When ideology trumps reality
< br / > (I took a few days off to rest my brain. Results are mixed, but I ' m back.) < br / > < br / > < a href= " http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1515195 " > You may have heard about the HIV outbreak in Scott County, Indiana < /a > . (Not sure how much of this the grand poobahs at New England Journal of Medicine will let you read, but I ' ll run it down for you.) < br / > < br / > This is a rural area, almost entirely white, with high unemployment and poverty. The governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, is now the Vice Presidential candidate of the Republican party. Prior to 2015, with Pence ' s backing, Indiana outl...
Source: Stayin' Alive - July 25, 2016 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Abort, Retry, Fail - Billionaire Bill Gates Opines, Sans Evidence, on ... the Efficacy of Hepatitis C Treatment?
Conclusions So maybe Bill Gates' seemingly ill-informed apologia for the extremely high drug prices charged in the US, and his lack of understanding of the evidence about the efficacy, or lack thereof, of some of these high priced drugs is a small humorous story that indicates just the tip of the iceberg. It appears that in our current market fundamentalist, neoliberal world, foundations may be more about promoting the commercial interests of their board members and officers than about improving the lot of humanity. Yet for the most part they may succeed in obfuscating what they are doing through the haze of ma...
Source: Health Care Renewal - July 14, 2016 Category: Health Management Tags: conflicts of interest Gates Foundation Genentech Gilead global health health care foundations hepatitis C Sovaldi Source Type: blogs
Health Expenditure Projections: When Does ‘New’ Become ‘Normal’?
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released its latest forecast of medical spending for the next decade. The headline number is that medical care as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to increase from its current 17.5 percent of GDP to 20.1 percent by 2025, resuming an upward increase after a several year slowdown.
Forecasting is an inexact science. To make guesses about the future, analysts typically examine the past. The history of medical spending can roughly be described using Fuchs’ law: medical spending increases have exceeded GDP increases by about 2.5 percentage points annua...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 13, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: David Cutler Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP Medicare Payment Policy ACA ACOs Alternative Payment Models MACRA spending projections Source Type: blogs
Limiting gay men donating blood: Discriminatory or rooted in science?
In the wake of the horrific Orlando shootings, there has been renewed attention given to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) so-called ban on blood donations from gay men. A congressman called the ban discriminatory, and demanded it’s repeal — a call joined by the American Medical Student Association.
I can understand how many gay men feel. I often donated blood at various American Red Cross locations. Either they loved my blood or have way too many volunteers, because I was seemingly besieged with calls every eight weeks (the minimum waiting time between blood donations). Then in Februa...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 13, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Vamsi Aribindi Tags: Conditions Infectious disease Source Type: blogs
Health Spending Growth: Still Facing A Triangle Of Painful Choices
The rate of growth in health spending increased in 2014 and 2015 but has recently trended downward, perhaps toward the record low levels experienced from 2009 through 2013. That’s the good news. The bad news is that even these record low levels are not sustainable in the long run without sacrifices that will cause extreme pain across the political-economic spectrum.
The Current Path of National Health Spending
In the four years immediately following the recession (2010 through 2013), health spending grew at a historically low average annual rate of 3.6 percent, about the same as gross domestic product (GDP). This era was...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 23, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Charles Roehrig Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Medicaid and CHIP Medicare culture of health GDP national health spending Triangle of Painful Choices Source Type: blogs
Government Appropriation Of Breakthrough Drug Patent Rights Would Deter Biopharmaceutical R&D And Innovation
In the May 2016 issue of Health Affairs, Amy Kapezynski and Aaron Kesselheim propose that the federal government invoke its patent use authority under Section 1498 to lower drug prices and increase access for breakthrough medicines in government-funded health care programs. Section 1498 allows the government eminent domain-type powers to circumvent an inventor’s patent exclusivity rights in exchange for “reasonable and entire compensation” — in effect a royalty on sales which would be determined through negotiation or by the courts.
To date, application of Section 1498 has been limited to selective military and...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 20, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Henry Grabowski Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Technology Big Pharma Cooperative Research and Development Agreements eminent domain hepatitis C Section 1498 Sovaldi Source Type: blogs
Competition at Work!
Recently, pharmaceutical companies have been pricing many of their products at astounding values. A couple years ago, in fact, an amazing new hepatitis C drug came to market priced at about $90,000 per patient. But since that time, several other … Continue reading →
The post Competition at Work! appeared first on PeterUbel.com. (Source: blog.bioethics.net)
Source: blog.bioethics.net - June 20, 2016 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Peter Ubel Tags: Health Care Peter Ubel syndicated Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Making Hepatitis C A Rare Disease In The United States
New breakthrough medicines for Hepatitis C present an important choice about setting goals and taking systemic action to achieve public health advances in the United States. Despite appearing to offer cure rates greater than 90 percent, high-priced Hepatitis C drugs have driven treatment rationing since their approval over two years ago. Gaps in the screening, diagnosis, and treatment of Hepatitis C pose significant public health consequences.
In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified Hepatitis C as the leading infectious killer in the United States in 2014—the first year in which new me...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 15, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Victor Roy, Dave Chokshi, Stephen Kissler and Prabhjot Singh Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Technology Equity and Disparities Featured Global Health Population Health Public Health Gilead hepatitis C Sovaldi Source Type: blogs
TWiV 393: Lovers and livers
Possible sexual transmission of Zika virus, and a cell protein that allows hepatitis C virus replication in cell culture by enhancing vitamin E mediated protection against lipid peroxidation, are the subjects discussed by the TWiVerati on this week’s episode of the science show This Week in Virology.
You can find TWiV #393 at microbe.tv/twiv, or listen below.
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Download TWiV 393 (68 MB .mp3, 94 min)
Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email, Google Play Music
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Source: virology blog - June 12, 2016 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology cell culture flavivirus hepatitis C virus lipid peroxidation replication replicon SEC14L2 semen sexual transmission viral viruses vitamin E zika virus Source Type: blogs
CRISPR Serves Up More than DNA
The marine bacterium Marinomonas mediterranea uses a CRISPR system to spot invading RNAs and store a memory of the invasion event in its genome. Research team member Antonio Sanchez-Amat was the first to isolate and characterize this bacterial species. Credit: Antonio Sanchez-Amat, University of Murcia.
A new study has added another twist to the CRISPR story. As we’ve highlighted in several recent posts, CRISPR is an immune system in bacteria that recognizes and destroys viral DNA and other invading DNA elements, such as transposons. Scientists have adapted CRISPR into an indispensable gene-editing tool now widely used ...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 8, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Kathryn Calkins Tags: Genetics Bacteria CRISPR Gene Editing RNA Source Type: blogs
Massachusetts Cost Trend Report and Suggestions
This report built on those four areas in its analysis and recommendations.
Findings
The report found that Massachusetts' healthcare spending grew by 4.8% in 2014. This amount exceeded the spending benchmark, but likely because of growth in MassHealth spending (driven in part by enrollment growth) and spending on prescription drugs across all market sectors. However, despite the high growth in prescription drug spending, total per capita spending growth was under the benchmark in all major market segments, including MassHealth.
The report also found that Massachusetts performed well "relative to the rest of the U.S. o...
Source: Policy and Medicine - June 7, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
Is High Prescription Drug Spending Becoming Our New Normal?
This report concluded there was value in these therapies but also raised concerns about whether their effects will translate into lower rates of heart attack and stroke. Further, ICER concluded that a discount of 67 percent off the drugs’ list price would better represent their overall benefit. ICER’s assessment is still in draft form and it remains unclear whether the report will have any effect. Nevertheless, such work is a step in the right direction.
Other entities are developing alternative methods to evaluate prescription drugs. The American Society for Clinical Oncology has sought comment on its proposed val...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - May 17, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Leigh Purvis and Crystal Kuntz Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Technology Featured Payment Policy Quality Big Pharma Biosimiliar Comparative Effectiveness FDA PCSK9 inhibitors Sovaldi specialty drugs Source Type: blogs
TWiV 389: Alphabet hepatitis with Stan Lemon
Vincent speaks with Stan Lemon about his career in virology, from early work on Epstein Barr virus, through making essential discoveries about hepatitis A virus, hepatitis C virus, and rhinoviruses, on episode #389 of the science show This Week in Virology.
You can find TWiV #389 at microbe.tv/twiv, or listen below.
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Download TWiV 389 (53 MB .mp3, 73 min)
Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email, Google Play Music (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - May 15, 2016 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology antiviral Epstein-Barr virus hepatitis a virus hepatitis C virus mIR-122 naked virus quasi-enveloped virus Stan Lemon viruses Source Type: blogs
Drug Price Control: How Some Government Programs Do It
Drug pricing is having its moment. Thousand-dollar pills to treat Hepatitis C, eye-popping price hikes for common generics, and surging overall spending on pharmaceuticals have rung alarm bells from coast to coast. All the while, drugs continue to be up to twice as expensive in the U.S. as in other wealthy countries. Proposed treatments for the drug pricing epidemic are varied, but some call for government to do more.
(Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog)
Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog - May 10, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Source Type: blogs
Hepatitis C and Dietary Supplements
The latest National Center for Complimentary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) Clinical Digest focuses on hepatitis C and several of the dietary and herbal supplements studied since many people who have hepatitis C have tried these various options. For example, a survey of 1,145 participants in the HALT-C (Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-Term Treatment Against Cirrhosis) trial found that 23 percent of the participants were using herbal products. Although participants reported using many different herbal products, silymarin (milk thistle) was by far the most common. However, no dietary supplement has been shown to be efficacious f...
Source: BHIC - May 10, 2016 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Carolyn Martin Tags: General Source Type: blogs
