The nurses complained, and so did a handful of doctors. The patients howled. Yet, for years, administrators at a Florida hospital ignored the repeated alarms, critics say. Now, 350 lawsuits have been filed and 100 more are expected, all asserting that Dr. Richard David Heekin, a seasoned orthopedist, suffered from a progressively debilitating, rare, neurologic….
Continue ReadingPrimary Care
Senate panel assails transplant system for causing deaths and disease
UNOS, the independent medical network responsible for procuring and distributing human organs for transplants in this country, needs big changes because it is failing desperate patients, making screening errors, among other missteps, that have killed dozens of them and caused hundreds to develop procedure-related diseases. The U.S. Senate Finance Committee reviewed hundreds of thousands of….
Continue ReadingA top FDA tobacco expert suddenly quits — to work for Big Tobacco
The ink was barely dry on statements from the head of the federal Food and Drug Administration about a planned external, independent review of the agency’s tobacco oversight division when one of its top regulators created a personnel stink of his own. Matt Holman, chief of the office of science in FDA’s much-criticized Center for….
Continue ReadingBig Pharma’s rough summer could be a boon for struggling patients
Big Pharma has run into a rare rough summer — and that could be positive news for all the rest of us regular folks. Just how? Consider: One of the world’s largest makers of prescription medications — which also is one of several pharma titans implicated in the record-breaking opioid abuse and drug overdose crisis,….
Continue ReadingWhen admitting a loved one to a nursing home, be sure to read what you sign (because you could be sued later)
When seniors need full-time institutional care, or when the injured or debilitated require similar 24/7 attention, loved ones — and even friends — must take care to read and re-read any documents that nursing homes and other long-term care facilities shove before them to sign during the stressful admissions process. That’s because the owners and….
Continue ReadingHospitals’ ‘charity’: 2.3% of patient revenue vs. $60 billion in tax breaks
Play this one out in your mind: a guy you know at church — he’ll be the first to let you know he makes $200,000 a year — tells you about how he gave to charity a junker car worth not more than $4,600 (2% of his income). Now what’s your reaction if you learn….
Continue ReadingOpioid drug overdose crisis is ripping up communities of color
The opioid drug abuse and overdose crisis is not only smashing fatality records, it also is slamming poorer people and communities of color and taking a savage toll on younger black Americans. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has analyzed data from Washington, D.C., and 25 states, finding in its study published online,….
Continue ReadingObamacare coverage rates to increase 10% next year, early data hints, while top medical executives rake in massive pay
Consumers should brace themselves for increasing costs of yet another key component of most families’ budgets: the price of health insurance premiums. Even if Congress can’t get its act together to extend coronavirus pandemic-related subsidies for millions of Americans covered under Obamacare, insurers in individual marketplaces across 13 states and Washington, D.C., are looking to….
Continue ReadingBig shakeups under way in much-criticized U.S. health agencies
While most regular folks wouldn’t give a hill of beans about the organization of bureaucracies in Washington, D.C., frustrated taxpayers should be taking note of seismic rumblings about restructurings that are shaking some of the biggest, most powerful, and influential federal health agencies. Biden Administration officials, in one of their notable moves, have announced that….
Continue ReadingWHO chief declares monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency
The worldwide struggle to contain a fast-spreading outbreak of monkeypox took on new urgency, with the World Health Organization declaring a global emergency and U.S. experts discussing whether the viral infection is becoming yet another significant sexually transmitted disease that this country is ill-prepared to quell. The WHO declaration, by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,….
Continue Reading