Philly VA doc defends himself before Congress
The New York Times‘ Walt Bogdanich has followed up his investigation into a “rogue” cancer unit at a Philadelphia VA hospital with a report on the questioning of one of the alleged rogue doctors, Gary Kao, at a congressional panel headed by Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter. Kao defended himself by claiming that the mistakes he made during a process called brachytherapy (in which tiny radioactive seeds are inserted into a patient’s prostate) were nothing out of the ordinary.
Dr. Kao did not deny placing large numbers of seeds outside the prostate, but he said investigators were wrong to single him out. “It’s a recognized risk of the procedure,” he told the panel.
Dr. Kao’s assertion was disputed by Steven A. Reynolds, who oversees materials safety at the N.R.C., which regulates all nuclear materials. Cases where large numbers of seeds miss the prostate, Mr. Reynolds said, “happen very, very infrequently.”
Kao said he voluntarily appeared before the panel to set the record straight and correct what he called “very serious false allegations” made by Bogdanich’s initial article.
Stimulus boosts health care for poor Americans
The Associated Press’s Kristen Wyatt looks at one category of stimulus spending that’s already making an impact: funding for clinics serving the poor and disadvantaged.
From the Colorado homeless shelter to rural Pennsylvania clinics that can accept new patients, health centers that serve the poor are among the first places the federal stimulus package is being spent.
The stimulus law sets aside $2.5 billion for free and low-cost health clinics, and a big chunk of it - about $500 million - is already being spent. The White House has promised another burst of money this summer.
Wyatt quotes grateful patients and providers, but also tempers the enthusiasm with a reminder that the money comes in the form of one-time grants that aren’t designed to fix the systemic problems behind the lack of health services for America’s poorest residents.
For a full list of Health and Human Services programs receiving stimulus money, visit the HHS page at recovery.gov or use this map to find programs benefiting from the stimulus in your area.
Obama to answer videos, tweets on Wednesday
At 1:15 ET on Wednesday, President Barack Obama will answer questions about health care reform at a live, online town-hall meeting.
In a new wrinkle, the administration will consider questions submitted through several social media outlets:
- On YouTube, people can post brief video replies to Obama’s video invitation
- Twitter users can hashtag their questions with “#WHHCQ“
- On Facebook, people can visit the administration’s page and post their questions there
(Hat tip to Chicago Health Matters)
FDA weighs tougher warnings for acetaminophen
When it comes to acute liver damage, acetaminophen, the painkilling ingredient in Tylenol, is a bigger hazard than alcohol.
Photo by sun dazed via Flickr
Some 56,000 Americans end up in the ER each year as a result of the drug, a ubiquitous ingredient in over-the-counter cough and cold remedies and also one half of the most prescribed medicine in the United States – hydrocodone-APAP.
So the Food and Drug Administration, which has ratcheted up warnings about acetaminophen’s risk in recent years, is holding a two-day meeting seeking advice on what to do next.
For consumers, a big part of the problem is that taking even a little more than the highest recommended daily dose (4 grams for adults) can lead to serious liver damage.
About half the nearly 500 annual cases of liver failure linked to acetaminophen are accidental. It’s easy to overlook the total dose of acetaminophen when taking a pain pill and a combination medicine, for instance.
One option would be a ban on combination drugs, like Theraflu and NyQuil. Makers of over-the-counter drugs say prescription-strength medicines containing acetaminophen account for most of the problems.
The outcome of the meeting will be “an important first test of the FDA’s new power to impose risk evaluation and mitigation strategies on manufacturers of widely used drugs that pose a small but distinct public health threat when misused or abused,” writes FDA-watcher Merrill Goozner on the blog GoozNews.
AMA wants lower med school costs, student debt
In the American Medical Association’s American Medical News, Amy Lynn Sorrel reports on resolutions from the AMA’s annual meeting calling for an increase in medical school funding through scholarships and loans and for the use of other “innovative” debt-reduction programs.
According to Sorrel, students are leaving medical school with debt loads that sometimes top $200,000, burdens which some sources said push students away from longer residencies or lower-paying, underserved specializations and locations.
Delegates at the 2009 meeting called for innovative new measures, including “shortening the length of training for combined residency or dual-degree programs, easing loan repayment obligations and ensuring equitable tuition increases.”
Reporter honored for story on mental health system
Carol Smith, formerly of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, won a 2009 Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism. The contest, presented by the Journalism Center on Children & Families, recognizes distinguished coverage of children and families, particularly the disadvantaged.
Smith’s story, “ ‘Gravely Disabled’: Broken mental health care system wastes money, chances, lives,” won in the “single story under 200,000 circulation” category.
The Journalism Center says “The writing is original, compelling and clear. The story deftly moves from a wrenching narrative of a mother grieving for her tormented son, to a news peg of a recent shooting spree, to explanatory reporting on overtaxed state resources.”
Earlier this year, Smith won an AHCJ Award for Excellence in Health Journalism for “Dangerous and Mentally Ill.”
More pills mean more risk
Sometimes it takes a celebrity to draw attention to something we should have noticed long ago. Though the exact cause of pop icon Michael Jackson’s death remains undetermined, reports of his heavy use of prescription medicines remain at the center of attention.
Cardiologist and blogger Westby Fisher draws a lesson from the Jackson case and his own experience closer to home. “We have become a pill culture,” he writes, gobbling medicines “with barely a thought about their side effects.” That’s a mistake.
Fisher got to thinking about the commonplace but risky combinations of drugs many Americans consume after watching his mother-in-law casually count out a mountain of daily meds then swallow them “like a pelican downing an oversized fish.”
Doctors can be as “pill-obsessed” as patients, he writes, and too often turn to a prescription as a “quick fix” without considering the alternatives – or consequences. At the hospital where Fisher works, he’s noticed more and more side effects – especially abnormal heart rhythms – in patients taking multiple drugs.
Fisher urges patients to disclose all the medicines they’re taking to their doctors. Physicians, for their part, should be more careful when prescribing drugs to patients already on oodles of them.
AHCJ speaker writes about physiology of eating
Filed under: Government, Health journalism, Hot Health Headline
The New York Times’s Tara Parker-Pope reviewed former FDA chief Dr. David Kessler’s new book, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. In it, Kessler seems to paint Americans as victims of a carefully calibrated gustatory assault, explaining that the food industry has perfected the art of creating food that “taps into our brain circuitry and stimulates our desire for more.”
Though he did not write a diet book, Parker-Pope says, Kessler does try to help folks enter “food rehab,” where they can use their new awareness of food science to “take back control of our eating habits.”
Kessler will be a spotlight speaker at AHCJ’s Aging in the 21st Century Workshop, set for Oct. 16 and 17 in Miami. Tapping into the expertise and understanding of human psychology and physiology he showed in his book, Kessler will discuss nutrition and aging at the workshop.
NY stem cell researchers can pay egg donors
The ethical thicket that is stem cell research just got a little more complex. New York became the first state to allow taxpayer-funded researchers to pay women to donate eggs specifically for stem cell experiments.
"Stripped" human oocyte; granulosa cells that had surrounded this oocyte have been removed. Courtesy: RWJMS IVF Laboratory via Wikimedia Commons
The compensation could run as high as $10,000. Supporters argue it will spur better, quicker research results. Opponents say paying for eggs crosses an ethical line.
The state board that made the new policy says it’s just like compensating women for donating eggs for reproductive purposes. But the National Academy of Sciences doesn’t see it that way, saying in its guidelines for stem cell research that payment to donors for eggs is a no-no.
Some scientists in the field say the main source now — eggs left over from in vitro fertilization procedures — hasn’t been adequate. (New York won’t pay for those eggs under the new policy anyway.)
Scientists outside New York are already envious. Harvard stem cell researcher George Q. Daley, told The New York Times, the payment policy “will mean a tremendous advantage” for labs in New York.
Plain Dealer adds ‘price compare’ feature
Filed under: Health journalism, Hot Health Headline
Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Sarah Jane Tribble recently announced a new feature for the paper’s health and fitness blog. Every week, Plain Dealer reporters will comparison shop for a medical treatment, then post a selection of area prices on the blog. 
Tribble said she hopes to empower consumers by showing them just how much prices can vary and enabling them to make more informed health care spending decisions. She invites suggestions from readers and will post prices based cash payments, without assistance from insurance. Tribble will find the prices in public databases, or by calling or visiting area medical providers.
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Awards for Excellence in Health Care JournalismDeadline: Feb. 3
- How I did it: Falsified charts in nursing homes linked to patient care
- Access Denied: Looking at a lack of health care availability
- Transparency & medical errors: Public reporting of patient harm is a potent force
- Focus on freelancing: Tips for buying liability insurance
- Why do some patients get stuck in hospitals for weeks, months?
- Investigate health professionals and the boards that regulate them
- Presidents of AHCJ, SPJ call for more openness from Obama administration
