A Virginia criminal case, while focusing on claims of fraud against the federal government, also has exposed a long-running and nightmarish pattern of what prosecutors assert has been a Chesapeake gynecologist’s rampant mistreatment of his patients, many of them women of color and poor. Dr. Javaid Perwaiz is on trial because authorities say he “manipulated….
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Concern rises over bias in race-based algorithms for medical decision-making
High-tech wizards may be pushing medicine into a brave new world where important medical decisions rely on supposedly data-driven findings that also may be rooted in an old malignancy: discrimination against black patients. A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine warns that race-based tools and formulas, algorithms aimed to assist doctors….
Continue ReadingNew hospitals may offer hope to D.C.’s poor, minority areas as Covid-19 rages
Even as the Covid-19 pandemic shows the terrible toll inflicted on African Americans in the District of Columbia by health care disparities, city officials have announced they are advancing with a pricey plan to plug a giant hole in area medical services by helping to fund not one but two new hospitals that will serve….
Continue ReadingAs doctors warned UNC about heart surgery program, kids kept dying
Although big hospitals may love to pat themselves on the back and boost their profits and professional standings by claiming to offer “comprehensive” services, children may suffer and die due to the reality versus the hubris of institutions’ excessive initiatives with specialized care. Officials at the University of North Carolina blew past anguished warnings from….
Continue ReadingHundreds of moms die of preventable pregnancy-related complications
Hundreds of mothers die of preventable pregnancy-related complications up to a year after delivering their babies, with black and native women experiencing notably high maternal morality risks. The needless deaths of around 700 women nationwide each year due to cardiovascular conditions, infections, hemorrhages and other complications related to their pregnancies underscores the importance of improving….
Continue ReadingMothers get a big boost for counseling to help with childbirth depression
Roughly 1 in 7 moms, who, during or after pregnancy, suffer debilitating depression — losses of energy or concentration, changes in sleeping and eating patterns, feelings of worthlessness or suicidal thoughts — now may get counseling that has proven helpful to women and their babies. Preventive health experts have called on medical providers to guide….
Continue ReadingFor too many women, an unending and painful tangle with surgical mesh
Tens of thousands of women complain that a surgery to implant mesh to bolster weak abdominal tissue, instead has inflicted on them incontinence, chronic pelvic pain as well as pains in the groin, hip, and leg, and with intercourse. Others say they suffer complications as if they had the immune system attacking disease lupus, leaving them with….
Continue ReadingFor women, more reasons to consider HPV test, while fertility rates decline
Women and their doctors may need to give even more consideration to a test for the human papilloma virus (HPV) because research increasingly shows that it detects precancerous cervical changes sooner and better than the long used and widely accepted Pap smear. The latest findings on the HPV test’s benefits could lead to improvements in….
Continue ReadingWhy do we tolerate up to 80,000 mothers each year suffering big injuries in childbirth?
Here is a sobering public health angle on Mother’s Day. Experts on international health and development, including the likes of Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent and columnist Nick Kristof, long have argued that a key way to major improvements in distant lands rests in boosting the lot of women and girls. It’s an issue that clearly also….
Continue ReadingPrincely birth underscores how poorly U.S. moms fare in comparison
The birth of Prince Louis Arthur Charles brought joy to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, but the regal baby’s arrival also provided cause for harsh comparisons of maternal costs and safety for more ordinary expectant moms on this side of the Atlantic. Two magazines — Foreign Policy and the Economist — both poked at….
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