Armchair quarterbacks of the legal kind have raced onto the field, arguing that a Los Angeles jury verdict will help shield the National Collegiate Athletic Association from a potential avalanche of claims asserting the group did too little to protect young players from debilitation and death due to head trauma. Maybe, maybe not. Jurors rejected….
Continue ReadingMental Disability
U.S. Surgeon General’s novel prescription? Healthier jobs and workplaces
Although the still-chugging U.S. economy is providing workers with more employment opportunities than many economists expected, it is always tough to leave a job, even with the highly publicized trend of “quiet quitting” supposedly in full force. Still, no less an authority than Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, has warned Americans that too….
Continue ReadingDon’t just sit or wait on Big Pharma. Modify your risks against dementia.
Although Americans dread the possibility of experiencing dementia and other debilitating cognitive decline as they age, they can do more than let fear rule their lives — or twiddle their thumbs waiting for Big Pharma to drop billions of dollars more to develop magical and, so far, unworkable pills. Instead, doctors, epidemiologists, and public health….
Continue ReadingA posthumous diagnosis forces soccer to reconsider risk of head harms
In 2015, public attention galvanized around the significant risks of head trauma and the sport of football with the disclosure that Andre Waters, 44, a hard-hitting, onetime Philadelphia Eagles player, had been diagnosed after his suicide with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Has soccer — one of the most popular pastimes on the planet and….
Continue ReadingMedicare angers patient groups with limits on Alzheimer’s drug coverage
Although Medicare officials have slammed the door for now on paying for widespread use of a drug targeted for Alzheimer’s treatment, patient advocacy groups have thrown themselves into the battle over Aduhelm and whether taxpayers should pay its hefty price. Aduhelm is the risky, costly prescription medication with sparse evidence of its purported benefits for….
Continue ReadingFDA dithers dangerously on regulating sketchy ‘stem cell’ care and kid vaping
Yet more derelictions of duty by the federal Food and Drug Administration are happening now, in its handling of largely hokum treatments and health-threatening devices. The latest examples: drug safety regulators step back from their oversight of those who peddle sketchy “stem-cell” treatments for a bevy of ills. And twiddle their thumbs as who knows how….
Continue ReadingVA, in a slap at FDA, will decline to cover newly approved Alzheimer’s drug
The nation’s largest integrated health system has declined to cover a drug approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration for treatment of early Alzheimer’s disease. The action is not only a rebuke by the Department of Veterans Affairs to the FDA, it also offers support of sorts to a plea by President Biden for….
Continue ReadingWith kids’ return to sports, a reminder about serious risks of head trauma
With coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths falling from scary winter highs, the easing of public health measures may see young athletes returning fast to what are supposed to be the fun and educational benefits of organized sports. But will players, and more importantly grownups, ensure that appropriate practices are followed to ensure kids not only….
Continue ReadingU.S. collars owners’ outlandish claims for flying ’emotional support’ animals
Um, no, federal regulators have decided: The nation’s skies no longer will be a sort of bad airborne set for a pop psychology version of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Instead, owners of so-called emotional support animals must keep their menagerie off commercial flights. The federal Transportation Department has issued new rules halting….
Continue ReadingLoneliness and fear taking big toll on locked down elderly, sick, and injured
For the old, sick, and injured who are institutionalized, the Covid-19 pandemic and the efforts to halt the spread of the disease into care facilities has created debilitating side-effects: isolation, loneliness, silence, fear, and worries of abandonment. Facility lockdowns, combined with the relentless governmental bungling of the coronavirus response, are taking a terrible toll that….
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