Public Health
“Cancer of fraud” permeates U.S. healthcare system
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It’s a crime so profitable that even dead people are in on the act.
A U.S. Senate committee revealed last year that public health insurer Medicare had paid as much as $92 million from 2000 to 2007 for medical services or equipment ordered or prescribed by doctors who were dead at the time.
Many had died more than five years before the date when they supposedly ordered or authorized the service.
Healthcare fraud said to cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars a year has garnered increased attention amid the congressional debate about overhauling the U.S. healthcare system—especially since President Barack Obama wants to cover some of the cost of reforms by fighting abuse.
Uzbekistan says closed Kazakh border due to flu
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Uzbekistan said on Wednesday it had closed the border with Central Asian neighbour Kazakhstan as part of a seasonal anti-flu quarantine.
On Monday, Kazakhstan said Uzbekistan shut the border without any explanations and Kazakh media, as well as residents of the Uzbek capital Tashkent, linked the move to fears about an outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus.
On Wednesday, the Uzbek government said in a statement carried by official media that it had enacted quarantine restrictions on the border “due to the spread of seasonal flu.”
Afghanistan is world’s worst place to be born: UN
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Eight years after a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, the war-ravaged state is the most dangerous place in the world for a child to be born, the United Nations said on Thursday.
It is especially dangerous for girls, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in launching its annual flagship report, The State of the World’s Children.
Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world—257 deaths per 1,000 live births, and 70 percent of the population lacks access to clean water, the agency said.
US health companies set for record lobbying in 09
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It’s not just spending on U.S. healthcare that’s hitting record levels. Drugmakers, insurers and industry groups are on track to spend an all-time high of more than $500 million this year to influence Congress’ revamp of the U.S. healthcare system.
Lobbyists for the healthcare sector will likely smash previous spending records by tens of millions of dollars this year as Democratic lawmakers attempt to reshape the industry by expanding coverage and shaving costs.
“If current trends continue, the health sector is likely to spend more than a half-billion dollars on lobbying in 2009,” said The New England Journal of Medicine’s Dr. Robert Steinbrook.
Philip Morris ordered to pay $300 million to smoker
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A Florida jury on Thursday ordered cigarette maker Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million in damages to a 61-year-old ex-smoker named Cindy Naugle who is wheelchair-bound by emphysema.
The Broward Circuit Court jury assessed $56.6 million in past and future medical expenses against the company, part of Altria Group Inc, as well as $244 million in punitive damages.
The verdict is the largest of the so-called Engle progeny cases that have been tried so far, both sides said.
Worst case H1N1 may cut UK economy by 4.3 percent
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- A severe H1N1 flu pandemic could cost the UK economy 72 billion pounds ($121 billion), British scientists said on Friday, but advised against closing schools even if the current mild pandemic takes a turn for the worse.
Researchers from the London School of Economics, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Edinburgh University said a “high fatality” pandemic would cut gross domestic product by 3.3 to 4.3 percent, or 55.5 billion to 72.3 billion pounds.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, said several factors could exacerbate that impact—the extra strain on an economy already in recession, the closure of schools and the absence of large numbers of people from work.
Patients happier when docs discuss side effects
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Hospital patients who suffer a side effect from treatment are more likely to give high ratings to their quality of care when hospital staff are up front about what went wrong, a new study suggests.
In a survey of nearly 2,300 patients treated at 16 Massachusetts hospitals, researchers found that 603 had some sort of “adverse event”—most often side effects from a newly prescribed drug or complications from surgery—during their hospitalization.
When asked whether hospital staff had explained the problem to them, only 40 percent of patients said they had.
Canada sees spike in H1N1 flu-related deaths
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The H1N1 flu killed more people in Canada during the past week than in any other week this year, but health officials said on Tuesday the nation’s vaccination program was going so well that it may reach its peak earlier than expected.
Thirty-seven people died of the pandemic flu Nov. 12-17, bringing Canada’s death toll from H1N1 to 198, out of a population of 34 million. Comparable figures from other weeks were not available.
“Rather than seeing thousands of deaths we’ve been fortunate to have people doing what they need to do (to avoid the flu),” Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada’s chief public health officer, told reporters in Ottawa. “I think we’re in a relatively good position, but a pandemic is always full of surprises.”
In binge-tolerant Japan, alcoholism not seen as disease
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When Japanese civil servant Yoshiyuki Takeuchi saw himself lagging behind his peers at work, alcohol was the only thing he felt he could turn to, becoming the latest victim of an addiction poorly understood in Japan.
“People who started after me would go further in their careers just because they finished college,” said Takeuchi, 50, who had to quit university as his family couldn’t afford it.
“I tried to stop that sense of ‘why always me?’ by drinking.”
Nintendo Wii may provide actual exercise-study
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The new active Wii video games from Nintendo Co Ltd may be creating a healthier generation of couch potato, according to a new study presented on Monday.
Some of the Nintendo Wii sports games and activities included in the Wii fit series, both of which require video- game enthusiasts to get up off the couch, may increase energy expenditure as much as moderate intensity exercise without ever leaving the TV room, researchers said at the American Heart Association (AHA) scientific meeting in Orlando.
“It’s a very easy and fun way to start exercising,” said Motohiko Miyachi, head of a physical activity program at the National Institute of Health and Nutrition in Tokyo, who led the study.
Walking hazard: Cell-phone use—but not music—reduces pedestrian safety
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Two new studies of pedestrian safety found that using a cell phone while hoofing it can endanger one’s health. Older pedestrians, in particular, are impaired when crossing a busy (simulated) street while speaking on a mobile phone, the researchers found.
The studies, in which participants crossed a virtual street while talking on the phone or listening to music, found that the music-listeners were able to navigate traffic as well as the average unencumbered pedestrian. Users of hands-free cell phones, however, took longer to cross the same street under the same conditions and were more likely to get run over.
Older cell-phone users, especially those unsteady on their feet to begin with, were even more likely to become traffic casualties.
Survival up after funds flow into critical care
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Survival rates of patients in intensive care have jumped in England since the government boosted spending and reformed critical care services, a study showed on Friday.
Researchers writing in the British Medical Journal said spending on intensive care services had risen to 1.0 billion pounds in 2005/6 from 700 million in 1999/2000 when adjusted for inflation, producing “major improvements in care”.
Hospital deaths fell more than 13 percent, and 11 percent fewer patients needed to be transferred between intensive care units each year, the study found.
Welcome to the Clone Farm
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To the untrained eye, Pollard Farms looks much like any other cattle ranch. Similar looking cows are huddled in similar looking pens. But some of the cattle here don’t just resemble each other. They are literally identical—clear down to their genes.
Of the 400-some cattle in Barry Pollard’s herd of mostly Black Angus cattle there are 22 clones, genetic copies of some of the most productive livestock the world has ever known.
Pollard, a neurosurgeon and owner of Pollard Farms, says such breeding technology is at the forefront of a new era in animal agriculture. “We’re trying to stay on the very top of the heap of quality, genetically, with animals that will gain well and fatten well, produce well and reproduce well,” Pollard told a reporter during a recent visit to his farm.
Flow of H1N1 vaccines picking up in U.S., CDC says
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The flow of swine flu vaccines to the U.S. market is picking up, health and corporate officials said on Tuesday, and now the challenge will be to get the drugs to people.
Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 41.1 million doses of H1N1 vaccines are either available or have been delivered but that state and local health officials still face logistical problems.
“I can’t tell you how many times in our outreach to our counterparts that we got messages back saying ‘It’s Friday, we are furloughed’ or ‘We are out today’,” Schuchat told a Senate health subcommittee hearing.
U.S. stop-smoking efforts stalled, report shows
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Efforts to help smokers kick the habit have stalled in the United States, with hardly any recent change in smoking rates, federal researchers reported on Thursday.
Just over 20 percent of the adult population smoked in 2008, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 1,000 people take up the habit every day.
“Overall smoking prevalence did not change significantly from 2007 to 2008,” CDC researchers wrote in the weekly report on death and disease.
“In 2008, an estimated 20.6 percent (46 million) of U.S. adults were current cigarette smokers; of these, 79.8 percent (36.7 million) smoked every day, and 20.2 percent (9.3 million) smoked some days.”
