Postal Privatization Gaining Broad Support
Brookings scholar Elaine Kamarck has a new study favoring partial privatization of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Her study comes on the heels of a solid study by Clinton administration economist Robert Shapiro, who looked at the subsidies and regulatory protections enjoyed by the USPS.
Conservative and libertarian scholars have discussed the advantages of USPS privatization for years. Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, and other countries have privatized their systems. But the mainstream media and leaders in Congress have taken little notice. Kamarck’s study generated a respectful news story in the Washington Post, so ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 6, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
A Parasite meets Wall Street
By SAURABH JHA, MD
Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite that causes opportunistic infection in helpless people. It may have met its match. The cost of treating Toxoplasmosis, a rare but extant infection, just shot up exponentially. Drug-resistant strain, you ask? Have physicians in Infectious Disease gone mercenary, you wonder? No. A change in ownership.
Daraprim (pyrimethamine) is a nifty drug which kills parasites. It’s been around for eons. I still recall its name from my medical school pharmacology exam. The price of Daraprim, whose production barely costs a dollar, may rise from $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill, after the ri...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 24, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: THCB Daraprim Pharma Sovaldi Turing Source Type: blogs
Hurricane Katrina: Remembering the Federal Failures
Ten years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast and generated a huge disaster. The storm flooded New Orleans, killed more than 1,800 people, and caused $100 billion in property damage. The storm’s damage was greatly exacerbated by the failures of Congress, the Bush administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Weather forecasters warned government officials about Katrina’s approach, so they should have been ready for it. But they were not, and Katrina exposed major failures in America’s disaster preparedness and response systems.
Here are s...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 27, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
Pythiosis in Humans
The following background data are abstracted from Gideon www.GideonOnline.com Primary references are available on request.
Human pythiosis was first described in Thailand, in 1987; and thirty-two cases had been published worldwide as of 2002. Most cases are reported from tropical and subtropical regions; however, human infection has also been encountered in United States, Israel and Australia. The principal pathogen is identified as Pythium insidiosum, and at least one case of Pythium aphanidermatum infection has been reported.
Most case reports of pythiosis are published from Thailand, which accounted for 78% of pub...
Source: GIDEON blog - August 18, 2015 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Dr. Stephen Berger Tags: General Source Type: blogs
Profit over Safety – Centers for Disease Control Names 271 New Vaccinations
Conclusion
How many vaccinations will be considered to be a sensible number? If all of the vaccinations currently under development are deemed a success, how many of them will be added to the schedule? As there is little research to determine which ingredients are in the vaccinations listed as “under development” by the CDC, many parents are concerned about their toxicity and how best to protect their children.
I will leave you with the wise words of Robert F, Kennedy Jr: “Vaccine industry money has neutralized virtually all of the checks and balances that once stood between a rapacious pharmaceutical industry and ou...
Source: vactruth.com - August 3, 2015 Category: Allergy & Immunology Authors: Christina England Tags: Christina England Logical Top Stories Centers for Disease Control (CDC) PhRMA Robert F. Kennedy Jr. World Health Organization (WHO) Source Type: blogs
Maryland’s Maverick Health Care Overhaul: A Physician Perspective
Beginning last year, the state of Maryland embarked on an extraordinary new experiment — one that could be a model for the nation. In partnership with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Governor Martin O’Malley’s statewide hospital commission announced in January 2014 that it would address escalating health care costs by tackling the arms race of medical care. The Commission unveiled the framework for a new plan that will pay hospitals for quality over quantity, enabling them to profit from providing more appropriate—rather than simply more—care.
The proposed change of incentives ha...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 20, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Martin Makary and Seth Goldstein Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Health Professionals Hospitals Organization and Delivery Population Health Public Health Quality AHRQ fee-for-service Martin Makary Martin O'Malley Maryland Patient Safety Prevention RVU targets Source Type: blogs
Ida Wells (1862-1931) and the Interconnectedness of Liberty
Today’s Google Doodle honors Ida Wells, born into slavery in Mississippi on this date in 1862, fearless and tireless anti-lynching activist and heroine of free speech. Writer and owner of several publications, Wells was best known for documenting the post-Reconstruction horrors of “sanctioned violence outside the machinery of the state,” as I described it in this space recently.
By the time Wells came to national note in the 1890s, the threat of mob violence had come to be accepted as an endemic part of American life across much of the South and a good part of the North as well. Press freedom, however, was also s...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 16, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs
Racism in physicians: It’s not a black or white issue
Racism and prejudice are endemic in America. Many of us reflexively answer, No, if we are asked if we are prejudiced. I don’t. I say yes.
While I do my best to give everyone a fair shake, I grew up in a white suburban family in the latter decades of the last century. My friends, my parent’s friends and all those we associated with were all the same color. In elementary school, there was but a single black girl in our classroom.
Is it possible for a white kid to grow up surrounded by all of the overt and covert prejudicial and stereotypical influences and somehow emerge pure? I don’t think so. Prejudice today among th...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - June 25, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Michael Kirsch, MD Tags: Physician Primary care Source Type: blogs
You Ought to Have a Look: The Case Against Modern Science
You Ought to Have a Look is a feature from the Center for the Study of Science posted by Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. (“Chip”) Knappenberger. While this section will feature all of the areas of interest that we are emphasizing, the prominence of the climate issue is driving a tremendous amount of web traffic. Here we post a few of the best in recent days, along with our color commentary.
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In this issue of You Ought to Have a Look, we focus on what we think is an extremely important article, written by Richard Horton, long-time editor of The Lancet—a British medical journal considered to be one of the world’s ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 22, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Patrick J. Michaels, Paul C. "Chip" Knappenberger Source Type: blogs
Washington Should Give Gulf State “Allies” No Special Favors
Washington’s determination to defend much of the globe has made the U.S. an international sucker, especially vulnerable to manipulation by supposed friends. Today the Gulf States are upset.
The basic “problem” in their view is that Washington is pursuing the interests of America, not Saudi Arabia & Co., which is seeking hegemony over the Gulf. The administration organized a summit yesterday to assuage their concerns, at which he promised to defend them.
They complain that Washington negotiated to prevent Iranian acquisition of a nuclear weapon rather than demanded Tehran’s surrender when that country said no, as it...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 18, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
Silent Killers Amidst The Fast And The Furious
Attention to Ebola is important. The virus’s ability to easily cross regional and national borders makes it a significant threat to global health and national security. The swift and aggressive international response to the 2014 outbreak of the Ebola virus, which has killed at least 10,000 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, has been laudable and has resulted in positive outcomes, such as reduced disease transmission and strengthened global health and coordination systems.
For example, staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, including those from various divisions at the Na...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - May 7, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Karen R. Siegel, K.M. Venkat Narayan and Christine Hancock Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Global Health Public Health chronic disease Diabetes Ebola H1N1 Source Type: blogs
Over-Budget Hospitals
Nicole Kaeding
The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is plagued with problems. Veterans wait months for medical care and have few options for accessing non-VHA providers. In addition to all of the issues relating to providing health care, construction of VA medical facilities is mismanaged, which burdens taxpayers with billions of dollars in extra costs.
However, the VHA might be trying to change direction. Glenn Haggstrom, the individual who oversees VHA construction, “stepped down” last week after being put under internal investigation. Hopefully, he will be replaced by a reform-minded leader. In 2013 the Govern...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 31, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Nicole Kaeding Source Type: blogs
Did Andreas Lubitz Have Lyme Disease?
Although the editors of InsideSurgery.com did not participate in the care of Andreas Lubitz, we are following news reports closely.
Multiple sources today are reporting that he was under continuing care of a physician who recommended that he stop flying as a commercial airline pilot for Lufthansa controlled Germanwings air service.
Lubitz seems to be a well-liked, non-controversial young man from a stable upbringing who by all accounts loved being a pilot.
What could have caused him to fly his airliner with another 149 people aboard to their certain annihilation into a French mountainside? One wonders what medical conditi...
Source: Inside Surgery - March 27, 2015 Category: Surgery Authors: Editor Tags: Infectious Disease andreas lubitz crash germanwings Lyme disease pilot Source Type: blogs
