From the monthly archives:

May 2007

TB and Andrew Speaker

May 31, 2007

ABC News with what he is likely to go through:
Thursday, doctors at National Jewish planned to try two more antibiotics against the extensively drug-resistant disease — one oral, the other an intravenous injection.
Dr. Henry Boom, director of the tuberculosis research unit at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, said such a “cocktail” is [...]

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Gupta on the TB scare

May 31, 2007

CNN’s Sanjay Gupta says it should be a wake-up call:
More than anything, I think this one case reflects deeper failings in our public health system. What if there were ten cases, instead of just the one? What if it were smallpox or a bioterrorism attack? Are we ready?

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Why health care is expensive

May 31, 2007

Panda Bear minces no words:
1. Patients are not encouraged or expected to take personal responsibility for their own health . . .
2. As every insurance scheme insulates the patient from the true cost of health care, there is no incentive for patients to make good economic decisions . . .
3. The legal environment makes it [...]

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EHRs and real life

May 31, 2007

There is often a disconnect between what an EHR programmer anticipates and real life.

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Gawande on health reform: "It is not single-payer"

May 31, 2007

His most recent op-ed talks about the health reform possibilities:
This is what that road looks like. It is not single-payer. It instead follows the lead of European countries ranging from the Netherlands to Switzerland to Germany that provide universal coverage (and more doctors, hospitals and access to primary care) through multiple private insurers while spending [...]

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Brain surgery canceled six times

May 31, 2007

Due to “capacity” issues in Canada:
In March 2006, Mary Lou Frye had a seizure and drove off the Fraser Highway into a ditch.
A CAT scan revealed a golf ball-sized tumour behind her left eye. She had surgery in May 2006, but bleeding cut the operation short, leaving part of the tumour.
She now has two tumours [...]

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The most ethical pharmaceutical?

May 31, 2007

So far, Glaxo comes out ahead this year.

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Smoking and your penis

May 31, 2007

The NHS of all people, with some clever marketing:
(via PharmaGossip)

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Chest pain in the ER

May 31, 2007

The age-old question, how can you tell if it’s cardiac or not? Scalpel writes from the ER perspective.

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GSK plays defense on Avandia

May 31, 2007

They are reaching out to the Lancet and WSJ.

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Is the pressure getting to Steven Nissen?

May 30, 2007

An anonymous blog posting has got him riled up:
Arbesfeld included in his e-mail a comment on a blog posting, originally published in the Wall Street Journal, that accuses Nissen of primarily criticizing manufacturers that do not support drug trials at the Cleveland Clinic: “Wake up, pharmaceutical companies “¦ if you don’t hire the Cleveland Clinic [...]

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Hypnosis show volunteer sues over psychological damage

May 30, 2007

There is no precedent for a case like this:
Johnson, then a senior at Hercules High School, volunteered with several other students to be hypnotized by Cady. But he and his mother allege in a negligence suit filed earlier this month that toward the end of the performance, “while still in a hypnotic trance, [he] proceeded [...]

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Stroke and tPA: A journalist seeks an anonymous commenter

May 30, 2007

The recent NY Times’ piece on stroke has generated some controversy. A journalist for a national magazine is interested in talking to the authors of some of the anonymous comments that the post generated:
I am a freelance medical investigative journalist and I will be examining how medical studies are misinterpreted for a feature article [...]

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