Disclosure

March 19, 2019

$29 million jury verdict in talc case underscores need for asbestos regulation

Although research has shown that asbestos can cause cancer and other harmful illnesses and the federal government has sought to limit and even ban its use, yet another sizable judgment in a tainted talc case and the discovery of the substance in a popular cosmetics line shows how America’s oversight and regulation of risky materials can be too slow and ineffective.

As the New York Times reported, a jury in the San Francisco area has joined similar deliberative panels in accepting claims that longtime use of Johnson & Johnson baby power causes cancers. The state jury decided that J&J must pay plaintiff Teresa Leavitt a total of $29 million because the company knew its talc was tainted with asbestos but failed to warn her and others. Leavitt, who used the product for three decades, was diagnosed in 2017 with mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of internal organs that is associated with asbestos.

The newspaper said the jury told J&J to pay her “$22 million for her pain and suffering, $5 million to compensate her family members, nearly $1.3 million for her medical costs and $1.2 million for her lost wages.”

March 17, 2019

A lesson on vaping from sugary drinks of yore: Crack down on Big Tobacco

by Patrick A. Malone

Those who are senior enough to remember the allures of sweet drinks like Tang, Hawaiian Punch, and Kool-Aid also may need to be sage enough to share a deep, evidence-based distrust and disapproval for the nefarious actions of Big Sugar and Big Tobacco. Those suspicions may need to be renewed in regulators’ crackdowns on vaping, its flavorings, and flavored tobacco cigarettes.

Yes, the federal Food and Drug Administration now has formally detailed its plan to curb the soaring youthful purchases and uses of e-cigarettes for vaping, telling merchants that they soon will be required to keep these goods, including flavored liquids that the devices catalyze, in separate walled off areas of stores and away from those age 18 and younger. This will affect not only big retailers like Walgreens and Wal-Marts but also gas stations and convenience stores.

Online vendors soon will be required to have mechanisms, so proof of age becomes part of cyber buys of e-cigarettes and their associated products.

March 13, 2019

Bureaucrats let medical device makers hide 1 million reports of patient harms

by Patrick A. Malone

If a surgical staple gun malfunctioned so seriously that it generated not a few dozen formal complaints but more than 10,000 reported incidents, shouldn’t patients, doctors, and hospitals have the right to know that information from the federal agency overseeing the safety of medical devices?

Apparently not. Or maybe not without a big kick in the pants from journalists.

Instead, the staff at the federal Food and Drug Administration turned a move to ease paperwork and bureaucracy into a giant and little-known system that lets medical device makers hide serious and significant numbers of reports about failures and flaws with at least 100 products, a Kaiser Health News Service investigation found.

March 12, 2019

For diabetics and dialysis patients, glimmers of better news on costs of care

by Patrick A. Malone

Diabetics and those with failing kidneys may have gotten a glimmer of relief from the staggering costs of caring for their conditions, as Big Pharma relented a tad with news it will put out a less-costly insulin product and federal officials suggesting Uncle Sam soon may be upsetting the flush profits of the dialysis industry.

DaVita Inc. and Fresenius Medical Care AG run more than 5,000 U.S. dialysis clinics and control around 70 percent of the market, Reuters news service reported in a story describing how Alex Azar, the powerful head of the federal Health and Human Services department, wants “a new payment approach for treating kidney disease that favors lower cost care at home and transplants.”

Why? As Reuters explains, “The goal is to reduce the $114 billion paid by the U.S. government each year to treat chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease, a top area of spending.”

March 7, 2019

If a news reporter can get named a ‘Top Doctor,’ how do patients find reliable info on good MDs?

by Patrick A. Malone

Truth can be stranger than fiction, and for an investigative journalist covering the outrages of health care costs, ProPublica reporter Marshall Allen had a dream medical story call him on his phone: A well-known New York company reached out and told him he had been “honored” as one of the nation’s Top Doctors.

Not bad for a guy with an English degree from the University of Colorado and zero medical credentials, he reported in a recent, wry article.

He tried to explain to a saleswoman for the company how unqualified he was. But after a chat and after negotiating a “nominal fee” for his accolade — down to $99 from $289 — he bought a plaque and the right to promote himself as a specialist in “investigations” and a Top Doctor.

March 4, 2019

FDA warns surgeons against experimental robot-aided cancer operations

by Patrick A. Malone

The federal Food and Drug Administration finally has pushed back at surgeons and hospitals for experimenting on patients, spending $3 billion a year for surgical robots. The devices should not be used for mastectomies and other cancer-related procedures without caution, regulators warn.

The FDA acted after studies have shown that minimally invasive procedures for early-stage cervical cancer, many robot-aided, were more likely than standard, large-incision surgeries to result in recurrences of the disease and deaths.

Regulators also may have been prodded by their poor history in halting harms to women with so-called keyhole procedures, particularly the nightmares the FDA was slow to react to involving minimally invasive hysterectomies and a tissue-grinding tool called a morcellator.

March 1, 2019

Young people have rampant stress, anxiety & depression, plus trouble getting help from adults

by Patrick A. Malone

Recent news reports underscore how the nation’s youth are struggling more than had been believed with stress, anxiety, and depression.

The New York Times, based on nationwide polling by the respected Pew Research Center, reported that 70 percent of teenagers surveyed cited mental health concerns as a top issue for them. It ranked ahead of bullying, drugs, gangs, alcohol, and teen pregnancy.

As the newspaper reported, dealing with stress, anxiety, and depression hits teens hard these days, for a lot of good reasons:

February 27, 2019

Brokers pocket big bonuses for boosting cost of workplace health insurance

by Patrick A. Malone

As tens of millions of Americans struggle with workplace medical insurance that provides them with little benefit when they most need it, consumers may wonder just how naïve their employers may be in overlooking industry SPIFFs, SPIVs, and other little-discussed payments that jack up costs and may reduce benefits.

Before any confusion arises, don’t think about health insurance in high-minded terms, and, instead, as just another business transaction — maybe what occurs at the cheesy used car dealership in the neighborhood (ala actor Danny DeVito in “Matilda,” as shown above). There, customers have gotten savvy about bonuses (Sales Promotion Incentive Funds or Sales Promotion Incentives) ladled on salesmen to get them to move vehicles out of showrooms, asap.

Pro Publica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative site, deserves credit for digging in to the medical insurance business to show how similar incentive programs proliferate in brokerages that purportedly help companies of all sizes figure how to cover their employees’ health needs.

February 26, 2019

Doctors, Big Pharma and FDA ripped for bungling control of potent painkillers

by Patrick A. Malone

A steady flow of news reports shows how our nation’s opioid crisis can be fairly blamed on just about every actor in the medical field that should have known better: Big Pharma, doctors, hospitals, and regulators. It’s been a toxic mix of incompetence, indifference and out-and-out deceptive conduct that produced the epidemic that now claims tens of thousands of American lives each year.

Take, for instance, the drug fentanyl, a lab-created painkiller 100 times more powerful than morphine. How did it escape the confines of legitimate prescription pain control to become a killer street drug? The Washington Post reports, based on research from Johns Hopkins experts, on how doctors, hospitals, and the federal Food and Drug Administration bungled a plan to safeguard the administration of this highly potent drug that had obvious abuse potential from the day it came onto the market.

Meantime, two other news organizations — the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative website Pro Publica and the online health site Stat — have pried loose disturbing, sealed court testimony, showing how a wealthy, philanthropic family approved a lethal deceit about the potency of OxyContin, a billion-dollar opioid pushed relentlessly by Purdue, the Big Pharma firm they owned.

February 25, 2019

Blood and spit, vampires and dead family secrets

by Patrick A. Malone

Funny the mischief that can happen with a little blood and spit. Seemingly unrelated medical stories last week brought home the lesson of the law of unintended consequences. Those consequences abound everywhere, in health care most especially. So with blood, we’re learning about a bizarre new fountain-of-youth treatment, with echoes of vampires, for seniors who ought to know better. And with spit, we’re learning how seemingly harmless genetic tests can raise from the dead some disturbing revelations about our deceased family members.

Bunk about blood transfusions

The federal Food and Drug Administration has warned older Americans about a new kind of anti-aging bunk flying out of the Silicon Valley: blood transfusions. Companies, dancing on a fine legal line, have hinted that seniors could benefit by getting transfusions of young people’s blood and blood products.