Even before the school bells ring to bring kids back to classes, young athletes have taken to steamy fields and other facilities for fall training — making this an ideal time to remind coaches, trainers, players, and parents to ensure important steps are taken for safety’s sake. While injury prevention of all kinds must be….
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Popular, costly knee injections little better than placebo, big study finds
Since the 1970s, some doctors have treated arthritic knees by injecting them with hyaluronic acid, a substance originally derived from the combs of roosters. Specialists have zealously promoted this therapy, costing patients a few hundred dollars a pop and repeated so widely that Medicare alone pays $300 million annually for it. Doctors argue it reduces….
Continue ReadingBrain damage in football players is still a big story, and head trauma for surfers is becoming one too
What do big wave surfing and the National Football League playoffs and upcoming Super Bowl have in common? They share the challenges of confronting the significant health harms that can occur with head trauma, especially repeated impacts and outright concussions. The rich, powerful, and influential NFL also may be illustrating how preventable damage to athletes,….
Continue ReadingFirst six months of ’21 set U.S. record for road deaths
2021 has become a torment for the safety of the nation’s roads, as the country between January and June hit its largest six-month percentage increase in fatalities in the half-century U.S. officials have kept such records. In the first half of ‘21, 20,160 people died in vehicle wrecks — an 18.4% increase over the comparable….
Continue ReadingQuestions grow about billions flowing to specialists over medical hardware
Patients, regulators, hospitals, and doctors themselves need to open their eyes and ask tougher questions about the eyebrow-raising trend occurring among a specialized set of “sawboneses” — orthopedists and neurosurgeons. Hundreds of them are profiting handsomely, not on their medical skills but rather their investments in and relationships with surgical hardware. The specialists also are….
Continue ReadingSurgical robot’s maker sued over business practices — but not patients’ care?
Hospitals finally are saying bull feathers to the leading maker of surgical robots that cost institutions millions of dollars annually to buy and maintain. New lawsuits against Intuitive Surgical dispute the company’s business practices, including the exclusivity it demands for its costly services and products. But will the civil claims also crack open the door to….
Continue ReadingMizzou pays $16.2 million to 22 over knee surgeries involving veterinarian
It’s long been routine, if often controversial, for operating rooms to welcome medical device sales people and surgical trainees to watch the work of surgeons and nurses. But now the University of Missouri health system may have reset the bar with its $16.2 million settlement with almost two dozen patients over questionable knee surgeries. The….
Continue ReadingProsecutors, pandemic or no, crack down on billions in health care frauds
With the Covid-19 pandemic ensuring that even more dollars are flooding into health care than ever, nefarious parties — including doctors, nurses, and other licensed professionals — have targeted ordinary Americans and the federal government in big-time scams. U.S. prosecutors have punched back with a nationwide fraud crackdown. They announced that they have charged 345….
Continue ReadingHere’s another kind of needed safety distancing — with scooters and bikes
As visitors and workers in the Washington, D.C., area slowly return from the Covid-19 home-stay restrictions, they may be hit with a worry about a different kind of distancing: Keeping themselves safe on byways more heavily trafficked by bicycles and scooters, notably rental models whose mechanical soundness is under increasing question. It is difficult to….
Continue ReadingGet ready, Washingtonians — 20,000 scooters soon may be part of cityscape
In the cooler, rainier autumnal weather, transportation officials may be planting the seeds of significant change for the health, safety, and way that residents and visitors get around Washington, D.C. They may allow a smaller number of private companies to double the number of scooters zipping around the nation’s capital by the new year. By….
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