The BBC reports on findings of the Royal College of Surgeons that the rules for approving medical devices in the United Kingdom leave a lot to be desired, much as they do in the US. Notwithstanding...
Diane Archer
Four tips for reducing your chances of getting pneumonia
Pneumonia is an infection in one or both of a person’s lungs caused by bacteria, viruses and fungi. People over 65 are at the highest risk. When symptoms are serious, it can take a long time...
Sanders introduces market-based plan to rein in drug prices
Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) have announced legislation, the Prescription Drug Price Relief Act, that is a bi-partisan market-based solution to cut prescription drug...
Avoid memory supplements
Today, there are about 80,000 dietary supplement products on the market, up from 4,000 25 years ago. Of those, some 500 are memory supplement products. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO)...
Why aren’t hospitals designed with older patients in mind?
Last Saturday, I was with my mother-in-law at the rehab facility to which she had been sent for physical therapy the previous evening, post hospital discharge, to regain the strength she needed to...
With the midterms behind us, there’s good reason to get...
With 70 percent of the public supporting Medicare for all, including a majority of Republicans, there’s good reason to be pushing hard for it. The midterm elections are yet another reason to...
2019 Medicare Handbook is misleading
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), has released the 2019 Medicare Handbook, which continues to be misleading in its...
Amarin makes unsupported claims about its heart disease medicine
As we all know, some pharmaceutical companies will go very far to sell their products. Shefali Luthra reports for Kaiser Health News that Amarin has been making unsupported claims about the benefits...
The price we pay for insulin
Insulin was discovered 100 years ago. Still, pharmaceutical companies marketing the drug are making enormous profits from it today by patenting new formulations and ways to deliver it. The price we...
Will Pharma’s campaign contributions to House Democrats...
For the last ten years, the pharmaceutical industry has donated most of its Congressional campaign support to Republican candidates. But, knowing that the Democrats were likely to control the House...