Share Buybacks: Mismeasured and Misunderstood
In March of this year,Forbespublished an article with the following lede:The Economist has called them “an addiction to corporate cocaine.” Reuters has called them “self-cannibalization.” The Financial Timeshas called them “an overwhelming conflict of interest.” In an article that won the HBR McKinsey Award for the best article of the year, Harvard Business Review has called them “stock price manipulation.” These influential journals make a powerful case that wholesale stock buybacks are a bad idea—bad economically, bad financially, bad socially, bad legally and bad morally.There is no shortage of ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 30, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Derek Bonett Source Type: blogs
Saying No to the Drug Crisis
By BRIAN KLEPPER
In a recent essay, VIVIO Health’s CEO Pramod John guides us through four sensible drug policy changes and supporting rationales that could make drug pricing much fairer. Reading through it, one is struck by the magnitude of the drug manufacturing industry’s influence over policy, profoundly benefiting that sector at the deep expense of American purchasers. As Mr. John points out, the U.S. has the world’s only unregulated market for drug pricing. We have created a safe harbor provision that allows and protects unnecessary intermediaries like pharmacy benefit managers. We have created mechanisms that u...
Source: The Health Care Blog - November 27, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Pharmaceuticals Politics Brian Klepper drug prices Pfizer Source Type: blogs
How Could We Reconcile Health Technologies and Environmental Sustainability?
The growth of the digital health market entails the appearance of newer and newer fitness trackers, wearables, health sensors – leaving the older models to the sock drawer or worse, the dustbin. What happens to health tech’s waste and what options do people have who don’t want their gadgets to end up in the trash towns of developing countries?
More plastic than fish in the oceans soon
“If the present trends continue, by 2050 our oceans will have more plastic than fish”, said Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations to mark World Environment Day in June 2018. Not only the oceans started to be fil...
Source: The Medical Futurist - November 24, 2018 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Bioethics Business Healthcare Design Healthcare Policy Policy Makers Researchers digital health digital health tech e-waste electronic environment green health technology Innovation planet recycling sustainability Source Type: blogs
Healthy eating through the holidays
Holiday time is here again! So are the joys and challenges of holiday eating. The big challenge is to have fun at special occasions without jeopardizing some of the healthy practices you have worked on throughout the year.
Here are some tips to help you survive the holiday season.
Do not arrive hungry to the party! Skipping meals before a holiday party in an effort to save calories for the big party will only make you overeat. Eat a light meal or snack before arriving to the party. A snack or meal that is high in fiber and contains lean protein is ideal because it can help control your appetite and help you avoid overeatin...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - November 20, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Katherine D. McManus, MS, RD, LDN Tags: Diet and Weight Loss Health Healthy Eating Source Type: blogs
The " Proximity Advantage " Enjoyed by Retail, Walk-In Clinics Over Health Systems
This article caused me to reflect on what I will call the"proximity advantage" held by the rapidly expanding walk-in clinics in drug stores and Walmart. As noted above, CVS and Walgreens combined have about 20,000 stores in the U.S. which means that one of them will always be very close to the vast majority of American healthcare consumers. This proximity to consumers provides a distinct advantage over hospitals in the competition for primary care patients. In addition, these clinics are beginning to offer services to a broader range of patients. When it purchased Aetna, CVS announced that it would be...
Source: Lab Soft News - November 20, 2018 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Innovations Healthcare Insurance Hospital Financial Medical Consumerism Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
From Russia with Money - Harvard Medical School Accepts $200 Million from Russian Emigre with Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Putin, and Who Is Under Investigation for US Election Meddling
We present a big case of what looks like an entirely new, and very troubling variation on an institutional conflict of interest.A " Transformative " Gift to Harvard Medical SchoolOn November 8, 2018, Felice Freyer, writingin the Boston Globe, documented a huge new gift to Harvard Medical School.Harvard Medical School has received a $200 million donation— the largest in its history — to support research into fundamental questions about human illness and health.The pledge,from the Blavatnik Family Foundation, will enable the school to hire researchers, add to its advanced technology, and a build an ' incubator ' in the L...
Source: Health Care Renewal - November 18, 2018 Category: Health Management Tags: conflicts of interest crime Donald Trump Harvard Harvard Medical School institutional conflicts of interest oligarchy revolving doors Russia Source Type: blogs
Scottish Banks and the Bank Restriction, 1797-1821, Part 3
Having considered, intwoprevious essays, the origins, legality, and adverse consequences of the Scottish bank suspension, we ’re now ready to ask whether, and in what ways, that episode compels us to reconsider the virtues of free banking, both as practiced in Scotland and in general.If the Scottish bankers were indeed guilty of “violating the property rights of their depositors and noteholders,” asMurray Rothbard and some others charge, does that mean that it ’s not legitimate to treat the Scottish episode as an example of the advantages of freedom in banking? Does it mean that free banking on a fractional-reserve...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 13, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs
WWI, Honor, and U.S. Foreign Policy
Yesterday marked 100 years since the end of the First World War. TheWashington Post’s Monkey Cage blog used the occasion to publishan excellent commentary, based on alonger academic journal article, by political scientists Alexander Lanoszka and Michael A. Hunzeker. They argue that the Great War could have actually ended long before the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. Two years earlier, in December 1916, both “Germany and the United States issued peace overtures” that, if heeded, “could have spared c ountless lives and have helped Europe escape the financial ruin and deep-seated a...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 12, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: John Glaser Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 12th 2018
This study's researchers approached all people turning 85 in 2006 in two cities in the UK for participation. At the beginning of the study in 2006-2007, there were 722 participants, 60 percent of whom were women. The participants provided researchers with information about what they ate every day, their body weight and height measurements, their overall health assessment (including any level of disability), and their medical records.
The researchers learned that more than one-quarter (28 percent) of very old adults had protein intakes below the recommended dietary allowance. The researchers noted that older adults w...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 11, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Higher Protein Intake Associated with Slower Onset of Disability in Old People
This study's researchers approached all people turning 85 in 2006 in two cities in the UK for participation. At the beginning of the study in 2006-2007, there were 722 participants, 60 percent of whom were women. The participants provided researchers with information about what they ate every day, their body weight and height measurements, their overall health assessment (including any level of disability), and their medical records.
The researchers learned that more than one-quarter (28 percent) of very old adults had protein intakes below the recommended dietary allowance. The researchers noted that older adults w...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 8, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
The Most Pro-Immigration House of Representatives in Over a Century
In this election, journalists following the immigration beat will focus on the outcomes of individual races. Dave Brat, the Virginia nativist whose defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014 doomed hopes of immigration reform, lost in a previously safe GOP seat. Democrats blew out Corey Stewart in Virginia and Lou Barletta in Pennsylvania, the most anti-immigrant Senate candidates. Kris Kobach, the author of state anti-immigrant laws across the country, cost Republicans the governorship in Kansas.But the two most important outcomes of this election are in the big picture. First, nativists have officially squandere...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 7, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: David Bier Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 5th 2018
In conclusion, weight cycling significantly increased life-span relative to remaining with obesity and had a similar benefit to sustained modest weight loss.
Support for Oxidized Cholesterol as a Primary Cause of Atherosclerosis
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2018/11/support-for-oxidized-cholesterol-as-a-primary-cause-of-atherosclerosis/
In the paper I'll point out today, the authors provide evidence in support of the concept that it is specifically oxidized cholesterol that is the primary cause of atherosclerosis rather than the condition resulting from too much cholesterol in general. In atherosc...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 4, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Recent Research into the Interaction of Exercise and Aging
Today's open access papers touch on aspects of the interaction between exercise and the pace of aging. People age at somewhat different rates, and for the vast majority of us lifestyle is a far greater determinant of that rate than our genes. Until such time as the clinical deployment of rejuvenation therapies is well underway, and in regions of the world sufficiently wealthy to have tamed the majority of infectious disease, it remains the case that our choices regarding our health, such as calorie restriction and exercise, are the most reliable means of improving life expectancy. The size of the effect is not enormous in ...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 2, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Nurses and Patient Loads: The Solution Lies in Process Change, Not Maximums
Shortages of clinical staff plague communities around the world. Even my state of Massachusetts, a medical Mecca, has a shocking dearth of professionals in mental health. Health care reformers understand that shortages much be addressed through a careful and deep investigation into the hospital and clinic processes and practices. Streamlining processes through data analytics and the deft application of new technologies for monitoring and recording information will probably help.
Nurses probably experience the crunch of patient loads more than other staff. Unfortunately, some of them try to force a quick fix on their instit...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - November 1, 2018 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Business Intelligence Healthcare Reform Medical Economics Massachusetts Question 1 Nursing Nursing Staff Levels Patient Loads Staffing Source Type: blogs
Scottish Banks and the Bank Restriction, 1797-1821, Part 2
Inmy opening post about Scottish banks ’ suspension of specie payments, I explained that, although the suspension was technically illegal, it failed to provoke any lawsuits in part because it was no less in the interest of many Scottish citizens, and Scottish bank creditors especially, than it was in that of Scottish bankers themselves. Rather than sue their banks, large numbers of prominent Scotsmen resolved publicly to make and receive payments in notes issued either by the Bank of England or by the Scottish banks themselves.But while many Scots may have been willing, at least grudgingly, to accept bank notes rather th...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 31, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs
