Elizabeth Warren gets a lot of attention, but I think this Obama appointee is just as interesting. President Barack Obama appointed Dr. Donald Berwick head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Wednesday. Berwick, known as a passionate advocate for improving the health care system, was nominated earlier this year but his nomination turned …
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Things Might Not Go As Planned
This: Can a highly trained nurse deliver anesthetics as well as a physician who has specialized in anesthesiology, or does the nurse require close medical supervision? That issue emerges from two recent studies and from California’s decision last year to join 14 other states in freeing the nurses from a federal requirement that they be …
The Health Care Reform “Debate” Continues
The health care law has emerged as a defining issue in the U.S. Senate campaign between Democrat Lee Fisher and Republican Rob Portman. Fisher said he would have voted for the law, which when fully implanted in 2014 will provide health care coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. But Portman has assailed it as a …
The Health Care Reform “Debate” ContinuesPost + Comments (43)
New Treatment for Psychotic Depression?
The temptation is to make a joke about timeliness, but too many of us know how crippling (sometimes fatal) a disease depression can be. Or perhaps that knowledge is why we make such jokes. From ABC News, “Controversial RU-486 Studied For Treatment of Psychotic Depression”: … The drug, a synthetic steroid compound known as mifepristone, …
Open Thread: ‘Medical Miracle’ of the Week
Study touts horse tranquilizer Ketamine as ‘magic’ anti-depressant: Ketamine, a general anesthetic usually administered to children and pets but perhaps best known as a horse tranquilizer, is also highly effective in low doses as an anti-depressant, according a study published Thursday. __ Researchers at Yale University wrote in the August 20 issue of the journal …
Open Thread: ‘Medical Miracle’ of the WeekPost + Comments (51)
Whose “Anchor” Baby?
The SPLC continues its marathon efforts to give a voice to the silenced: Mississippi officials conspired to take the infant of an illegal immigrant from Mexico so the girl could be adopted by a white couple, a civil rights group charged Thursday in a federal lawsuit. The Southern Poverty Law Center said Cirila Baltazar Cruz …
Another Downside to Globalization
From the NYTimes, “Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Moving From South Asia to U.S.“: A dangerous new mutation that makes some bacteria resistant to almost all antibiotics has become increasingly common in India and Pakistan and is being found in patients in Britain and the United States who got medical care in those countries, according to new studies. …