No Treatment or Vaccine for Ebola, but a $1000 Pill for Hepatitis C
The Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa continues to grow, and now appears to be the worst known epidemic of that disease to date. In the US and Western Europe, press reports are now raising concerns that the disease could spread there. For example, CNN, in an article entitled "Ebola Fears Hits Close to Home," was a section headed "Could Ebola spread to the US?" An ABC article was entitled, "How the US Government Could Evacuate Americans with Ebola."Reasons for fear of spread are the increased mobility of people made possible by air travel, and the lack of specificity of early symptoms of Ebola, so infectious p...
Source: Health Care Renewal - July 31, 2014 Category: Health Management Tags: Ebola virus economism hepatitis C neoliberalism pharmaceuticals Sovaldi Source Type: blogs
Are Omega–3 Essential Fatty Acids bad for skin? The Beauty Brains Show episode 41
Are omega-3 fatty acids good for skin? Or, do these oils actually damage your skin? This week Randy and I explain what omegas, polyunsaturated oils, and Essential Fatty Acids really do for your skin. Plus – Beauty Science News!
Click below to play Episode 41 or click “download” to save the MP3 file to your computer.
Show notes
Beauty Science News – Are you science savvy?
I found an interesting article on the top 10 scientific terms that scientists wish you’d stop using incorrectly.Randy and I banter about a few of them including:
“Proof”
Theory vs hypothesis
Nature vs nurtu...
Source: thebeautybrains.com - July 29, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Perry RomanowskiThe Beauty Brains Tags: Best Claims Natural Podcast Safety Source Type: blogs
Sovaldi, a Quantum Leap? - Backwards to the Days Before Randomized Controlled Trials
The Sovaldi (sofosbuvir - Gilead) media circus is continuing. The New York Times just reported that sales of the new drug for hepatitis C were about $3.5 billion for the last quarter, which should intensify the kerfuffle over its US price ($1000 per pill, $84,000 for a 12 week course of medication).Meanwhile, reports of its wondrous properties continue to appear in medical journals.The latest was announced this way in Bloomberg, Gilead Science Inc Solvadi, controversial because of its price, helps cure hepatitis C in people with HIV, according to researchers who say the drug has the potential to limit a top cause of ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - July 24, 2014 Category: Health Management Tags: clinical trials evidence-based medicine Gilead Sovaldi Source Type: blogs
Sovaldi, a Quantum Leap... Backwards to the Days Before Randomized Controlled Trials?
The Sovaldi (sofosbuvir - Gilead) media circus is continuing. The New York Times just reported that sales of the new drug for hepatitis C were about $3.5 billion for the last quarter, which should intensify the kerfuffle over its US price ($1000 per pill, $84,000 for a 12 week course of medication).Meanwhile, reports of its wondrous properties continue to appear in medical journals.The latest was announced this way in Bloomberg, Gilead Science Inc Solvadi, controversial because of its price, helps cure hepatitis C in people with HIV, according to researchers who say the drug has the potential to limit a top cause of ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - July 24, 2014 Category: Health Management Tags: clinical trials evidence-based medicine Gilead Sovaldi Source Type: blogs
Top medicine articles for July 2014
A collection of some interesting medical articles published recently:Migraines Linked to Increased Risk of 'Silent Strokes' http://buff.ly/1hTE5RuDoctor’s Salaries Are Not the Big Cost - NYTimes http://buff.ly/QWe2lx -- "There is a startling secret behind America’s health care hierarchy: Physicians, the most highly trained members in the industry’s work force, are on average right in the middle of the compensation pack. That is because the biggest bucks are currently earned not through the delivery of care, but from overseeing the business of medicine.The base pay of insurance executives, hospital executives and...
Source: Clinical Cases and Images - Blog - July 23, 2014 Category: Universities & Medical Training Tags: Health News of the Day Source Type: blogs
MGH to Screen All Patients for Substance Abuse
MGH will question all patients admitted to the hospital about substance abuse (see: MGH to screen all patients for substance abuse). There are at least two reasons for screening all hospital inpatients for substance abuse. The first is that such information is important when working-up a patient. Of course, problems related to alcohol abuse such as cirrhosis will become apparent as soon as the lab values come back. The second reason, as noted below, is that substance abuse patients often have various chronic illnesses and higher readmission rates:
Patients at Massachusetts General Hospital will soon...
Source: Lab Soft News - July 7, 2014 Category: Pathologists Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Healthcare Delivery Laboratory Industry Trends Medical Consumerism Medical Education Source Type: blogs
What’s the Value of a Cancer Cure?
By Cyndy Nayer and Leonard Kish When CMS approved Solvadi, Gilead’s $84,000 drug for hepatitis C, the stakes were raised in drug price wars. Two opposing forces, one, a financial push toward lower costs came up against an opposing force of public sentiment. The FDA’s goal of getting 90% of patients moved from costly branded […] (Source: The Health Care Blog)
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 21, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: THCB Cirrhosis CMS FDA Hepatitis B Hepatitis C HIV PhRMA Solvadi Value-Based Medicine value-driven pharmaceuticals Source Type: blogs
Sovaldi - a "Revolution" in Clinical Care, or in Marketing and Public Relations?
DiscussionWashington Post/ Kaiser Health NewsOn May 12, 2014, in an article on the dilemma the drug's US price of $1000/ pill presents to Medicare, Richard Knox wrote this about a patient with the infection:Previous drug treatments didn't clear the virus from Bianco's system. But it's almost certain that potent new drugs for hep-C could cure him. In other words, the article asserted that Sovaldi and similar drugs cure nearly everyone with hepatitis C, even those not cured by previous treatment. ReutersOn May 20, 2014, in an article about how US health insurers are balking at the price of Sovaldi, was this statement ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - May 28, 2014 Category: Health Management Tags: evidence-based medicine Gilead health care prices manipulating clinical research Sovaldi You heard it here first Source Type: blogs
Management of hepatic encephalopathy in hospital
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Source: neurologyminutiae - May 16, 2014 Category: Neurologists Source Type: blogs
Penn Study: Hepatitis C Remains Major Problem For Hiv Patients Despite Antiretroviral Therapy
The study, published in the March 18 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, examinedelectronic medical record dataof 4,280 patients infected with both HIV and chronic hepatitis C virus who were receiving ART, and 6,079 hepatitis C-only patients receiving care between 1997 and 2010. It found that the HIV/hepatitis C-co-infected patients had an 80 percent higher rate of decompensated cirrhosis than hepatitis C-only patients. Even when co-infected patients had controlled HIV virus in response to ART, they still had a 60 percent higher rate of serious liver disease compared to those with hepatitis C alone. Our res...
Source: aids-write.org - March 18, 2014 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: aidswrite Tags: current news Source Type: blogs
A Fisherman’s Friend… or Foe?
aka Toxicology Conundrum 052
A 64 year-old male was brought in after a collapse at home. He had been sitting on the couch with his wife when she noticed that he had gone limp and was not breathing. Bystander CPR was performed for 15 minutes until ambulance crews arrived. He received 2x DC 200J shock for ventricular fibrillation, after which he had a return of spontaneous circulation, with HR 80 sinus rhythm, BP 90/60 and GCS 3. In the Emergency department he received 300mg Amiodarone, and cooling was commenced as per out of hospital cardiac arrest protocol at that time. He had a further episode of VF arrest soon after ar...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - March 5, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: Kylie McNamara Tags: Clinical Case Emergency Medicine Featured Intensive Care Toxicology Toxicology Quiz cardiac arrest ECG Glycyrrhizic acidm hypokalemia laboratory results licorice liquorice Source Type: blogs
For Some Issues, Gender Matters When You’re Drinking
Did you know that research has shown that men and women metabolize alcohol differently, according to data provided by the National Institute on Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA)?
Neuropsychologist Marlene Oscar Berman, a School of Medicine professor, studies the effects of long-term chronic alcoholism on the brain. The information she is gathering is waking up the world of neuroscience to the differences between men and women with regard to alcoholism, including that the number of women becoming alcoholic is growing.
Some of her more important discoveries include:
Women process alcohol differently than men overall, not...
Source: Cliffside Malibu - January 6, 2014 Category: Addiction Authors: Richard Taite Tags: Richard Taite Source Type: blogs
Don't Call My Liver Fat!
By Amy Campbell
Isn't there enough to contend with having diabetes? You need to take care of your eyes, feet, heart… Now you have to worry about your liver? Well, yes. Fatty liver disease may be something you're not all that familiar with, but if you have Type 2 diabetes, it's a good idea to know about this. Hence this week's posting!
Liver 101
Let's back up for a minute and talk about your liver. The liver is one of the largest organs in the body, weighing about three pounds. It's located in the right upper abdomen, below the diaphragm. It's pretty amazing what the liver does, if you stop and think about it. Here's ...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - December 16, 2013 Category: Diabetes Authors: Amy Campbell Source Type: blogs
Autoimmunity and wheat
Autoimmunity occurs when your own immune system is no longer able to distinguish friend from foe. It means that antibodies, lymphocytes, killer T cells, macrophages and inflammation-mediating proteins can’t tell the difference between, say, the protein of a fungal wall from proteins in your liver or joints. It’s as weird as a mother not recognizing her children, sometimes as tragic as friendly fire.
Depending on which tissues in which organs are attacked, the misdirected immune attack of autoimmunity can express itself as autoimmune hepatitis (liver tissue), primary biliary cirrhosis (bile ducts), type 1 dia...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - December 13, 2013 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
A quiet, contemplative man of inaction can be the true healer
I’m sending a patient downtown to see a pancreatic expert. He’s a young man who didn’t fully appreciate the health risks of a former alcohol addiction. He’s been sober for well over a year, but alcohol toxicity can be unforgiving and permanent.
We don’t fully understand why some alcoholics develop cirrhosis and other complications while others seem to skate by without a scratch. While I want folks who have the strength to conquer addictions to regain lost health and opportunities, many life choices lead to irreversible consequences. Life is often an unfair mystery. We witness this in medicine often. Some smokers ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - November 26, 2013 Category: Family Physicians Tags: Physician GI Source Type: blogs
