been transported to a parallel dimension where up is down and black is white? Please forgive all these questions. I’m trying to figure out why any organization—even a leftist bureaucracy such as the OECD—would send out a press release entitled, “Rising tax revenues: a key to economic development in Latin American countries.” Not even Keynesians, after all, think higher taxes are a recipe for growth. Ah, never mind. I just remembered that the OECD is a hotbed of statism, so the press release makes perfect sense. After all, the U.S.-taxpayer-funded organization has become infamous for reflexively advocating big government. The OEC...

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The ACA Supreme Court Litigation: The States’ Medicaid And Minimum Coverage Briefs

Health Affairs Blog — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:18:37 +0100

Briefs continue to be filed at a furious pace in the Affordable Care Act Supreme Court litigation. On January 6, the federal government led off with its brief challenging the decision of the Eleventh Circuit federal court of appeals that the ACA’s minimum coverage requirement (individual mandate) is unconstitutional. The states and the National Federation [...] (Source: Health Affairs Blog)

Disrupting Women’s Representation in Leadership Positions

Disruptive Women in Health Care — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:13:04 +0100

By Robin Strongin. No less an authority than the President of the United States has made it clear how he feels about the importance of having women well represented in the highest levels of the federal government. In an executive proclamation, the President said: “As you know, it has been my desire to attract the ablest and most talented people in the country to join this Administration and assist in the achievement of our far-reaching goals. The Nation’s many highly qualified women represent an important reservoir of ability and talent that we must draw on to a greater degree. In this Administration we have firmly espoused the rights of women, and we must now clearly demonstrate our recognition of the equality of women by making greater use of their skills in high level positions.�...

Health Journal: Deciphering the Ailments Tied to Gluten

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:51:20 +0100

Researchers are making slow progress in understanding the numerous ailments that a growing number of people suffer after eating foods with gluten, a protein found in wheat. As the Health Journal column reports, a group of 15 experts from seven countries took a step forward this week, proposing a new classification and diagnosing system to help doctors and patients figure out whats a wheat allergy, whats celiac disease and what falls under a new category of ills lumped together as gluten sensitivity. Another international team aims to clear up the confusion caused by experts around the world using different terminology for gluten-related problems; celiac disease alone has been called sprue, gluten-sensitive enteropathy and gluten intolerance. Their consensus paper will be published ...

A.M. Vitals: Merck Will Apply for Suvorexant Approval This Year

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:41:26 +0100

Merck’s Plans: Merck said it plans to apply this year for FDA approval of suvorexant, an experimental treatment for insomnia, the WSJ reports. The drug, an orexin receptor antagonist, produced positive results in two later-stage studies that will be presented at scientific meetings this year, Merck said. On-Campus Eating: Research published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine finds that about half of kids at public and private elementary schools have access to on-campus foods outside of the cafeteria, such as in vending machines and snack bars, the Los Angeles Times’ Booster Shots blog reports. Not surprisingly, more kids had access to sweet foods such as candy than to healthful foods like fruits and veggies. Going to the Dogs: Researchers are studying the genet...

Formaldehyde in Vaccines: A DNA Adduct?

vactruth.com — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:11:11 +0100

Ingredients in vaccines have been shown to harm your DNA The U.S. National Library of Medicine at NIH in January 2010 published online the “Final Report on Carcinogens Background Document for Formaldehyde.” [1] It’s an interesting document in many respects, especially since it details in vitro and in vivo studies in lab animals, i.e., rats, mice, and hamsters. Experimental Animals: Formaldehyde has been tested for carcinogenicity in mice, rats, and hamsters. Studies reviewed include chronic and subchronic inhalation studies in mice, rats, and hamsters; chronic and subchronic drinking-water studies in rats, and hamsters; chronic and subchronic drinking-water studies in rats; and one chronic skin-application study in mice. No chronic studies in primates were found, but one subchron...

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Will Komen Foundation Withdraw Funding from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center?

The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:04:00 +0100

According to an article in the Boston Globe, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is under federal investigation for overbilling Medicare. The investigation has been underway since 2010 and was disclosed over the last six months. According to lawyers familiar with the investigation, if true, these allegations represent fraud. If intentional, the overbilling is not simply a civil matter, but constitutes criminal wrongdoing, and the hospital could be subject to criminal penalties.According to the article: "Federal investigators have subpoenaed six years of records from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as part of an investigation into whether the hospital overbilled Medicare by admitting patients for short stays who could have been treated less expensively as outpatients. Beth Israel ...

The Art of medicine

OnMedica Blogs — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Can practising medicine be a form of art? (Source: OnMedica Blogs)

Physicians Face Cash Crunch – New Payment Models May not Work for Many Private Practice Physicians

Policy and Medicine — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

According to a recent article from CNN Money, “many doctors are going broke,” creating a “quiet reality that is spreading nationwide and claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists. Industry watchers say the trend is... (Source: Policy and Medicine)

Convergence of Interest - Not Conflict of Interest

Policy and Medicine — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Given all the recent coverage of the proposed regulations implementing the Physician Payments Sunshine Act (Section 6002 of the Affordable Care Act), there has been an increasing focus on the issue of “conflicts of interest” that may arise from physicians... (Source: Policy and Medicine)

More on Exercise and Muscle Stem Cells

Fight Aging! — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

As you might imagine, exercise affects the behavior of muscle stem cells: "researchers determined that an adult stem cell present in muscle is responsive to exercise, a discovery that may provide a link between exercise and muscle health. The findings could lead to new therapeutic techniques using these cells to rehabilitate injured muscle and prevent or restore muscle loss with age. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in skeletal muscle have been known to be important for muscle repair. ... Since exercise can induce some injury as part of the remodeling process following mechanical strain, we wondered if MSC accumulation was a natural response to exercise and whether these cells contributed to the beneficial regeneration and growth process that occurs post-exercise. ... The researchers found th...

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Another Study on Exercise and Telomere Length

Fight Aging! — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

If you think that telomere length is a secondary marker of aging and health, then it makes perfect sense that exercise would lengthen telomeres. There is ample evidence to show that average telomere length, while declining with age, is somewhat dynamic in response to circumstances, at least in the white blood cells examined by most present day research: "Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is a potential indicator of cellular aging; however, its relation to physical activity and sedentary behavior is unclear. The authors examined cross-sectionally associations among activity, sedentary behavior, and LTL among 7,813 women aged 43-70 years in the Nurses' Health Study. Participants self-reported activity by questionnaire in 1988 and 1992 and sedentary behavior in 1992. Telomere length in peripher...

Sex Hormones Govern Genes That Control Behavior

FuturePundit — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

At least in mice (and probably some day in humans) it is possible to separately tweak the expression of individual genes that are influenced by testosterone and estrogen. Now a team of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has uncovered many genes influenced by the male and female sex hormones testosterone and estrogen that, in turn, govern several specific types of male and female behaviors in mice. Imagine being able to create humans who have very rare combinations of both female and male traits. That'll be possible eventually. Some prospective parents will opt to do it for a variety of reasons. While testosterone and estrogen act to turn on and off groups of genes these scientists turned... (Source: FuturePundit)

Who Really Shouldn't Eat Gluten

WSJ.com: Health Journal — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:40:48 +0100

A group of experts is proposing a new classification system for the gluten-related disorders plaguing a growing number of people world-wide. (Source: WSJ.com: Health Journal)

Many Doctors Don’t Follow Ovarian-Cancer Screening Guidelines

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:06:32 +0100

The government estimates that more than 15,000 women died last year from ovarian cancer. But routine screening of women with no symptoms isn’t recommended by the United States Preventive Services Task Force, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists or other professional groups, even for women at high risk for the disease. That’s because the benefits of the available tests — a transvaginal ultrasound and a blood test that detects an antigen called CA-125 — haven’t been shown to outweigh their risks (such as complications from unnecessary surgery), or to reduce the number of deaths. Despite that evidence, a new study finds that when presented with a scenario of a woman coming to her annual check-up, a significant percentage of physicians surveyed wou...

Live Now: Are You Less Smart in a Group?

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:09:05 +0100

Ever clam up at a meeting even though you knew a lot and wanted to contribute? Have you tripped over yourself as you tried to explain a complex subject? Have you felt tongue-tied when the spotlight turns to you at a party? You’re not alone. WSJ’s Bonds columnist Elizabeth Bernstein writes this week about research which shows that some people become, in effect, less intelligent when in professional or social gatherings. Elizabeth is taking reader questions in a live chat underway right now, moderated by Personal Journal news editor Laura Bird. Join the live event. (Source: WSJ.com: Health Blog)

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Cardless National ID and the E-Verify Rebellion

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:40:24 +0100

New Hampshire was the state where the “REAL ID rebellion” got its start. There, in 2006, Rep. Neal Kurk (R-Weare) took to the floor of the New Hampshire House to talk about his principled opposition to the federal national ID law. In stirring words, Kurk urged his colleagues to overturn a committee recommendation that no action should be taken on his bill to have New Hampshire reject REAL ID. The House went on to pass his bill and half the states in the nation soon followed suit. Now a bill pending in the New Hampshire House responds to a more insidious version of the federal government’s national ID plans: E-Verify. E-Verify is a federal background check system that its proponents intend to be used on every person seeking work in the United States. Once in place, E-Verif...

Online Dating Isn’t the Likely Route to Mr. or Ms. Right: Study

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:37:59 +0100

Does online dating work? Well, it’s a great way to meet people, but not for leading you to the partner of your dreams, according to a comprehensive new review published in this month’s issue of the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest. The authors, all academic researchers without any financial ties to dating services, combed through the literature on relationships (those begun both on- and offline) and other areas of psychology to take a stab at answering the question. Using an internet dating site has the advantage over in-person dating in expanding one’s access to the dating pool. That’s especially helpful for people who tend to face more limited opportunities, such as working, single parents without much free time or those with a minority sexua...

ASCO: Why Cancer Care and Palliative Care Should Be Combined

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:06:05 +0100

Cancer patients with advanced disease should have access to palliative care early on in their illness, according to new guidelines from the American Society of Clinical Oncology. That doesn’t mean oncologists are being encouraged to give up on extending the lives of those patients, says Thomas Smith, an author of the guidance and director of palliative care for Johns Hopkins Medicine and a professor of palliative care in the Hopkins School of Medicine’s oncology department. Rather, the guidelines recommend combining palliative care — open and honest communication about the progress of the disease and the patient’s wishes, medical appropriate goal-setting and careful attention to symptom management — with standard oncology care, says Smith. (The “provisio...

E.J. Dionne on Campaign Finance as Class Warfare

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:38:09 +0100

E.J. Dionne was in high dudgeon at the Washington Post this morning over Citizens United, the Supreme Court’s January 2010 campaign finance decision that ever since has driven the Left into fits of apoplexy. Taking his cue from Obama’s infamous State-of-the-Union condemnation of the Court shortly after the decision came down, plus the class warfare meme at the core of Obama’s reelection campaign, Dionne attacks not only the Court’s wisdom but its motives: A more troubling interpretation [than “naiveté”] is that a conservative majority knew exactly what it was doing: that it set out to remake our political system by fiat in order to strengthen the hand of corporations and the wealthy. Seen this way, Citizens United was an attempt by five justices to push future electoral outcom...

Consumers Union pushes to improve medical device safety

Consumer Reports Health Blog — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:30:00 +0100

As Congress debates whether to reauthorize a statute governing medical devices, Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports is stepping up its campaign to strengthen the law. Consumers Union wants Congress to require more rigorous testing before medical implants go to market, and establish a better monitoring system, including a national system of notificaiton for when safety problems arise. Medical devices include every-day items such as eyeglasses and contact lenses, as well as permanently implanted devices like artificial hip joints, surgical mesh, and cardiovascular stents, which can cause serious harm if they break, leak, stop functioning or disintegrate. Even low-risk devices, like contact lens solution and alcohol swabs have recently caused patients harm that could have ...

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Will States Lose Medicaid Funds If They Fail to Create an ObamaCare ‘Exchange’?

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:04:14 +0100

In recent weeks, officials from two states have claimed that if they do not set up an ObamaCare health insurance “Exchange,” the state will lose federal Medicaid or State Children’s Health Insurance Program funds. Idaho Gov. Butch Otter (R), has since walked back that claim. New Hampshire Commissioner of Health and Human Services Nicholas Toumpas has not. In a January 19 letter to the New Hampshire House of Representatives, Toumpas writes: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) mandates that states create a virtual health coverage marketplace called an Exchange. To ensure compliance with this federal mandate the law provides that having an Exchange in place by January 1, 2014, is a condition precedent to receipt of Medicaid funding commencing in 2014. I have not ...

Two Health Affairs Articles Among RWJF’s 2011 Top Five

Health Affairs Blog — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:03:15 +0100

A belated tip of the hat to two Health Affairs articles included in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s five most influential research articles by RWJF grantees in 2011: Evidence Links Increases In Public Health Spending To Declines In Preventable Deaths, by Glenn Mays and Sharla Smith; and Nurses’ Widespread Job Dissatisfaction, Burnout, And Frustration With [...] (Source: Health Affairs Blog)

CBO Forecast Accuracy

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:22:09 +0100

Economic variables are key drivers of the numbers in CBO’s budget projections. I noted last week that CBO’s new outlook assumes substantially lower interest rates, which appears to produce more than a trillion dollars of savings over the next decade. Policymakers should be aware, however, that macroeconomic forecasts are not very accurate, despite the sophisticated models available today. Consider how CBO completely missed the recent recession until after it had already started (in December 2007). Figure 1 shows CBO’s January 2008 projection of real GDP growth (blue bars). The recession had already started, yet CBO projected that U.S. growth would strengthen substantially in subsequent years. Their forecast for just one year ahead (2009) ended up being a giant 5.2 percentage points ...

The Susan G. Komen Foundation Needs More than PR

Disruptive Women in Health Care — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:04:08 +0100

Carol Schechter The following is a guest post by Carol Schechter, a leader in the field of health communication and social marketing. You can follow Carol on twitter @carol_schechter. Last week was a bad week for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. On Monday, they were still an iconic charity; the group that successfully put women’s health issues in the public eye and the group that forever changed our associations with the color pink from babies to breast cancer survivors. On Tuesday, their world changed. On January 31, AP broke the story that Komen decided to stop funding Planned Parenthood, allegedly because Planned Parenthood was under Congressional investigation. Social networks erupted with the news, and the world started to learn a lot about the workings of the Foundation: tha...

Pink Ribbons, Inc. – A Closer Look at Breast Cancer Marketing

Our Bodies Our Blog — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:03:11 +0100

With all of the criticism of Komen’s defunding of Planned Parenthood last week, many people are starting to take a more critical look at the organization and its pink ribbon campaigns, asking how much good is really being done for women in breast cancer prevention, research, and treatment. The timing seems perfect, then, for showings of “Pink Ribbons, Inc.,” a documentary film directed by Léa Pool that takes on corporate pink ribbon campaigns, pinkwashing, and what really happens as a result of this cause-related marketing. Variety called the film “indignant and subversive,” saying it: resoundingly pops the shiny pink balloon of the breast cancer movement/industry, debunking the ‘comfortable lies’ and corporate double-talk that permeate the massiv...

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Now, on the other hand

Stayin' Alive — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:41:00 +0100

Having celebrated the wonderfulness of the modern age in my last post, I am now compelled to ponder the converse: we progress by traveling up the edge of a knife. The great advances in public health and lifespan touted by Dr. Fauci, and Stephen Pinker's recent widely noted assertion that we have entered an age of comparative peacefulness and non-violence, the recent gains in prosperity in the vast populations of Asia, the emergence of relative stability and democracy in Latin America and the particularly notable improvements in Brazilian economic and civic life -- these and other developments have given renewed credence to the thesis that human history is inherently progressive.My master's thesis was title "Which Way is Up? Social Welfare and the Ideology of Progress." Back then (1978 to b...

FDA Questions Benefit of Amgen Bone Drug in Certain Cases

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:20:21 +0100

The Food and Drug Administration questioned the clinical benefit of using Amgen’s bone drug Xgeva to prevent or delay the spread of prostate cancer to the bones. Xgeva is currently approved to delay fractures and other bone injuries in patients whose cancers have already spread to the bones. The company is seeking approval for use of Xgeva to prevent the spread of prostate cancer in a group of men that has not responded to other therapies. Xgeva will be reviewed Wednesday by the FDA’s oncologic drugs advisory committee, which is made up of non-FDA medical experts. The FDA today posted a review of Xgeva in preparation for the meeting. Amgen conducted a study of Xgeva in 1432 men with prostate cancer that had not responded to previous therapies, but had not spread to the bones. M...

As It Turns Out, Money Is Speech

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:48:54 +0100

Those who advocate for more restrictions on campaign finance generally practice a populist politics. They fulminate against the influence of money, demonize donors, and ascribe all the nation’s problems to Citizens United. Once you have read an example such reformist rhetoric, you have read all of them. (But if you must read more, here’s E.J. Dionne’s recent, especially over-the-top offering in the genre). But not all critics of campaign finance are so intellectually empty. Consider the recent op-ed by liberal law professor Geoffrey Stone. He addresses the question: “Is money speech?” For the conventional reformer, of course, money is not speech. Some even wish to amend the Constitution to recognize what they take to be the obvious truth that money is not spee...

Higher education – who is the “customer”

DB's Medical Rants — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:36:35 +0100

Throughout my career I have worked as a medical school faculty member. I took my first job with the naive belief that my main job involved teaching medical students and residents. Over the years I have learned that those who do this job extremely well still may not advance, unless they do the other things like scholarly activity, research grants or clinical income. This book review caught my eye this morning - The University Of Adam Smith – a book that makes the case for "for-profit" higher education. While I am not sure about the conclusion, the reviewer makes the case for changing our priorities: About halfway through "Change.edu," Andrew Rosen relates a story from a consultant who was hired by a small private college to help it implement...

Here’s a New One: Micro Businesses Impact Mortality, Obesity and Diabetes

Disruptive Women in Health Care — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:23:23 +0100

By Glenna Crooks. Next month, the print version of the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society will publish an article further exploring the relationship between health and “small” business. Here’s the short story: counties with a greater concentration of “small,” locally-owned businesses (four or fewer employees) had lower rates of mortality, obesity and diabetes than counties with a greater concentration of large companies (manufacturers with more than 500 employees or retailers with more than 100 employees). But hey! Businesses with four or fewer employees are not just “small,” they’re “micro” and wow (!) the greater the proportion of micro businesses, the healthier the population! Who knew!? Talk about shifting paradigms! Remember when we thought that...

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A.M. Vitals: Social Media Helped Fuel Protests Against Komen

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:08:32 +0100

Social Media and Funding Brouhaha: Social media helped galvanize supporters of Planned Parenthood last week after Susan G. Komen for the Cure said it would cut off funding for the women’s health nonprofit — and then reversed its stance, the WSJ reports. According to social-media monitor NetBase Solutions, Komen-related chatter rose 80% from last Monday to Tuesday, when the story broke, with 66% of online conversations against the breast-cancer advocacy group. The Toll of Child Abuse: Research published in Pediatrics finds that more children under one year of age are admitted to hospitals for child abuse than for reasons related to sudden infant death syndrome, Time’s Healthland blog reports. Researchers found the death rate from child abuse was 6% in 2006, with 300 deaths...

The ‘Law of Nations’ Is What It Was in 1789

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:30:52 +0100

One of our oldest laws, the Alien Tort Statute (1789), grants federal courts jurisdiction over lawsuits brought by aliens for actions “in violation of the law of nations.” Courts have differed in their method of interpreting this “law of nations” — an old way of saying “international law” – and thus in their decisions on what behavior violates it and the types of defendants who may be liable. Recent ATS litigation has thus ignited a debate over the role of judges in applying international law. Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum presents the question of whether, under the ATS, the law of nations can be applied against an entity that is not a natural person: a corporation. In this case, 12 Nigerians sued Royal Dutch and its Shell subsidiaries, alleging that Nigerian sol...

Komen Foundation Reverses Decision on Planned Parenthood Funding, But Continues to Deceive the Public About Reason for New Funding Policy

The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:11:00 +0100

Brand Will Not Be Restored Unless the Foundation Comes Clean; Organization is Still Practicing Politics, Not Public HealthAfter widespread public protest concerning its decision to withdraw breast cancer screening funding from Planned Parenthood, including an article last Thursday here at the Rest of the Story, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation reversed its decision and will restore funding to Planned Parenthood.The decision was apparently made on Thursday evening in response to the massive outcry. A statement released by the Foundation on Friday announced the reversal of the decision, and attempted to explain what the revised policy will hold:"We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s li...

Gestational diabetes and its complications

OnMedica Blogs — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Reasons why gestational diabetes should be diagnosed and treated effectively (Source: OnMedica Blogs)

HHS Adoption of Standards for Health Care Electronic Funds

Policy and Medicine — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) released a rule that adopts streamlined standards for the format and data content of the transmission a health plan sends to its bank when it wants to pay a claim to... (Source: Policy and Medicine)

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Independent Payment Advisory Board May Be Much Further Off Than Originally Planned

Policy and Medicine — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

One of the major issues with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the repeal of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), something a recent article from POLITICO noted is not likely to happen this year. However, repeal is not necessary... (Source: Policy and Medicine)

Autophagy Versus Progeria

Fight Aging! — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Enhancing autophagy, the cellular housekeeping processes that recycle damaged components and proteins, is one of the possible approaches under investigation for treating a range of age-related conditions and modestly slowing aging. The accelerated aging condition progeria is caused by malformed lamin A, an important structural protein in cells. An accumulation of bad lamin A is something that also occurs in normal aging, albeit to a much lesser degree. Here, researchers propose turning autophagy to remove the damaged lamin A: "Farnesylated prelamin A is a processing intermediate produced in the lamin A maturation pathway. Accumulation of a truncated farnesylated prelamin A form, called progerin, is a hallmark of the severe premature ageing syndrome, Hutchinson-Gilford progeria. Progerin el...

Directing Stem Cells to Enhance Bone Strength

Fight Aging! — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Osteoporosis is a pervasive issue in the old, and potential methods for reversing its effects are welcome: scientists have "developed a novel technique to enhance bone growth by using a molecule which, when injected into the bloodstream, directs the body's stem cells to travel to the surface of bones. Once these cells are guided to the bone surface by this molecule, the stem cells differentiate into bone-forming cells and synthesize proteins to enhance bone growth. ... There are many stem cells, even in elderly people, but they do not readily migrate to bone. Finding a molecule that attaches to stem cells and guides them to the targets we need is a real breakthrough. ... The researchers made use of a unique hybrid molecule, LLP2A-alendronate ... The researchers' hybrid molecule consists of...

SENS5 Video: Collective Advantages of Life Extension

Fight Aging! — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

As I mentioned the other day, there are more economic benefits to enhanced human longevity than just the obvious ones. Some of these benefits emerge from systematic changes in the interactions and relationships that make up society: the willingness to consider longer time horizons changes the way in which people value all sorts of things, both in the present and for the future. If fifty years from now is someone else's problem in your eyes, you are unlikely to be a good steward of fifty-year bonds - but if you are going to be alive, vocal and very much in the picture five decades from now, then the way in which you look at these things becomes completely different. You can substitute forests, farmland, houses, familial relations, companies, or a range of other entities for the fifty-year b...

The danger of weekend admission

DB's Medical Rants — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:51:05 +0100

We who work in hospitals know that most hospitals do not work as well on weekends as during the week. I have worked at several hospitals over the years, and every hospital is understaffed on weekends. Patients 'more likely to die' if admitted at weekends The study, in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, found that patients were 16% more likely to die if they were admitted on a Sunday than mid-week. The review looked at all admissions to NHS hospitals in England in one year. The NHS medical director has called for weekend services to be extended. The research was carried out at University College London and the universities of Birmingham and East Anglia, and covered more than 14 million hospital admissions – both emergency and planned. The study looked...

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Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 6th 2012

Fight Aging! — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Discussion - Latest Headlines from Fight Aging! INTERN AT THE SENS FOUNDATION THIS SUMMER Are you a life science student interested in the biology of aging? Here's a golden opportunity: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/02/intern-at-the-sens-foundation-this-summer.php "In the summer of 2012, the Academic Initiative will bring as many as three students to the SENS Foundation Research Center in Mountain View, California to participate in SENS research for three months. These students will receive monthly stipends and, if they are not local to the San Francisco Bay Area, a credit towards airfare. Undergraduate, graduate, and medical students may apply, as may students who have graduated immediately prior to the summer. After an initial selection process, the most promising candidate...

The End of Illness?

Malaysian Medical Resources — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

David Agus an oncologist has some provocative ideas regarding the treatment of cancer after a few decades of research in the field. Last week he released his controversial book, The End of Illness, and here’s the talk he gave at TEDMED 2011 as a preview: Here’s the book in Amazon from the Malaysian Medical ResourcesThe End of Illness? (Source: Malaysian Medical Resources)

Host migration

Malaysian Medical Resources — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Please note that we are about to perform a host migration exercise. There may be a downtime period which hopefully won’t take more than a day or so. from the Malaysian Medical ResourcesHost migration (Source: Malaysian Medical Resources)

What, if any, Parallels Are There Between BP’s Gulf Oil Spill and Big Pharma’s Vaccine Research?

vactruth.com — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 10:45:03 +0100

Many similarities exist between the British Petroleum oil spill and vaccine research It’s taken almost two years, but facts are emerging from inter-corporate emails about what BP really knew could happen—and BP withheld—regarding the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill that tragic day, April 11, 2010. Radio news reports by Dave Cohen of CBS News New Orleans, plus the AP article “BP emails reveal company veiling spill rate” on WWL.com AM870 and FM105.3 website [1] confirm, …That if the well was not protected by the blow-out preventer [sic] at the drill site crude oil could burst into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate if [sic] 3.4 millions gallons a day. If I remember correctly, wasn’t the public told that only a thousand gallons a day were belching out of the...

Doctors, change is a-coming

Malaysian Medical Resources — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Good post by Dr. Pagavalan If you look at the MPS website announcement below, it is clearly stated that the government will outsource medication dispensing services under the 1 Care scheme to community pharmacist. A standard list of drugs will be provided and paid by the National Health Scheme under 1Care. So, I am not sure where the GPs dispensing rights will stand. Probably, they may ask GPs to hire pharmacist if they want to dispense medicine but then the statement “Pharmacy premises not to be shared by non pharmacy related services” is clearly stated. Whatever said, the change is coming for better or worst! Just be prepared. It is not the rakyat alone who is going to be affected but also the doctors. And don’t think that the government doctors will not be affected! “The current...

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On The Pulse - 3rd February 2012

OnMedica Blogs — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Cumulative risk of cardiovascular disease (Source: OnMedica Blogs)

Today is World Cancer Day

Malaysian Medical Resources — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

February 4 is World Cancer Day. This year’s theme is “Cancer can be prevented” and how apt for we still see folks with late stage cancer at diagnosis. What can you do? You certainly can stand up and do something! visit http://WorldCancerDay.su2c.org from the Malaysian Medical ResourcesToday is World Cancer Day (Source: Malaysian Medical Resources)

Low Self Esteem Drives Alienating Facebook Posts

FuturePundit — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Self sabotage is just as easy and natural online as it is in real life. People with low self esteem drive people away with negativity. In theory, the social networking website Facebook could be great for people with low self-esteem. Sharing is important for improving friendships. But in practice, people with low self-esteem seem to behave counterproductively, bombarding their friends with negative tidbits about their lives and making themselves less likeable, according to a new study which will be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. People who are really negative are less likable. Few want to be around Debbie Downer or Ned Negative. Each set of status updates was rated for how positive or... (Source: FuturePundit)

The Case for Gold — Again

Cato-at-liberty — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 03:10:49 +0100

By David BoazIn the New York Times, Floyd Norris reminds us: The 1980 presidential election was fought by a Democratic incumbent weakened by a poor economy amid worries that the United States had lost its ability to compete in the world. Gold prices had risen to unprecedented levels as the election approached, and the Republican nominee hinted he might propose a return to a gold standard. That Republican, Ronald Reagan, won the election and soon appointed a commission to study the role of gold in monetary systems. And now: Last month, Newt Gingrich, seeking to widen his support in the days leading up to the South Carolina primary, promised that he would appoint a new gold commission. “Part of our approach ought to be to re-establish something Ronald Reagan did in 1981 and that is to ha...

Obama’s Neocon Moment

Cato-at-liberty — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:33:08 +0100

By Christopher PrebleIn his State of the Union address, President Obama emphatically declared, “Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” Obama sought to put to rest the notion that he is embracing American decline, as GOP candidates Romney, Gingrich and Santorum have accused him of doing. He likewise affirmed his belief in the country’s exceptional place in history. In particular, this president believes, as his predecessor did, in the necessity of the U.S. military to act beyond its constitutionally mandated function, put out any fires that flare across the globe, and underwrite world security. I examine this in an op-ed published today on CNN.com: The president sounded like a neoconservative when ...

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Has Congress Cut Any Spending Yet?

Cato-at-liberty — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:27:23 +0100

By Chris EdwardsIt’s been a year since Republicans assumed control in the House in the wake of the 2010 elections, which were powered by Tea Party concerns about massive federal spending and deficits. With the more conservative House, has Congress made any progress on spending cuts yet? Let’s compare the new CBO budget projections to CBO’s January 2011 projections. The new 10-year projections do look a little better, at least by Washington standards. A year ago, CBO’s baseline showed the deficit falling modestly from more than $1 trillion this year to $763 billion by 2021. CBO’s new baseline shows the deficit falling to just $279 billion by 2021. The chart shows federal spending of $3.6 trillion this year and CBO’s projections for 2021 from last year and this year. Last year, 2...

This Week at Libertarianism.org

Cato-at-liberty — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:15:21 +0100

By Aaron Ross PowellIt’s been a busy week over at Libertarianism.org. We began with a new Excursions essay from George H. Smith. Provocatively titled “Fingering the King on the Road to Independence,” Smith’s piece examines how the pre-Revolution Coercive Acts led Americans to blame the king for the conspiracy to strip them of their rights and liberties. We posted two new videos featuring the philosopher Douglas Rasmussen, one to our Libertarian View series and the other of a lecture he gave in 1991 on morality and capitalism. Here are embeds of those videos: We also added a speech by Ted Galen Carpenter dealing with the impact of a country’s foreign policy on its domestic policies. Libertarianism.org’s magazine section grew with the addition of Litera...

Now, About Planned Parenthood and the Bishops …

Our Bodies Our Blog — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:05:37 +0100

by Ellen Shaffer and Judy Norsigian This week, we all learned a lot about Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and Planned Parenthood, and breast cancer. Now that Komen has caved (sort of; Planned Parenthood’s response), we might start to learn what it will take to mobilize an outcry to really stop the attacks on women’s health. As Komen was committing a huge PR failure, it became clear via Facebook, Twitter and a new Tumblr site, Planned Parenthood Saved Me, that many women value and rely on Planned Parenthood for breast cancer exams and other preventive health services. A slam-dunk week for Planned Parenthood. We need to make it a slam-dunk month. What Komen, and the evangelicals, and Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns, who launched the pointless political inquiry, and the U.S. Conference of...

Just Business - Employee Control Fraud, Gresham's Dynamic, and the Race to the Bottom in Health Care

Health Care Renewal — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:00:00 +0100

Since Enthoven called for the break up of the physicians' "guild," and handing over its supposed power to managers, (see post here) managers have taken over from physicians and other health care professionals as leaders of health care organizations. Unfortunately, most of these managers are generic, often lacking knowledge and experience in health care, and understanding of its core values. Instead, such generic managers may rely on the current management dogma. The perils of doing so are illustrated by an analysis of the recent expose of conditions at Apple manufacturing plants in China.The Apple ExposeThe New York Times summarized in a landmark article how bad it is to work in factories building Apple products under contract in China. Workers endure harsh conditio...

The Real Tragedy of the Komen/Planned Parenthood Flapdoodle

Cato-at-liberty — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:25:38 +0100

By Michael F. Cannon…is that it overshadowed news that the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to repeal one of two new entitlement programs created by Obamacare—the ironically named CLASS Act—with a bipartisan three-fifths majority. (With numbers like that, Congress could even repeal Obamacare’s death panel!) But really, one private organization pulling funding for another private organization is way more important than Congress voting to repeal an entitlement program … isn’t it? The Real Tragedy of the Komen/Planned Parenthood Flapdoodle is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty)

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What Is “Sustainable” Health Spending?

Health Affairs Blog — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:45:32 +0100

As we embark upon a presidential campaign season, we can anticipate many lively debates on the topics of taxation and spending in this nation. As health spending in the Unites States accounts for 18 percent of our gross domestic product – a rate often called unsustainable – it is critical that we be clear-eyed in [...] (Source: Health Affairs Blog)

Health-Care Sector Added 30,900 Jobs Last Month

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:27:08 +0100

The overall economy added 243,000 jobs last month — with the health-care sector continuing to show strength — while the unemployment rate fell to 8.3%. As the WSJ reports, that’s the lowest the jobless rate has been since Feb. 2009. (Here’s the full report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.) The health-care industry added 30,900 jobs in January, following a revised increase of 17,600 jobs the previous month. (Originally the government reported a larger December gain of 22,600 jobs in the sector, as we reported.) Data from the BLS gives a snapshot of job growth by facility rather than job function. For example, the report shows that hospitals added 12,700 jobs, but doesn’t say whether those were nursing, IT or cafeteria positions. Ambulatory health-care servi...

Latest Wonk Review Highlights HA Blog Post On Bay State Reform

Health Affairs Blog — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:25:03 +0100

At the Colorado Health Care Insider, Louise Norris hosts the latest edition of the Health Wonk Review. Louise includes Sharon Long’s Health Affairs Blog post clarifying the facts about health reform in Massachusetts. Check out Sharon’s post and all the great posts in Louise’s Wonk Review. (Source: Health Affairs Blog)

Komen Says Planned Parenthood Will Still Be Eligible For Funding

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:13:53 +0100

A Komen fundraising race from the fall. It hasn’t been a great week for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the breast-cancer advocacy group known for its pink-ribbon fundraising efforts. Today the group reversed a decision — made public only Tuesday — to end Planned Parenthood’s eligibility for grants. Critics had said Komen planned to cut funding to the group for breast exams and education under pressure from anti-abortion organizations; Komen denied that. In a statement, Komen’s board and its founder and CEO, Nancy Brinker, apologized “to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving womens lives.” The statement continues: The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our support...

The Heart Truth: Happy National Wear Red Day® from Disruptive Women!

Disruptive Women in Health Care — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:12:45 +0100

We hope you remembered to wear red today! The Heart Truth®—a national awareness campaign for women about heart disease. Organized by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) as part of The Heart Truth’s American Heart Month festivities, “Friday, February 3rd is National Wear Red Day®, on which Americans wear red to show their support for women’s heart health.” National Wear Red Day® is only the beginning, though. One of The Heart Truth’s signature events, The Red Dress Collection Fashion Show is also held during American Heart Month, as a kick-off to New York Fashion Week. This year’s show is being held Wednesday, February 8th. You can learn more and see highlights from last year’s Red Dress Collection Fashion Show here. Ame...

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New HPV vaccine recommended for all boys

Consumer Reports Health Blog — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:45:00 +0100

This week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that all boys 11 and 12 years old should be vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV) and that boys ages 13 to 21 receive “catch up” vaccinations if they haven’t already been vaccinated. This follows an action last fall when an advisory committee with the CDC recommended that 11- and 12-year-old boys receive a routine vaccine. Health authorities are recommending that all boys be routinely vaccinated against HPV, which is widely linked to cervical cancer and genital warts. At least 50 percent of sexually active men and women get it at some point in their lives. About 20 million Americans are currently infected. It’s well known that HPV spreads through genit...

Two Thoughts on Susan G. Komen & Planned Parenthood

Cato-at-liberty — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:42:46 +0100

By Michael F. CannonI’m sure that many of you are following the controversy over the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation’s decision to suspend its partnership with and funding of Planned Parenthood. Two thoughts on this: First, this controversy provides a delightful contrast to the Obama administration’s decision to force all Americans to purchase contraceptives and subsidize abortions. The Susan G. Komen Foundation chose to stop providing grants to Planned Parenthood. Lots of people didn’t like (and/or don’t believe) Komen’s reasons. Some declared they would stop giving to Komen. Others approved of Komen’s decision and started giving to Komen. Many declared they would start donating to Planned Parenthood to show their disapproval of Komen’...

The danger of assumptions in medicine

DB's Medical Rants — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:23:39 +0100

Early in my academic career I became fascinated with decision analysis. I still like decision analysis as a strategy to make explicit the structure of a problem. However, over time the major weakness of decision analysis became very clear. The problem derives from the assumptions. As usual, I will use pharyngitis to frame the problem. Most articles and all the guidelines make the assumption that we can dichotomize pharyngitis into group A strep pharyngitis or "viral". The problem here is that the assumption is wrong. The assumption states implicitly that only group A strep pharyngitis requires antibiotic therapy. This assumption might work for pre-adolescents, but in adolescents and young adults group C deserves treatment and as I write repeate...

A.M. Vitals: GAO Report Finds Big Differences in Prices Paid For Medical Devices

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:15:38 +0100

Medical Device Price Gap: A report from the Government Accountability Office finds that some hospitals pay thousands of dollars more than others for the very same medical device, the WSJ reports. The higher prices could affect Medicare spending, since payments to hospitals are in part based on the institutions’ costs, the paper says. New Malaria-Death Estimate: A new calculation of malaria deaths published in the Lancet is about two times as big as the World Health Organization’s current estimate, the Washington Post reports. The report, which is expected to be controversial, agrees with the WHO that malaria deaths peaked in 2004 and are now on the decline. The two estimates diverge most widely when it comes to deaths in Africans aged five and older. Nonprofit Controversy Conti...

FDA Makes Errant Analogy in Defending Graphic Warning Labels; Unclear if It Will Be Able to Address the Actual Constitutional Issues

The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:06:00 +0100

In oral arguments before Judge Richard Leon of the D.C. District court, the Department of Justice apparently used an analogy to defend the FDA's proposed graphic warning labels. According to this article: "Mark Stern, a Justice Department lawyer, compared the FDA mandates to warnings on packages of charcoal telling people to not use it indoors, noting that 28 people a year die from carbon monoxide poisoning for using charcoal inside their homes. With cigarettes, there are 440,000 deaths, Stern said. 'That's a pretty big interest,' he added. 'It's no secret that the government wants people to stop smoking.'"The Rest of the StoryAs with many of the arguments provided by the FDA to defend the graphic warning labels with a 1-800 quit line phone number on them, this one steers clear of the actu...

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Transportation Agreement Seems Remote

Cato-at-liberty — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:33:30 +0100

By Randal O'TooleHouse Republicans and Senate Democrats remain at loggerheads over the future of federal highway and transit funding. Although House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chair John Mica introduced a compromise transportation bill this week, few are pleased with his proposal. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, for example, calls it “the worst transportation bill” he has ever seen. Congress passes legislation defining how federal gasoline taxes and other highway user fees will be spent every six years, and the most recent bill lapsed in 2009. Although the revenues all come from highway users, public transit agencies and other interests have captured increasing shares of the funds in successive bills passed since 1982. To please the wide range of inte...

France: Google’s Free Map Service Unfair To Commercial Map Sellers

Cato-at-liberty — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:58:20 +0100

By Walter OlsonWe at Cato enjoy citing Frederic Bastiat’s 1845 classic of free-trade pamphleteering, the “Petition of the Candlemakers,” which addresses the French Parliament as follows: …We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival… is none other than the sun… The satire goes on to demand that the government banish the unfair competition and restore proper encouragement to domes...

HHS OIG Annual Solicitation For Safe Harbors

Policy and Medicine — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

On December 29, 2011, the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services ("OIG") published its annual notice ("Solicitation") soliciting recommendations and proposals for developing new and modifying existing safe harbors under the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute... (Source: Policy and Medicine)

A Study of DNA Alterations in the Old

Fight Aging! — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

To what degree does nuclear DNA damage contribute to aging? That remains a debated question. Here, researchers show that, at least in immune cells, there are perhaps more forms of large DNA damage than thought in the old: "researchers compared the DNA of identical (monozygotic) twins of different age. They could show that structural modifications of the DNA, where large or small DNA segments change direction, are duplicated or completely lost are more common in older people. The results may in part explain why the immune system is impaired with age. During a person's life, continuous alterations in the cells' DNA occur. The alterations can be changes to the individual building blocks of the DNA but more common are rearrangements where large DNA segments change place or direction, or are du...

Rapid Repair of Severed Nerves Demonstrated in Rats

Fight Aging! — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

An advance in the methodologies of nerve repair: "scientists believe a new procedure to repair severed nerves could result in patients recovering in days or weeks, rather than months or years. The team used a cellular mechanism similar to that used by many invertebrates to repair damage to nerve axons. ... We have developed a procedure which can repair severed nerves within minutes so that the behavior they control can be partially restored within days and often largely restored within two to four weeks. If further developed in clinical trials this approach would be a great advance on current procedures that usually imperfectly restore lost function within months at best. ... nerve axons of invertebrates which have been severed from their cell body do not degenerate within days, as happens...

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Some Cells Last as Long as We Do - and Perhaps So Do Some of the Proteins Within Those Cells

Fight Aging! — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

It is not unreasonable to regard a cell as a machine that is constantly rebuilding itself - organelles and protein machinery are constantly torn down and replaced. It is also not unreasonable to regard tissue as a collection of cells that is constantly rebuilding itself: cells destroy themselves or are destroyed by watchdog systems, and new cells are created to replace them. This sort of thing happens rapidly indeed in some parts of the body, such as the blood and stomach lining, but there are portions of your nervous system where cells will never be replaced under normal circumstances - the cells you were born with are the very same cells you have now. These long-lived cells are the most vulnerable to forms of age-related damage involving build up of metabolic waste products, and the re...

How not to advertise your medical school

Malaysian Medical Resources — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Who ever vetted this ad didn’t scrutinize the picture as carefully as Jimbo did. I agree, it’s Uninspiring from the Malaysian Medical ResourcesHow not to advertise your medical school (Source: Malaysian Medical Resources)

Automatic update

Malaysian Medical Resources — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Site may be down for a while as we plan to do an automatic WordPress update. from the Malaysian Medical ResourcesAutomatic update (Source: Malaysian Medical Resources)

Komen’s Conflicts: Defunding Planned Parenthood Exposes the Politics of Breast Cancer’s Biggest Fundraiser

Our Bodies Our Blog — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:53:50 +0100

The fallout over the decision by Susan G. Komen for the Cure to stop giving grants to Planned Parenthood affiliates reflects a growing anger across the country over the intrusion of political ideology in matters concerning women’s health. It’s fair to say the well-funded foundation had not thought through, or vastly underestimated, the criticism it would receive for making a thinly veiled political decision to cut off funding for breast-screening exams for low-income women. And based on the level of disapproval it’s facing, it may be sometime before Komen can recover. In the meantime, its decision may well be remembered for activating people who, up until now, may not have given much thought to the right-wing influence on women’s health care. It’s surprisingly...

Two Studies Hint at How Alzheimer’s Might Spread

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:42:44 +0100

There are many mysteries when it comes to understanding Alzheimers disease, with one of the biggest questions centering on how the memory-robbing disease progresses. Decades ago, researchers discovered that the damage starts in the same part of the brain in all patients and systematically moves on to affect nearby regions. It wasnt clear, however, why this progression occurred. One intriguing theory was that the pathology “spreads” between neurons. But for years there wasnt a good way of testing the hypothesis. Now, two new studies conducted in mice, one published in PLoS ONE and the other in press at Neuron, offer evidence that the damage – specifically the misfolding of a protein called tau – is likely passed from one neuron to another. The exact mech...

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Siemens Healthcare on solving EHR usability problems: you can just call up your pal at the next hospital

Health Care Renewal — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:01:00 +0100

In my Aug. 2009 post "Why Siemens Healthcare Fails", I wrote:I note that I used to admire German engineering rigor, but after seeing ill conceived, misguided position ads like the following from Siemens Healthcare, I am having sincere doubts about that country's current prowess in that domain.My admiration fell another notch. I now see this, in a Feb. 1, 2012 article from HealthData Management entitled "User Unfriendly" on the flaws in commercial health IT that present a poor user interface/user experience (at the expense, ultimately, of you, the patient). The article's browser title bar somewhat subliminally reads "Physicians gripe that EHR's are not easy to use but improvements are coming":... There's also no mechanism for publicizing problems with EHR interfaces, unlike the FDA's proces...

Egypt’s Arab Spring, One Year Later

Cato-at-liberty — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:55:44 +0100

By Malou InnocentAs many expected, Islamist parties will form a dominant majority in Egypt’s first freely elected parliament. The Islamists are here to stay and fear-mongering over their rise is unproductive, since Egyptians will judge for themselves whether Islamists are delivering on their promises. Moreover, understanding the dynamics that brought religious parties to power should be the real goal, and will ultimately prove more useful to those engaging this nascent democracy. The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of Egypt’s underground religious fraternity, the Muslim Brotherhood, won almost half the seats in parliament. The al-Nour Party and the Islamist Alliance, a coalition of puritanical Salafist parties more conservative than the Brotherhood, came in second wi...

A Spoonful of Bad Health? UCSF Researchers Slam Sugar

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:48:50 +0100

Tobacco, alcohol … and sugar? A new commentary published in Nature argues that just as the first two substances are regulated in various ways by government authorities, so should be sugar. While acknowledging that food, unlike alcohol and tobacco, is required for survival, the authors say taxes, zoning ordinances and even age limits for purchasing certain sugar-laden products are all appropriate remedies for what they see as a not-so-sweet problem. The authors of the piece, Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis, are all from the University of California, San Francisco. Lustig has been a particularly harsh (and longtime) critic of the impact of added sugars on health — here’s his widely viewed 2009 lecture on that topic. (Lustig was also a central character in a ...

Obama Says Seniors Have Saved on Medicare ‘Doughnut Hole’

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:56:53 +0100

By Louise Radnofsky The Obama administration is touting good news for seniors from the health-care overhaul law, pointing to $2.1 billion in discounts on prescription drugs for 3.6 million older consumers in 2011. Part of the law was intended to fill the gap in prescription-drug coverage, the so-called doughnut hole, when Medicare beneficiaries have to to pay up to $4,550 out of pocket for drugs after their costs pass $2,840 for the year. Under the law, drug companies have to offer discounts on brand-name and generic drugs for Medicare beneficiaries after they reach the gap. Discounts increase annually until 2020, when the hole is supposed to be filled entirely. In 2010, the first year when the discounts were in effect, seniors also got a $250 rebate check if they hit the doughnut ho...

Reader Consult: How Will the Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood Dispute Play Out?

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:14:47 +0100

Some of Komen’s funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates went towards referrals for mammograms. The controversy over the defunding of Planned Parenthood affiliates by breast-cancer group Susan G. Komen for the Cure is showing no signs of cooling off. A spokeswoman for Komen, Leslie Aun, told the Associated Press — which broke the story Tuesday — that the charity was ending its grants to Planned Parenthood affiliates after adopting a policy prohibiting the funding of organizations that are under investigation by government authorities. That would apply to Planned Parenthood because a Republican congressman, Cliff Stearns, is leading an inquiry into whether the group spent public funds on abortion services, the A.P. says. Planned Parenthood responded by saying that Komen ...

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On Afghanistan, Panetta Leaves Questions Unanswered

Cato-at-liberty — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:58:32 +0100

By Christopher PrebleSecretary Panetta’s announcement that the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan will end as early as mid-2013 is a positive development. But it is long overdue and still leaves too many questions unanswered. After more than ten years of war in Afghanistan, the administration should follow through on its commitment to end combat operations and withdraw all troops by 2014. Continuing to narrow our objectives will make this war winnable. Politically, this makes perfect sense for the Obama administration. It is a shot across the bow of his political opponents and those wishing for an indefinite combat mission in Afghanistan. Secretary Panetta’s announcement allows the administration to get on the side of voters who want to draw-down in Afghanistan. By opposing any draw-do...

Trusting Government: A Tale Of Two Federal Advisory Groups

Health Affairs Blog — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:04:00 +0100

Americans increasingly distrust what they perceive as poorly run and conflicted government. Yet rarely can we see far enough inside the federal apparatus to examine what works and what doesn’t, or to inspect how good and bad decisions come to pass. Comparing the behaviors of two influential federal advisory bodies provides valuable lessons about how [...] (Source: Health Affairs Blog)

KevinMD: How algorithm driven medicine can affect (make more dangerous, actually) patient care

Health Care Renewal — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0100

Reposted from KevinMD blog on another aspect of the health IT mission hostile user experience. Emphases and comments in [red italics] are mine:How algorithm driven medicine can affect patient care by Jeffrey Parks, MDWhenever someone is scheduled for an operation, the assigned nurse is required to fill out a “pre-op checklist” to ensure that all safety and quality metrics are being adhered to. Before the patient is allowed to be wheeled into the OR we make sure the surgical site is marked, the consents are signed, all necessary equipment is available, etc. One of the most important metrics involves the peri-operative administration of IV antibiotics. SCIP guidelines mandate that the prophylactic antibiotic is given within an hour of incision time to optimize outcomes. This has been dri...

More on naturalistic decision making

DB's Medical Rants — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:51:25 +0100

This week my team presented a patient who had puzzled them. The patient complained of 3 weeks of facial swelling. She had diabetes mellitus type II with severe gastroparesis. She had both a feeding tube and a port (she used the port for saline boluses when she became volume contracted). She had gone to several other hospitals and seen more than 5 physicians. They had made a diagnosis of community acquired pneumonia and given antibiotics. She came to us still complaining of a cough and chest pain, but mostly complaining of facial swelling and a hoarse voice. As I listened to the story, I was confused (perhaps because the presenter seemed confused). We looked at the CXR and suddenly I knew the answer. My intuition took over. I then proceeded to read...

Angry Moms Who Want Ellen DeGeneres Fired Are Bad For Our Mental Health

Healthbolt — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:46:38 +0100

Remember the angry moms who demanded that Ben & Jerry’s pull their “Schweddy Balls” ice cream from store shelves because it was considered sooo offensive to their little darlings? Well, they’re at it again. This time though, they want our beloved Ellen DeGeneres fired from being the spokesperson for JC Penney because she’s “openly gay”. If you ask me, these moms and their open negativity and hatred are just bad for our mental health. The group known as OneMillionMoms.com, a division of the American Family Association, is pushing their supporters to speak out against Ellen being named the new spokesmodel for the chain store. In addition, they are demanding that she be replaced by someone who is not a lesbian. On their site, they wrote: Funny...

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DrRich Is Still Here

The Covert Rationing Blog — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:42:55 +0100

It’s just that I am occupied at the moment finishing up the 5th edition of my introductory textbook of electrophysiology. It is a book which aims to simplify and demystify a particularly arcane branch of the cardiologic arts, and it has proven to be quite popular (among a certain type of readership) for nearly 25 years. The publisher insists that I update this book every few years, to keep it “fresh.” Because it is a very basic textbook, and because the basics of electrophysiology remain nearly unchanged, my chief aim in doing these revisions is not to screw it up too much. A secondary aim is to slip past the eagle-eyed editors (who have the reputation of the publishing house to uphold, and who believe textbooks of medicine should be serious tracts) as much humor as possi...

Health Blog Video: How Serious a Party Foul is Double Dipping?

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:32:20 +0100

As we all gather ’round the Super Bowl snack spread this Sunday, how worried should we be about the health consequences of the party foul known as double dipping? We tackled that question as part of our “Is It True?” video series here at the Health Blog — you can see the video below. The WSJ’s Christina Tsuei set out to find if, as Seinfeld’s George Costanza was told by a horrified party guest, that re-dipping a chip after you’ve already taken a bite is “like putting your whole mouth right in the dip.” The answer is probably not — but it could be compared to sharing a kiss with your fellow dippers, according to an expert she spoke with. (The Health Blog has written about of the research discussed in the video.) Watch the video an...

Then and Now

Stayin' Alive — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:58:00 +0100

I draw your attention to the official 200th anniversary essay in NEJM, which, yielding to the awesome power of Stayin' Alive, they have made available to the rabble.As Drs. Fauci and Morens want you to know, listen up folks! You just have no idea how good you have it living in the 21st Century. Until people figured out what the deal was with pathogenic microorganisms, starting in the 18th Century and culminating with the genomic revolution of the late 20th through right now, life was really nasty, half the children died and if you were lucky enough to make it to puberty you were grateful for every day. They choose as their illustrative anecdote the guy on the dollar bill, who died of an infectious disease, probably a plain old sore throat as we would know it today; survived smallpox, malar...

Hospital staff should get the flu shot

Consumer Reports Health Blog — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:00:00 +0100

You might think that doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff would be among the first to get vaccinated against the flu. But too many don’t, even though hospitals can be breeding grounds for the virus and patients there are especially vulnerable to it, according to a report released today by the nonprofit National Business Group on Health. To counter that problem, a coalition of groups led by the NBGH, including the American Hospital Association and supported by Consumers Union, have started an initiative to increase flu-vaccination rates among hospital staff. Getting the flu shot is important for everyone, since the disease leads to hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations each year and, in some years, tens of thousands of deaths. But it’s especially important for hospita...

One Year Later, Another Look at Obamanomics vs. Reaganomics

Cato-at-liberty — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:46:42 +0100

By Daniel J. MitchellOn this day last year, I posted two charts that I developed using the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank’s interactive website. Those two charts showed that the current recovery was very weak compared to the boom of the early 1980s. But perhaps that was an unfair comparison. Maybe the Reagan recovery started strong and then hit a wall. Or maybe the Obama recovery was the economic equivalent of a late bloomer. So let’s look at the same charts, but add an extra year of data. Does it make a difference? Meh… not so much. Let’s start with the GDP data. The comparison is striking. Under Reagan’s policies, the economy skyrocketed. Heck, the chart prepared by the Minneapolis Fed doesn’t even go high enough to show how well the economy perfor...

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Home Is Where the Congressional District Is

Cato-at-liberty — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:43:47 +0100

By David BoazDuring the congressional redistricting season, you could almost get the idea that members of Congress look at the process this way: 1. I am entitled to be in Congress. 2. I need to figure out which constituents deserve to be represented by me. There have been lots of stories recently about members of Congress declaring that “home is where the congressional district is.” Here’s the latest: Tea party firebrand Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) announced Tuesday that he will switch districts and run for reelection in Florida’s new 18th district. West’s 22nd district, which was already Democratic-leaning, got even tougher under a new GOP redistricting plan released last week. The new district would have gone about 57 percent for President Obama in the 2008 presiden...

Downsizing the Interior Department

Cato-at-liberty — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:32:01 +0100

By Chris EdwardsCato has published a new section on www.downsizinggovernment.org that examines the Department of the Interior. Interior is not one of the largest departments in terms of spending, but it has huge control over the lands and resources of the western United States. It oversees more than 500 million acres of land through the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and other agencies. The department also houses the Bureau of Reclamation, which distributes subsidized water, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which administers aid programs for American Indians. Here are some of ideas discussed at www.downsizinggovernment.org/interior: Federal Lands: During the nation’s first century, the federal government focused on selling and givin...

New Cato Study: Tough Targets

Cato-at-liberty — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:26:57 +0100

By Tim LynchToday, Cato is releasing a new study, Tough Targets: When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens, by Clayton Cramer and David Burnett. The paper makes use of a news report-gathering project to explore in more detail how Americans use guns in self-defense. The paper makes many excellent points, but I’ll mention just three here. First, the average person tends to imagine that these self-defense situations involve criminals getting shot. Such cases do occur, but the overwhelming number of self-defense cases involve situations where the gun is never fired. The second point relates to the first. The average person usually does not hear about defensive gun cases because news media organizations do not consider the incidents worthy of coverage. If...

A.M. Vitals: Pfizer Believes Only a Small Number of Birth-Control Pill Packs Are Faulty

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:51:11 +0100

Birth-Control Recall: Pfizer has recalled about a million packs of birth-control pills on concerns that incorrect packaging could lead to unplanned pregnancies, but says it believes only 30 packs actually had the troublesome glitches, the WSJ reports. Pfizer has identified three production problems that could permit pills to be placed incorrectly in the packs and go undetected. It’s not clear how many pills have already been used and how many are still in medicine cabinets, the paper says. Regulating Sugar?: A commentary published in Nature calls for sugar added to foods to be regulated, using the taxes and limited availability of tobacco and alcohol as a model, WebMD reports. Commentary author Robert Lustig, of the University of California, San Francisco, says excess sugar is linked...

Vaccines Are Exploding Kids’ Immune Systems

vactruth.com — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:33:46 +0100

A few weeks ago I uncovered the appalling story of how parents in India were prevented from speaking out when their baby daughter died following the pentavalent vaccine. (1) Ancy, was just 56 days old, when she died within hours of the vaccine, however, her death was immediately swept under the carpet by the authorities who silenced her parents before claiming that Ancy had died from apnea. On 25th January 2012 IBN Live (2) reported that even though the Health Department had denied the possible connection between the administration of the pentavalent vaccine and the death of the baby, the postmortem report had revealed that her death was caused by a hypersensitivity reaction. This unusual and highly controversial move by the coroner to write that a hypersensitivity reaction was the cause o...

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Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation Willing to Increase Breast Cancer Morbidity to Make a Political Statement Against Abortion Rights

The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:09:00 +0100

Sinking as low as any public health charity foundation in recent history, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation - which purports to have a mission of fighting breast cancer - is "cutting off grants to Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country to provide breast cancer screenings, including breast exams and mammogram referrals," according to an article in the Boston Globe.The funding that is being cut amounts to a total of $680,000, which provided approximately 170,000 breast exams and resulted in more than 6,400 mammography referrals.The reason for the withdrawal of funding: "Komen -- which sponsors walks and races to raise money for breast cancer research -- said it halted the grants because of a controversial investigation of Planned Parenthood by a Republican congressman, who...

Critical Issues Affecting the Pharmaceutical Industry in 2012

Policy and Medicine — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Recently, the consulting firm Booz Allen reflected on the critical issues that the pharmaceutical industry will face in 2012 and how life sciences companies can position themselves to benefit. Lipitor's recent loss of patent exclusivity was a sharp reminder of... (Source: Policy and Medicine)

FDA Quantitative Summary of the Benefits and Risks of Prescription Drugs: A Literature Review

Policy and Medicine — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced the availability of a draft report entitled “Quantitative Summary of the Benefits and Risks of Prescription Drugs: A Literature Review” (literature review report). A literature review was conducted to address a requirement... (Source: Policy and Medicine)

Investigating Sodium Channels in the Aging Brain

Fight Aging! — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Researches find another way in which the brain declines with age: "New findings [reveal] a novel mechanism through which the brain may become more reluctant to function as we grow older. ... researchers examined the brain's electrical activity by making recordings of electrical signals in single cells of the hippocampus, a structure with a crucial role in cognitive function. In this way they characterised what is known as "neuronal excitability" - this is a descriptor of how easy it is to produce brief, but very large, electrical signals called action potentials; these occur in practically all nerve cells and are absolutely essential for communication within all the circuits of the nervous system. ... The [researchers] identified that in the aged brain it is more difficult to make hippocam...

Considering the Role of Metals in Neurodegeneration

Fight Aging! — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

From the Wall Street Journal, a good example of the way in which much of present day research gravitates towards applications that patch over end-stage consequences of disease rather than addressing root causes and prevention: "Research into how iron, copper, zinc and other metals work in the brain may help unlock some of the secrets of degenerative diseases like (Source: Fight Aging!)

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SENS5 Video: Immunotherapy to Clear Tau Protein

Fight Aging! — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Immunotherapy is a very broad and active field: there are a great many strategies presently under development, and in various stages of maturity. All aim at making the immune system do the heavy lifting of finding and destroying specific unwanted cells, cellular machinery, and other biochemicals in the body. This is actually the immune system's evolved purpose, more or less, and so adjusting it to destroy new targets without causing harmful side-effects is a plausible near term technology. Thus there are large segments of the life science community looking into immunotherapies for cancer, immunotherapies to destroy some of the harmful aggregates that build up between cells with age, and so forth. One of the presentations given at last year's SENS5 conference was a look at turning the immu...

Planned Parenthood, Health Care and Me...again

HealthyConcerns.com — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Sadly, looks like it's time to re-post this: Hi. I've used Planned Parenthood. In fact, for at least 4 years (not sure I fully remember how long) Planned Parenthood was my sole health care source. I used the student health center when in college, but then I moved to NYC, and like any of us who don't go right from college (or high school) to full-time employment with a company big or progressive enough to provide employees with health care, I was out of luck. I was doing part-time temp work while pursuing my dream, and even when I transitioned to full-time work, there was no health care. And no I didn't buy heath insurance. I'm not sure at the ripe old age of 21 I had a good concept of why I would need it or how to get it. What I did know, what had been sort of burned in...

Autism redefined - DSM 5 and the services dilemma

Be the Best You can Be — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:17:00 +0100

I've claimed frequently over the past six years that the diagnostic term "autism" is virtually meaningless. That doesn't mean this is entirely a good idea ...New Definition of Autism May Exclude Many, Study Suggests - Benedict Carey - NYTimes.comProposed changes in the definition of autism would sharply reduce the skyrocketing rate at which the disorder is diagnosed and might make it harder for many people who would no longer meet the criteria to get health, educational and social services, a new analysis suggests...... The definition is now being reassessed by an expert panel appointed by the American Psychiatric Association, which is completing work on the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the first major revision in 17 years. The D.S.M., as th...

Advice for Aspies who hate to lose

Be the Best You can Be — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:03:00 +0100

#2 (aspie) says he hates competition.That's not precisely true. He loves to win. The problem is, he hates to lose. He really hates to lose. [1]Tonight that meant he was stressing big time about a spelling bee.We talked it through. I suggested he turn the problem around. He's not competing to win, he's competing to get through the experience. He's competing with his own disability. Doesn't matter if he cries or not, just that he gets through it. One day, maybe, he'll learn to lose gracefully. Then he'll be able to compete.He did well with that.[1] This is a big contrast to #1 (autism, adhd, etc). #1 likes to win, but he doesn't mind losing. That's why he can be a baseball pitcher -- something I could never imagine doing. I was a lot more like #2. (Source: Be the Best You can Be)

Hot peppers for weight loss?

Consumer Reports Health Blog — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:15:00 +0100

I love spicy food. Whether it’s Carribbean, southwestern U.S. or southeastern Asian cuisine, turn up the heat and you get my attention. So when I see headlines connecting heat with weight loss, my curiosity gets piqued. A recent review in the research journal Chemical Senses looked at studies designed to answer the question of whether capsaicin, the heat-causing chemical found in hot peppers, is effective in helping people either suppress appetite or lose weight. In some studies, people were fed food spiked with capsaicin; in others, they took the chemical in pill form. Yet other studies tested capsiate, a chemical cousin that comes from sweet peppers and doesn’t have the “burn” of capsaicin, so might be more palatable to people that associate “heat” w...

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‘The Problem with CLASS Is That It’s Voluntary.’

Cato-at-liberty — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:06:26 +0100

By Michael F. CannonAs I write, the House is debating a bill that would repeal the CLASS Act, one of two new entitlements created under ObamaCare. It’s hard express just how awful this program is. Here’s my attempt from back in October, when the Obama administration admitted CLASS is a bust: The idea behind CLASS was that the government would run a voluntary and self-sustaining insurance plan to help the disabled pay for long-term care, including nursing home care… Congress required CLASS to set each applicant’s premiums according to the average applicant’s risk of needing such long-term care, rather than her individual risk. But averaged premiums are only attractive to people with above-average risks. Since few people with below-average risks would enroll, th...

What Massage Really Does to Your Muscles

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:26:40 +0100

Why get a massage? Well, because it feels good, for one thing. But many people also hop on the table with the hope that massage therapy can help promote muscle recovery after a tough workout or provide other benefits. No one has looked closely at what massage does to muscle at a cellular or molecular level, however. Researchers set out to do just that, and their findings are published in Science Translational Medicine. The researchers exercised 11 young men to exhaustion over about 70 minutes, then massaged a single leg (determined randomly for each man) for ten minutes. The subjects received a muscle biopsy in both quad muscles to gather samples for massaged and non-massaged legs. The biopsy was repeated after a 2.5-hour rest period. Researchers analyzed the samples from the different leg...

Health Care News Roundup

Disruptive Women in Health Care — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:17:59 +0100

By Carrie Winans The Disruptive Women in Health Care blog continually aims to encourage discussion and debate among readers about emerging issues and topics in the health care world. Historically, one of the ways that we have done that is through our weekly round-ups – that is, posts containing summaries and links to some of the big stories in health care news for the given week, with some original commentary and content sprinkled in as well. The way we see it, there is just too much happening in this burgeoning industry; it’s hard to keep up, especially when you’re busy disrupting and making headlines in the health care world yourselves. We know the weekly round-ups have been on hiatus for a while, but are happy to report that they’re finally making a comeback. Each week, we’ll ...

Passing The Torch: A Day In The Life Of An Attending Physician

Health Affairs Blog — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:27:44 +0100

November 9, 2011. Time fell back three days ago, leaving me one less hour of daylight to enjoy on a gorgeous Indian summer Wednesday. I’m the attending physician on a busy family medicine inpatient service, and it’s been a long week of patient care and meetings. I rush out of the hospital somewhere near 5 pm, [...] (Source: Health Affairs Blog)

February is National Children’s Dental Health Month

Consumer Reports Health Blog — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:15:00 +0100

For National Children’s Dental Health Month, the American Dental Association is marking the 10th anniversary of its Give Kids A Smile program, which offers free dental care and education for children in need. Approximately 80 percent of tooth decay in the U.S. is suffered by 25 percent of the country's children, according to the National Institutes of Health, and according to our recent survey, the biggest reason for delaying dental care is cost. The survey, conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, asked readers to describe the dental health and cosmetic treatments they received in the last five years. CR subscribers tend to have better insurance coverage than Americans on average, but cost was still cited as a barrier by 43 percent of readers who delayed. Nan...

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Help Knock Out Barstool Sports, Advocates of Rape for, You Know, Fun

Our Bodies Our Blog — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:59:58 +0100

by Meg Young Everyone can agree that rape is not a joke, right? Apparently not, based on the popularity of the blog Barstool Sports. At first glance, the blog appears to be a collection of comedic sports commentaries interspersed with predictable photos of scantily clad women, or “smokeshows,” to use the vernacular. However, this archive of good, clean misogynistic fun has a darker side. Many of the postings make jokes about rape and sexual assault, such as this commentary about the acquittal of a man accused of raping a woman wearing tight jeans: “[E]ven though I never condone rape if you’re a size 6 and you’re wearing skinny jeans you kind of deserve to be raped right?” Now, Barstool is hosting the “Barstool Blackout Tour,” a series of sponsored dance parties on or near c...

This post writes itself . . .

Stayin' Alive — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:53:00 +0100

Because I already wrote it. Our new article is out in AIDS and Behavior. Believe me, I ain't happy that it's subscription only, but here's the abstract:Provider-patient Adherence Dialogue in HIV Care: Results of a Multisite StudyM. Barton Laws, Mary Catherine Beach, Yoojin Lee, William H. Rogers, Somnath Saha, P. Todd Korthuis, Victoria Sharp and Ira B. WilsonFew studies have analyzed physician–patient adherence dialogue about ARV treatment in detail. We comprehensively describe physician–patient visits in HIV care, focusing on ARV-related dialogue, using a system that assigns each utterance both a topic code and a speech act code. Observational study using audio recordings of routine outpatient visits by people with HIV at specialty clinics. Providers were 34 physicians and 11 non-M.D...

EHR Workstation Designed by Amateurs

Health Care Renewal — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:15:00 +0100

Below is an actual workstation, in an ICU, to permit interaction with an already mission-hostile EHR system:How many things are wrong here? (Click to enlarge)I can charitably say this workstation, in this recent picture, was designed by amateurs. Less charitably, I would use the words 'morons.'How many things are wrong here? For starters (commenters are welcome to suggest additions to the list):Small square (4x3) monitor, when large 16x9 monitors are available quite cheaply at retail;Monitor in front of window so on sunny days, glare causes eye strain;Monitor forces user to look away from the patient, with their back facing the patient behind them;Standard keyboard and mouse to help spread infection, not medical-specialty devices such as membrane-based or membrane-covered keyboards and eas...

Photo ID Laws Mean Some Won’t Vote

Cato-at-liberty — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:59:04 +0100

By Jim HarperBecause all of us are with ourselves all day every day, we naturally tend to think that our own lives are pretty standard fare. But that’s just not so in a country of 300+ million people ranging over a vast expanse. So I found worthwhile this NPR story on people who don’t have IDs, people who face difficulty with laws requiring IDs to vote. Not everyone trundles down to the DMV and plunks down money and paperwork for an ID whenever they please. The voter ID issue is a hot one. Some are strongly committed to the idea that identification requirements are needed to suppress voter fraud. There isn’t much evidence of that problem, and to worry about impersonation fraud at polling places, one has to put aside absentee ballot fraud, which is probably much easier, as...

Contraceptives Mandate Brings ObamaCare’s Coercive Power into Sharper Focus

Cato-at-liberty — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:58:24 +0100

By Michael F. CannonPresident Obama is catching some well-earned blowback for his decision to force religious institutions “to pay for health insurance that covers sterilization, contraceptives and abortifacients.” You see, ObamaCare penalizes individuals (employers) who don’t purchase (offer) a certain minimum package of health insurance coverage. The Obama administration is demanding that coverage must include the aforementioned reproductive care services. The exception for religious institutions that object to such coverage is so narrow that, as one wag put it, not even Jesus would qualify. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reassures us, “I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to importan...

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Agriculture and Trade Links

Cato-at-liberty — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:23:26 +0100

By Sallie James A very good editorial on Bloomberg.com on farm subsidies, and why the “let’s swap direct payments for crop insurance” proposal is a bad deal for taxpayers. American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman isn’t exactly a poster child for the farm program reform movement, but here he writes something I didn’t think would ever flow from his pen: “Not only would ["shallow loss"] programs be a nightmare for local Farm Service Agency offices to administer, but farmers would have the ability to cherry-pick which program works best for them. Because of distortions in price, we’d have a system of farmers deciding what to produce based on government payments rather than market signals.” [emphasis added] Uh, ok, but doesn’t tha...

A Brewing Institutional Crisis in Panama

Cato-at-liberty — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:57:31 +0100

By Juan Carlos HidalgoPanama is in turmoil due to the efforts of President Ricardo Martinelli to resurrect a defunct specialized court within the Supreme Court that would allow him to pack that body and possibly pave the way for his reelection. First, some context: The nine-Justice Panamanian Supreme Court is divided in four specialized courts dealing with specific areas of the law (civil, criminal, administrative and general government business). The first three specialized courts have 3 justices each, while the fourth one (dealing with general government business) is formed by the presidents of each of the three other specialized courts. There used to be a Fifth Court dealing with constitutional issues. However, in 1999 Congress passed a law that abolished that body. Now, constitutional ...

Catholic Schools and the Common Good

Cato-at-liberty — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:52:44 +0100

By Andrew J. CoulsonOne of the first things you learn when you start to study the comparative performance of school systems is this: on average, Catholic schools are much more educationally effective and vastly more efficient than state-run schools. And then you learn that their impact goes beyond the three R’s. I wrote a little about these facts a few years ago, while I was with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and my Mackinac friends have resurrected the post for Catholic Schools Week. I’ve appended an excerpt below, but you can read the whole thing here. When state-run public schooling was first championed in Massachusetts in the early 1800s, it was under the banner of “the common school,” and it was touted more for its predicted social benefits than its impact on ...

Recall: Birth control pills Lo/Ovral-28 and Norgestrel/Ethinyl Estradiol—Incomplete and incorrect tablet count

Consumer Reports Health Blog — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:45:00 +0100

Pfizer has recalled 14 lots of its birth control pills Lo/Ovral-28, and 14 lots of the generic version Norgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol, because of a packaging error that could cause the daily regimen for these oral contraceptives to be incorrect, leaving women at risk for unintended pregnancy. An investigation by Pfizer found that some blister packs may contain an inexact count of inert or active ingredient tablets and that the tablets may be out of sequence. These birth control pills are distributed to clinics, retail pharmacies and warehouses nationwide, and are manufactured and packaged by Pfizer, commercialized by Akrimax Rx Products, and labeled under the Akrimax Pharmaceuticals brand. Consumers taking the recalled birth control pills should begin using a non-hormonal form of con...

Government releases more information on hospital infections

Consumer Reports Health Blog — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:01:00 +0100

You now have access to more information about hospital safety. The Department of Health and Human Services this week released bloodstream-infection rates in intensive care units for 1,146 hospitals in Washington D.C. and all states except Wyoming. Nearly a third of the hospitals reported no infections during the reporting period. However, the release covers only the three-month period from January to March, 2011. More data, including from Wyoming, will be added later in the year. The new data focuses on infections caused by central lines, catheters used to provide nutrition, fluid, and medication but that can also spread deadly infections throughout the body if they’re not scrupulously kept clean. An estimated 27,000 to 65,000 patients develop the infections each year, including 12...

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Study Shows Carotid Artery Plaque Screening Does Not Promote Smoking Cessation; Provides Further Evidence that Graphic Warning Labels Will Not Work

The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:54:00 +0100

This study therefore provides further evidence to suggest that the new graphic warning labels that will be required by the FDA later this year (pending legislation challenging the constitutionality of the regulations) are unlikely to have any substantial effect in promoting smoking cessation among existing smokers.The FDA has already conceded that there is a reasonably likely chance that the regulations will have no effect on smoking prevalence. While almost no scientific studies support the hypothesis that graphic warning labels will cause smokers to quit, a wide range of evidence suggests that this intervention is unlikely to be very effective.The rest of the story is that the graphic warning labels are yet another part of the hoax that is the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Contro...

What is Life is Really Like in Pharma? - These xtranormal Video Cartoons Come Close.

Health Care Renewal — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:35:00 +0100

Sadly, the 'xtranormal' video cartoons at the following URL capture all too well what life is like in the pharmaceutical industry - buzzwords, neologisms, nouns turned into verbs, new paradigms, team players - and per the site, endless inane "initiatives" and related threats to sanity.I've been there; while a parody, these videos are uncomfortably close to reality.http://www.youtube.com/user/ZombieSymmetry/feed"I'll have to ideate on that for awhile, Mike"Even sadder are managers who believe their own babble.-- SS (Source: Health Care Renewal)

Understanding the Mechanisms of Autophagy

Fight Aging! — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Autophagy is very important to long term health, and shows up again and again as a pivotal part of the way in which various genetic manipulations and lifestyle choices can improve health and extend life. Here is a good article that delves into the mechanisms of autophagy and the present limits of scientific understanding: "Cells live longer than their internal components. To keep their cytoplasm clear of excess or damaged organelles, as well as invading pathogens, or to feed themselves in time of nutrient deprivation, cells degrade these unwanted or potentially harmful structures, and produce needed food and fuel, using a process they have honed over millions of years. Known as autophagy, this catabolic process involves the selection and the sequestration of the targeted structures into un...

Age Changes the Extracellular Matrix

Fight Aging! — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

The extracellular matrix (ECM) surrounds and supports cells, both structurally and in a range of other ways, such as by mediating cell signalling. With age, however, the ECM changes for a variety of reasons - it is damaged by the actions of senescent cells, for example. This has consequences, such as on the capacity of stem cells to maintain tissue. Here is a review paper: "Aging is characterized by reduced tissue and organ function, regenerative capacity, and accompanied by a decrease in tissue resident stem cell numbers and a loss of potency. The impact of aging on stem cell populations differs between tissues and depends on a number of non cell-intrinsic factors, including systemic changes associated with immune system alterations, as well as senescence related changes of the local cyto...

Intern at the SENS Foundation this Summer

Fight Aging! — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Are you presently working on a life science or medical degree? Are you interested in advancing aging and longevity science - research that aims to extend the healthy human life span and reverse the causes of age-related disease? Do you want to intern this summer at the SENS Foundation, one of the most important young non-profits in the world? In the summer of 2012, the Academic Initiative will bring as many as three students to the SENS Foundation Research Center in Mountain View, California to participate in SENS research for three months. These students will receive monthly stipends and, if they are not local to the San Francisco Bay Area, a credit towards airfare. Undergraduate, graduate, and medical students may apply, as may students who have graduated immediately prior to the summe...

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Allergies

Malaysian Medical Resources — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Do you know what the common allergens are in Malaysia? This is a often encountered scenario in the clinic yet there are so few clinical immunologists in Malaysia. The Malaysian Society of Allergy and Immunology has useful information in their website. Too often we only think about food allergens (not surprising given our food orientated culture. We musn’t forget about other home allergens which include not only house dust mites but cockroaches and animal dander. Here’s a useful infographic about bed bugs and house dust mites: Via: Allergy Asthma Technology from the Malaysian Medical ResourcesAllergies (Source: Malaysian Medical Resources)

Blood Test Detects Mental Depression?

FuturePundit — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Not sure if you are feeling enough mental pain to be classified as depressed? A blood test can detect depression. The initial assessment of a blood test to help diagnose major depressive disorder indicates it may become a useful clinical tool. In a paper published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, a team including Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers reports that a test analyzing levels of nine biomarkers accurately distinguished patients diagnosed with depression from control participants without significant false-positive results. "Traditionally, diagnosis of major depression and other mental disorders has been made based on patients' reported symptoms, but the accuracy of that process varies a great deal, often depending on the experience and resources of the clinician co...

Crisis, what crisis?

OnMedica Blogs — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

The challenges of mental health in the community (Source: OnMedica Blogs)

CMS Innovation Center: One Year of Innovation

Policy and Medicine — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

This month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center, created by the Affordable Care Act, released a new report, entitled “One Year of Innovation: Taking Action to Improve Care and Reduce Costs.” The Report was released on... (Source: Policy and Medicine)

TakNak 1Care Video in BM

Malaysian Medical Resources — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

from TakNak1Care in Facebook from the Malaysian Medical ResourcesTakNak 1Care Video in BM (Source: Malaysian Medical Resources)

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Testosterone Cuts Female Cooperation

FuturePundit — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0100

Your friends getting along too well? Feeling like the group is stuck in a rut of conformity? Testosterone could give you the edge you need to break away and strike out on your own. Testosterone makes us place more value on our own opinions. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on the quality of your opinions versus the opinions of those around you. Testosterone makes us overvalue our own opinions at the expense of cooperation, research from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) has found. The findings may have implications for how group decisions are affected by dominant individuals. Problem solving in groups can provide benefits over individual decisions as we are... (Source: FuturePundit)

Nature November 2011: Special issue on Autism, Mottron's view of the employed autistic and Calgary's Ability Hub

Be the Best You can Be — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:31:00 +0100

The Nov 2011 issue of Nature (v479, n7371, pp5-144) focuses on "The Autism Engima". It includes 3 reviews/news articles and 1 research article:Special issue on neuroscience: The autism enigma - introductory editorialThe prevalence puzzle: Autism counts - a thorough 'news' review of the prevalence of autism. I came away with the impression that novel environmental changes might account for 0-20% of the increased diagnostic prevalence of autism, but that most of it is better diagnosis and reclassification. Studies of adults suggest that autism was far more common than most imagined -- these children were invisible.Scientists and autism: When geeks meet - autistic traits may be advantageous in some careers, but the hypothesis that assortative mating accounts for autism clusters doesn't sound...

Health Policy Briefs: Accountable Care Organizations

Health Affairs Blog — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:14:19 +0100

In April 2012 a number of accountable care organizations (ACOs) will begin their contracts with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) under Medicare’s Shared Savings and Pioneer ACO programs. The latest health policy brief from Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provides an overview of ACOs, their origins, and the current [...] (Source: Health Affairs Blog)

Helping the House Advance Data Transparency

Cato-at-liberty — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:42:03 +0100

By Jim HarperThe House of Representatives is poised to make great strides forward in transparency, and our work over the last year aims to help them do that. Here’s how this spreadsheet (.xls) will do that. In December, the House Administration Committee announced a plan to improve the publication of House documents. In January, a new site—docs.house.gov—went live. (It’s attractive looking, but still bare-bones.) On Thursday this week, the Committee is hosting a “Legislative Data and Transparency Conference” to examine what data is out there and what data should be out there. Little information is on the Web yet, but you can sign up to attend at the link just above. I’ll be speaking on the last panel of the day, which deals with measuring transparency succ...

FDA Approves Vertex’s Kalydeco, But It Won’t Come Cheap

WSJ.com: Health Blog — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:41:21 +0100

A young patient holds Kalydeco, a cystic-fibrosis treatment from Vertex just approved by the FDA. Certain cystic-fibrosis patients will now have an FDA-approved treatment that targets an underlying cause of their disease. But that drug — Kalydeco, from Vertex Pharmaceuticals — won’t come cheap. As Dow Jones Newswires reports, the annual cost will be $294,000. Vertex has set up a patient-assistance program to help patients pay for the treatment. Kalydeco was approved to treat the estimated 4% of cystic-fibrosis patients who have a mutation called G551D in a certain gene responsible for the disease. About 1,200 people in the U.S. have that mutation, DJN says. Kalydeco was approved for use only in patients aged six and up; Vertex is planning to study the drug in younger ch...

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Searching for Side Effects

WSJ.com: Health Journal — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:08:31 +0100

Two start-up companies have created databases that let consumers search FDA adverse-event reports of prescription drugs and medical devices. (Source: WSJ.com: Health Journal)

New drug Erivedge approved for most common skin cancer

Consumer Reports Health Blog — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:00:00 +0100

The drug Erivedge has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat adult patients with an advanced form of the most common type of skin cancer—Basal cell carcinoma. The drug is intended for patients with locally advanced basal cell cancer who are not candidates for surgery or radiation, and whose cancer has spread to other parts of the body. Made by Genentech, Erivedge (vismodegib) is the first FDA-approved drug for metastatic basal cell carcinoma. The drug was reviewed under the FDA's priority review program, which is an expedited six-month review of drugs that may offer major advances in treatment. Basal cell carcinoma is generally a slow growing and painless form of skin cancer that starts in the top layer of the skin. The cancer develops on areas of the skin th...

How the Anechoic Effect Is Institutionalized - A Hospital Policy Against Unsupervised Discussion with the Media

Health Care Renewal — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:58:00 +0100

This article is only about a single hospital. However, the context of the article is the take-over of Nashoba Hospital by Steward Health Care. Steward Health Care is a for-profit health care corporation that grew out of the take-over of the formerly not-for-profit Caritas Christi health system by the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. Steward Health Care now comprises eight hospitals, and also owns physician practices (apparently including over 2000 doctors based on a quick search using its "doctor finder" function.) Thus it is likely that the policy at Nashoba Hospital that prevents unsupervised discussion with the media also applies at seven other hospitals, and perhaps to the practices of over 2000 doctors. Thus it is very likely that this hospital gag poli...

Lesbian and Bisexual Women With Breast Cancer History Sought for Study

Our Bodies Our Blog — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:47:42 +0100

Via Susan Love’s Army of Women project, we learned about a breast cancer research study headed by Boston University researchers that is currently recruiting lesbian and bisexual women. The goal of the study is to learn more about quality of life and well-being issues for lesbian and bisexual women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, and to use that information to inform services and reduce health disparities. From the email announcement: It is widely known that a breast cancer diagnosis can have far reaching effects both socially and emotionally. Less well understood are the ways in which a breast cancer diagnosis impacts the well-being and quality of life of women who have historically been underserved by the medical community. Lesbian and bisexual women are one of these und...

Brazilian Blowout to pay $600,000 in California suit over deceptive advertising

Consumer Reports Health Blog — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:30:00 +0100

Under a new settlement agreement in California, the maker of Brazilian Blowout products is required to warn consumers and hair stylists that two of its popular hair-straightening products emit formaldehyde gas. The settlement requires GIB, which does business as Brazilian Blowout, to stop advertisements that describe two of its products as formaldehyde-free and safe. Brazilian Blowout must also make significant changes to its website and pay $600,000 in fees, penalties and costs. The settlement also requires that Brazilian Blowout disclose refund policies to consumers before the products are purchased. In its announcement of the settlement, the California Department of Justice said it was the first government enforceable action in the U.S. to address exposure to formaldehyde gas associ...

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Cyberchondria: "Doc, I Know My Diagnosis, Tell Me if I am Right"

Bioethics Discussion Blog — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:53:00 +0100

Discussion Blog)

The EU Summit Will Fail to Calm Markets

Cato-at-liberty — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:49:41 +0100

By Marian L. TupyThe European leaders’ meeting in Brussels yesterday will likely fail to reassure the financial markets. First, the intergovernmental agreement on stricter budget controls among the members of the eurozone will still have to be approved by national parliaments and could potentially face legal challenges in one or more countries. Second, there is no guarantee that the agreed penalties for countries that run excessive budget deficits are either enforceable or sufficiently onerous to limit government spending. Third, the European leaders failed to make progress on the most important issue facing the EU economies—slow growth. Indeed, it is difficult to see how EU leaders—many of whom backed higher taxes and support more regulation—can be trusted to do anything useful to...

Ketamine Nation? Special K Works Better Than Prozac At Treating Depression

Healthbolt — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:48:18 +0100

The war on depression is getting mighty weird these days. Last week, scientists said psilocybin, the active ingredient in ‘magic’ mushrooms, could be useful in treating depression. This week? Beat the blues with ketamine! The drug—also known as ‘Special K’—can lift even suicidal depression in just a few hours, researchers say. Ketamine is approved by the FDA as an anesthetic. It’s mainly used as a horse tranquilizer, though it can be used to sedate both people and other animals. It’s also used by people recreationally, and is capable of producing hallucinations. I had friends who got really into its use in college (between this study and the mushrooms business, my college friends should have been the least depressed people ever …). Mostly, the...

New Congressional Budget Office Numbers Once Again Show that Modest Spending Restraint Would Eliminate Red Ink

Cato-at-liberty — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:51:18 +0100

By Daniel J. MitchellBack in 2010, I crunched the numbers from the Congressional Budget Office and reported that the budget could be balanced in just 10 years if politicians exercised a modicum of fiscal discipline and limited annual spending increases to about two percent yearly. When CBO issued new numbers early last year, I repeated the exercise and again found that the same modest level of budgetary restraint would eliminate red ink in about 10 years. And when CBO issued their update last summer, I did the same thing and once again confirmed that deficits would disappear in a decade if politicians didn’t let the overall budget rise by faster than two percent each year. Well, the new CBO 10-year forecast was released this morning. I’m going to give you three guesses about wh...