State NAMI chapters got pharma money too
Wall Street Journal health blogger Katherine Hobson writes that, according to an investigation by Sen. Chuck Grassley, state chapters of the National Alliance of Mental Illness received millions of dollars in contributions from pharmaceutical manufacturers in a five-year period. This follows an Oct. 2009 New York Times report which found that “drug makers from 2006 to 2008 contributed nearly $23 million to the alliance, about three-quarters of its donations.”
The group’s state chapters – except for Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut and Hawaii – reported their own donations to Grassley, he wrote in a letter to NAMI’s executive director and president of the board of directors. According to the letter, the California chapter received $632,000 in contributions between January 2005 and October 2009, the most of any state. Ohio NAMI received $623,000 and New York NAMI $448,000. The top ten states received a total of $3.84 million.
Hensley explores HIT-related privacy breaches
Filed under: Health data, Health journalism, Hospitals, Hot Health Headline, Studies
NPR health blogger Scott Hensley writes that the HHS’ running list of “breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals” reads like a sort of police blotter for health wonks, and explores a few of the more interesting cases.
Related: FDA committee recommends anonymous HIT error database
As expected, the FDA’s Health IT Policy Committee endorsed a database to confidentially record reports of HIT-related errors. A few months, another committee and the Office of the National Coordinator still sit between the recommendations and action.
Members provide more coverage of #ahcj2010
A number of AHCJ members volunteered to write about Health Journalism 2010 for AHCJ.
Many others used information they learned at the conference to write stories for their own publications.
We’re in the process of compiling those reports, as well as photos and video from the conference. Visit our conference news page to read more about the event.
Video from Health Journalism 2010
- During a newsmaker briefing, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius discussed the role of health journalists in communicating about the H1N1 pandemic and health reform to the public.
- In a panel about “Guidelines for writing about preventive health guidelines,” Len Lichtenfeld, M.D., M.A.C.P., deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, acknowledged the difficulty of conveying changing guidelines.
Coverage from Health Journalism 2010
- Contaminated foods post threat to public
- Experts acknowledge difficulty of writing about preventive health guidelines
- TBI, PTSD among war-related illnesses veterans face
- Untold stories remain in nursing homes
- Addressing racial and ethnic disparities
- High hopes, limited regulation a dangerous formula for ‘functional foods’
- Looking for docs in all the wrong places?
- Caring for aging population will require health care transformation
- Sebelius predicts ‘hand-to-hand combat’ on health law
- What did the U.S. learn from the H1N1 pandemic?
- Experts: Where you live affects your health
- Journalists encounter obstacles in identifying conflicts of interest in medical research
- Session focuses tracking health care costs using the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care
- Photos from Field Trip 1, at the simulation center at Feinberg School of Medicine
PR pro describes pitching health stories to reporters
Filed under: Health journalism, Hospitals, Public health, Studies
Jessica Levco, of Ragan Communications, provides some insight into how at least one public relations professional is pitching health stories to reporters – and perhaps taking advantage of staffing shortages in newsrooms.
The article offers suggestions from Danielle Cass, the communications manager for Kaiser Permanente, that include creating videos, doing practice interviews with experts and putting news in proper context in press releases. She also that hospital communicators should write a press release just as they want to see it appear in the publication.
She gives the example of pitching Anderson Cooper’s producer about how extreme obesity is affecting more children at younger ages. When she tuned into an episode of Anderson Cooper 360, he used two of the three bullet points that she e-mailed.
“This is a reflection of what’s happening in the media,” Cass says. “A lot of media outlets are short-staffed. If you do your due diligence and put together a well-rounded piece, you could see your press release picked up word for word.”
Related
Hospital says it gives content to short-staffed media
Journalists diet and write about it
Personal anecdotes seem to seep into the blogs of just about every health care journalist out there; given the subject matter, it’s inevitable that quite a few stories health journalists cover are going to hit home.
Now, Jaclyn Schiff, writing for Mediaite, has rounded up a recent rash of reports and blog posts in which journalists have chronicled their own weight loss efforts – a popular subgroup of the personal anecdote – and dubbed it a “trend.” Those cited include The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, The New York Times‘ Brian Stelter and, of course, New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni.
Sapien chronicles formaldehyde battle
Filed under: Conflicts of interest, Government, Health policy, Hot Health Headline
At ProPublica, Joaquin Sapien tells the story of how Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter successfully obstructed the FDA’s attempts to get formaldehyde, which has been linked to leukemia, as a known carcinogen. Right now, it’s still listed as “probable.” The industry’s favorite tool, and the one Vitter employed for them in this case, was to force the EPA into conducting yet another costly, time-consuming study.
The EPA’s chemical risk assessments are crucial to protecting the public’s health because they are the government’s most comprehensive analysis of the dangers the chemicals present and are used as the scientific foundation for state and federal regulations. But it usually takes years or even decades to get an assessment done, or to revise one that is outdated. Often the industry spends millions on lobbying and on scientific studies that counter the government’s conclusions.
Sapien’s history of Sen. Vitter’s stonewalling, as well as his ties to the formadehyde industry, are an excellent example of just how difficult it has been for the EPA to upgrade key risk assessments.
Sapien’s story is well worth reading, but those looking for an overview can also refer to his excellent timeline, that goes from the EPA’s first health assessment in 1989 to Vitter’s demand that an assessment of the chemical be reviewed by the National Academy and his subsequent block of an EPA nomination late last year.
Residents not warned of nursing home foreclosures
Writing for The New York Times, Laurie Udesky reports that despite significant rates of foreclosures, California nursing homes are not required to notify residents – many of whom require constant care – that they’re being shuttered. She even found at least one home in which residents were caught by surprise when deputies showed up to force an eviction. Udesky also added a companion piece on the NYT’s Bay Area blog. Foreclosures, she found, are not uncommon among smaller nursing homes.
But a New York Times analysis of licensing and foreclosure data indicated that about 16 percent of the 1,600 Bay Area properties licensed as small residential-care homes has been in some stage of foreclosure since June 2006. According to RealtyTrac, a company that compiles foreclosure records, that includes more than 100 homes under foreclosure in the last six months.
It is impossible to tell from the data how many of these were operating as residential-care homes during the foreclosure proceedings or thereafter. But those properties housed as many as 700 elderly residents.
Fortunately, some in the state are working to close what Udesky referred to as a “loophole,” with a California senator introducing a bill that would “require people licensed to run such facilities to notify the licensing division of the Department of Social Services and the residents or their legal representative within 24 hours of notification of foreclosure, bankruptcy, missing a mortgage payment or the prospect of a utility cutoff.”
Deconstructing a NYT op-ed in three acts
On April 17, New York Times‘ op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman wrote a column about globalization, international competition and entrepreneurship. Here, as anyone who has even held a newspaper with his column in it will know, he’s on all too familiar territory. It’s not until he steps over into uncritical praise of a medical device maker that Friedman starts stepping on land mines.
He profiles EndoStim, a company working on an implant to treat acid reflux. Friedman admits that he has “no idea if the product will succeed in the marketplace,” then the cheerleading begins.
EndoStim was inspired by Cuban and Indian immigrants to America and funded by St. Louis venture capitalists. Its prototype is being manufactured in Uruguay, with the help of Israeli engineers and constant feedback from doctors in India and Chile. Oh, and the C.E.O. is a South African, who was educated at the Sorbonne, but lives in Missouri and California, and his head office is basically a BlackBerry. While rescuing General Motors will save some old jobs, only by spawning thousands of EndoStims — thousands — will we generate the kind of good new jobs to keep raising our standard of living.
Journalist Merrill Goozner, of GoozNews fame, picked up on the story the next day and asked the world “Why Is Tom Friedman Championing Higher Health Care Costs?” Goozner effortlessly chronicles the marketing-driven history of acid reflux treatments, from Pepto-Bismol to Zantac to Prilosec to Nexium, each conveniently emerging as the patent to their predecessor expired, then puts EndoStim in its place at the end of the chain.
… instead of finally being out from beneath the wasted billions now being spent on brand name acid indigestion pills like Nexium, the health care system will be lined up to move onto the next chapter in the lengthening medical text for treating what for most people is a relatively minor and passing phenomenon.
In his final paragraph, Goozner gets to the heart of what Friedman’s vision of “thousands of EndoStims” really means for the U.S. economy.
Friedman is right. Endostim’s success will create “the best jobs - top management, marketing, design” at company headquarters. But let’s not forget that to create those jobs, the entire society through its collective health care system will have to pay an unnecessary tax, which burdens every other industry and shifts scarce societal resources away from potentially more useful activities.
Finally, Trudy Lieberman, AHCJ immediate past president, catches Goozner’s post and wades into the fray in her own column on cjr.org, writing that Friedman’s column was “essentially a puff piece for EndoStim.” Lieberman ties Goozner’s observations on EndoStim into his previous writings as well as her own, writing “there’s nothing in the new law that limits the use of the device only to patients with chronic disease who don’t respond to other, less costly treatments.”
I can see hospitals advertising: “Hey acid reflux sufferers come to us. Our surgeons know how to get that thing down your gut. They are the best in the world, and by the way, insurance will pay.”
Coverage of #ahcj2010 continues
• Sebelius predicts ‘hand-to-hand combat’ on health law
• What did the U.S. learn from the H1N1 pandemic?
• Journalists encounter obstacles in identifying conflicts of interest in medical research
• Experts: Where you live affects your health
• Session focuses tracking health care costs using the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care
• Photos from the simulation center at Feinberg School of Medicine
#AHCJ2010 early coverage roundup
Filed under: Government, Health care reform, Health journalism, Health policy, Hot Health Headline, Member news
Apart from the announcement of the FDA’s infusion pump regulation push, the biggest appearances out of Health Journalism 2010 in Chicago this week have been U.S. Department of of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Landon Hall, of The Orange County Register, covered the Sebelius and Frieden appearances for AHCJ.
At Health Journalism 2010, Kathleen Sebelius talked about implementing health care reform. (Photo: Pia Christensen)Reuters’ Debra Sherman also covered both presentations.
Sebelius focused on insurers, especially those who deny coverage to those with a legal write to it, Sherman wrote. According to Sherman, “Sebelius… said to expect ‘hand-to-hand combat’ if insurers try to ‘drive patients out of plans.’”
Working from a broader perspective, New America Foundation’s Joanne Kenen wrote about how insurance fit into Sebelius’ larger task of implementing recently passed health care reform measures.
In his presentation, Frieden focused on smoking, which he called the leading preventable cause of death. Reuter’s Sherman again:
Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that after years of steady declines in the nation’s smoking rates, progress has stalled over the last few years and that the agency was renewing its focus.
He said government stimulus funds would be used to increase anti-smoking efforts. He said the CDC would encourage states to implement anti-smoking strategies, such as education and media campaigns, smoke-free laws and higher cigarette prices.
In other AHCJ 2010 news, Dallas Morning News reporter Robert Garrett wrote that a “siege mentality was very much on display when a trio of hospital executives spoke this morning at an Association of Health Care Journalists conflab in Chicago.”
“We’re all scared to death by health care reform,” said Advocate Health Care president and CEO Jim Skogsbergh, who runs 13 hospitals in Illinois. “We know we’re going to get paid less.”
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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
