New Report Looks At Intersection of "Medical Lending" and Pelvic Mesh Lawsuits
A recent article in Reuters shed an interesting and potentially disturbing light on the “medical lending” industry, which operates in some cases by funding surgeries for patients involved in litigation over allegedly defective medical devices. The article focused on pelvic mesh lawsuits against device companies—one of the biggest sources of personal injury litigation in the country. Financers here will “invest” in operations to remove implants from women suing the device makers, and “reap an inflated share of the payouts when cases settle,” according to the report.
The way this works, in short, is that medica...
Source: Policy and Medicine - August 26, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Purdue Pharma Settles With New York AG Over Oxycontin Promotion; Agrees To Long List of Requirements To Ensure “Responsible and Transparent Marketing”
New York’s Attorney General recently announced an agreement with Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin, that holds the company to a long list of requirements aimed at stemming the recent increase in opioid addiction and opioid-related deaths. The settlement resolves an investigation launched in December 2013 where the government found Purdue may have “failed to take the necessary steps” to ensure their sales reps properly flagged prescribers who may abuse or divert the medication. Further, the settlement resolves the government’s investigation into Purdue’s unbranded pain advocacy website. While ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - August 24, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
How Dare the FDA Approve Pain Relief for Kids
How dare they!
This senator is disgusted — DISGUSTED — with the FDA’s recent decision to approve the long-acting opiate pain medication OxyContin for children as young as 11.
“An 11 year old’s brain has another 14 years before it is fully developed. We have years of evidence that shows that drug use at an early age makes a child more likely to abuse drugs later in life,” he said in his letter to the FDA. “You have ignored all of this. Instead, under your new guidance, we are literally poisoning our children’s brains and setting them up for future drug abuse.”
Excuse me, Senator, but this kind ...
Source: Musings of a Dinosaur - August 18, 2015 Category: Primary Care Authors: notdeaddinosaur Tags: Medical Source Type: blogs
Eat, pray push?
I’ve previously expressed my reluctance to dwell very much on the issue of constipation, but this common issue is one of the defining problems with wheat and grains, despite widespread conventional advice that they are healthy sources of fiber.
Here’s an excerpt from chapter 4 of Wheat Belly Total Health, Your Bowels Have Been Fouled: Intestinal Indignities From Grains:
“A condition as pedestrian as constipation serves to perfectly illustrate many of the ways in which grains mess with normal body functions, as well as just how wrong conventional ‘solutions’ can be. Constipation remedies are li...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - July 30, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Wheat Belly Lifestyle bowel movements constipation fiber gastrointestinal gluten grains Source Type: blogs
OIG Continues Fight Against Medicare Part D Fraud and Abuse With Two New Reports
Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the largest ever Medicare Fraud Strike Force sweep, with charges brought against 243 individuals for approximately $712 million in billings. More than 44 of the defendants arrested were charged with fraud related to the Medicare prescription drug benefit program known as Part D. The HHS Office of Inspector General has now released two reports that similarly target Part D fraud. “OIG has seen an increase in Part D fraud complaints,” the agency states. “As such, OIG has made Part D fraud a top priority.”
Their first report, Ensuring the Integrity of Med...
Source: Policy and Medicine - June 24, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Test your medicine knowledge: 28-year-old man with recurrent headaches
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 28-year-old man is evaluated for a 5-year history of recurrent headache that occurs several times per month and lasts 12 to 24 hours. He describes the headache as a bilateral frontal pressure associated with nasal congestion and sensitivity to light, sound, and smell. The pain is generally moderate in intensity but worsens when he bends forward or exercises and has caused him to miss 3 days of work recently. He has no nausea or visual or neurologic symptoms. The patient has a history of nonseasonal allergic rh...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - June 13, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: mksap Tags: Conditions Neurology Source Type: blogs
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The urine drug screen commonly utilized in the emergency department is an immunoassay that uses antibodies to detect specific drugs or their metabolites. This allows for rapid screening for drugs of abuse, but it has many limitations.
Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is the confirmatory test, but it is more costly, time-consuming, and generally can only be performed by outside laboratories. This confirmatory test is generally not useful in the emergency department, but has a role in cases of pediatric exposures, research, or occupational drug testing.
One of the limitations of a urine drug screen a...
Source: The Tox Cave - June 1, 2015 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The urine drug screen commonly utilized in the emergency department is an immunoassay that uses antibodies to detect specific drugs or their metabolites. This allows for rapid screening for drugs of abuse, but it has many limitations.
Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is the confirmatory test, but it is more costly, time-consuming, and generally can only be performed by outside laboratories. This confirmatory test is generally not useful in the emergency department, but has a role in cases of pediatric exposures, research, or occupational drug testing.
One of the limitations of a urine drug s...
Source: The Tox Cave - June 1, 2015 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Guilty!
No, not a bankster or a torturer. Jamie Dimon, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld still walk free. Still, this guy Kevin Lowe is one sick puppy. He's a physician who ran phony clinics for the purpose of writing prescriptions for oxycodone. One of his physician employees, Robert Terdiman, wrote more than 17,000 scrips in 18 months, totaling 3 million pills, which sell on the street for up to $30. And that's where they were going -- the clinics didn't directly serve addicts, rather they generated supply for a distribution operation. Lowe posted $5 million bail, but Preet Bharara has gotten his man. According to the press releas...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 15, 2015 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
District Court Dismisses Chicago's Painkiller Marketing Lawsuit Against Four of Five Opioid Manufacturers; Purdue Pharma Still on the Hook
District Court Judge Jorge Alonso of the Northern District of Illinois recently dismissed the City of Chicago’s lawsuit against four out of five pharmaceutical manufacturers that the city accused of marketing opioids in violation of Illinois’ consumer fraud laws and for causing doctors and pharmacies to submit, and the city to pay, claims that were false. Judge Alonso found the majority of allegations lacked the necessary specificity needed for a successful case. For example, while the City alleged fraudulent marketing schemes in fairly good detail, the complaint failed to mention the names of Chicago doctors or consum...
Source: Policy and Medicine - May 13, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Cartoon: America’s Problem With Pain Meds
(Source: Better Health)
Source: Better Health - March 13, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Dr. Val Jones Tags: Friday Funny Humor addiction Allergic Reaction cartoon Overuse Oxycontin Pain Medication Pharmacists Source Type: blogs
Top stories in health and medicine, March 13, 2015
From MedPage Today:
Opioid Abuse Drops, Then Levels Off. Making an abuse-deterrent formulation of OxyContin (oxycodone ) diminished abuse in the short term, but the reductions eventually hit a plateau.
After Ebola, Measles Death Toll Could Be High. The death toll from post-Ebola measles outbreaks in three West African countries could rival that of Ebola itself.
Time Is Right for E-Cig Regulation. Reducing the risks of e-cigarettes to smokers, encouraging the smoking-cessation potential, and restricting access by nonsmokers offer a regulatory trifecta that can be implemented immediately.
Risky Business: Working Where Viol...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 13, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: MedPage Today Tags: News Emergency Infectious disease Pain management Source Type: blogs
Delirium and Physostigmine: ECG helps in Management
This patient took an unknown overdose and was delirious. The axillae were dry. Due to delirium and dry skin, there was suspicion of anticholinergic toxicity.Here is his ECG:There is sinus tachycardia. There is also some QRS widening and a large R-wave in aVR, and an rSR' (RV conduction delay) in lead V1. The QRS duration is 107 ms. There is QT prolongation as well, with a computerized (Bazett) QTc of 480 ms (prolonged).The prolonged QRS and RV conduction delay make this very suspicious for Na channel blockade, and, most worrisome, for tricyclic antidepressant overdose (TCA).Do we treat the del...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - March 7, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs
Painkillers? Prozac? Brazilian Blowout? Hotline Counsels Pregnant Women On Risks
By Carey Goldberg
Reprinted from Common Health
Joy Shapiro of Framingham, Mass., was the sort of hyper-cautious expectant mother who doesn’t just cut out alcohol and caffeine. She worried about the ingredients in everything she consumed or put on her body, from fitness drinks to sunscreen.
But thanks to a referral from her obstetrician, she had a secret weapon against her anxiety: Patricia Cole, the program coordinator for MotherToBaby Massachusetts — also known as the Pregnancy Exposure Infoline — whom she “bombarded” with queries.
“At one point, I emailed her like 20 ingredients that were in ...
Source: Cord Blood News - March 2, 2015 Category: Perinatology & Neonatology Authors: joyce at mazelabs.com Tags: babies blood disorder brain development Cord Blood medical research parents pregnancy affordable cord blood banking bone marrow breast feeding cerebral palsy cord blood banking cost comparison cord blood banking information cord Source Type: blogs
Chronic Pain — The Invisible Public Health Crises
Chronic Pain -- The Invisible Public Health CrisesA Call for Moral Leadership“I am an invisible man. No I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe: Nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, simply because people refuse to see me.”- Ralph EllisonRalph Ellison’s famous novel, The Invisible Man, starts with this passage, which also reminds me of the problem of chronic pain. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, Relieving Pain in America, documented the more than 100...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - February 7, 2015 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Practical Bioethics Tags: Health Care bioethics chronic pain medical ethics pain resources syndicated Source Type: blogs
