In the mid-19th century, traveling medicine shows became all the rage. They were basically like small circuses that also peddled phony medicine. Today, we may laugh at how gullible we once were. But charlatans like Dr. Oz are the modern-day equivalent of that traveling con job.
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Epic patent gaming, and pay-for-delay agreements to slow-walk introduction of cheaper generics to market, helped bring us to this point. But will a growing behemoth of 750 hospitals actually lower drug prices?
According to idiotic homeopathy, the more dilute a solution the more powerful it gets. So naturally, it follows that making solutions even *more* dilute -- let's call it "super-homeopathy" -- will make them even stronger. This provides a simple solution for the opioid crisis. But let's be careful. There could be unforeseen consequences (especially from guys with oversized prostate glands).
When pharmaceutical companies jack up prices, it irritates everybody. And when people are irritated, politicians take the opportunity to do some grandstanding to win votes. Just a few days into its term, the House Oversight Committee in the new Congress has already launched an investigation into drug pricing. Is that justified? Not really.
For some expectant mothers, there's a strong desire to have less "medicalization" of labor and delivery. It manifests itself in home births and water births for those adamantly opposed to a hospital setting. Now, “unassisted birth” goes a step further excluding a trained professional from the delivery. It's time to clarify the risks.
How often do you hear of someone using their spouse's antibiotic from a prior illness? Or, dispensing an Ambien to a colleague or friend? For those practicing medicine without a license in person, or through social media crowdsourcing, the harms can be considerable.
The New York Times objectively reports on how the news media, politicians and science were wrong about "crack baby" epidemic. But they never apologize to their readers or accept responsibility.
An ordinary (or worse) study sets out to rehash the same nonsense about how deadly prescription opioids are. In addition, it ends up botching the conclusion to appear that it's contradicting itself. This is seriously strange.
There's a phenomenon known as superheating. And in your typical microwave oven, the container is not heated -- only the water is. So to answer this question, we first must understand what boiling is all about. Let's take a look.
Fracking Press Release June 13 2014 (1)
With women opting for "free birth" or "unassisted birth" the stakes are only getting higher. Dismissing medical advice is also taking the form of a misguided practice of prolonging delivery well beyond due dates.
Using made up numbers, The Lancet reports that surgery is the third greatest burden of global disease, right after cardiovascular disease and stroke. In order to save lives should surgeons actually "put down the knife"?
Treating addiction first requires that we understand it. As it turns out most people know little about what addiction actually is, and even less about what causes it. An expert breaks down the issue, so we can better understand what we're seeing unfold around the country.
As Big Pharma shifts risk for drug discovery to start-ups, the acquisition and licensing of those discoveries serve as a hidden driver of medication cost. Consider Keytruda.
Hospice provides comfort during the last months of life. But many patients requiring dialysis cannot, or do not, take advantage of this care. We need to do less harm.
So-called "play or pay" was designed as an incentive for pharmaceutical companies to engage, or to continue to be engaged in, antibiotic discovery and development.
Doing so is becoming increasingly problematic these days, as another person was arrested for practicing medicine without a license. One common aspect among imposters is that they know just enough information to be dangerous. Here's how to separate physician fact from fiction.
As frigid temperatures are sweeping a large portion of the country, government officials from severely impacted regions are issuing "Code Blue" alerts. Use of them is spreading some confusion, so let's clarify what the term actually means.
The United Kingdom released a five-year and a 20-year plan for combatting antimicrobial resistance. Both are worth a careful read – especially if you're interested in efforts on stewardship and research support. But there's something buried in the five-year version that's less than straightforward. Let's take a look.
Can a physician's past professional deeds be forgotten? And if so, who gets to decide? If you ask the European Union, the answer is Google.
Despite having yet to save the life of a mouse, an Israeli company is making grandiose pronouncements. However, if you look beyond the hype the medical approach is actually pretty interesting.
Can yoga, instead of producing only anecdotal success stories, instead demonstrate that it can deliver quantifiable health benefits? A new study may herald a shift in the Western discussion of an Eastern practice.
Of course, not all causes and manners of death are within our control. Nor should we be so preoccupied with them that we avoid living. But the National Safety Council's annual report proves to be an interesting read, given a 5.3% increase in preventable-injury-related deaths.
The 29-member Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force, led by Dr. Vanila Singh, recently released an important 100-page draft report. The Federal Register docket already shows nearly 2,000 comments, and doubtlessly the HHS email gateway has received many more. Dr. Richard Lawhern, the Director of Research of the Alliance for the Treatment of Intractable Pain, shares his thoughts.
Our Dr. Josh Bloom responded to a March 7th article in the New York Times, titled Good News: Opioid Prescribing Fell. The Bad? Pain Patients Suffer, Doctors Say. Here's his take -- brief and right to the point.
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