The FDA knew of the risk. It’s yet another medical device scandal from the FDA. A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) details how the FDA tragically underestimated the risk of a device used to remove uterine tumors called fibroids. The device, called a power morcellator, was approved in 1991; by 2013, it […]
More proof that medical cronyism can pay big dividends. A new analysis in JAMA Internal Medicine has found that the number of older Americans taking at least three psychiatric drugs has more than doubled between 2004 and 2013, despite half these patients having no mental health diagnosis on record. The research team looked at office […]
Tell your legislators that we need legislation that will increase consumer access to natural products. Action Alert! In the last Congress, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-MN) introduced a bill that would allow Health Savings Account (HSA) funds to go toward dietary supplements without having to get a doctor’s prescription; the same would apply to […]
New rules for physician payments through Medicare went into effect on January 1. Here’s what you need to know. In 2015, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) was signed into law. The legislation called for significant changes to how physicians are paid for treating Medicare patients. It repealed the Sustainable Growth Rate formula […]
More parlor tricks are ahead for your salad. Researchers are working on a more flavorful tomato through gene-isolating technology. This is not the introduction of genes from another species, as was the case with the GMO Flavr-Savr tomato, but neither is it traditional plant breeding. If you are old enough, you will recall that tomatoes […]
Meanwhile, the FDA won’t stop trying to eliminate brain health supplements. We think they want to clear the field for when they finally do approve a drug. Two years ago we reported that Eli Lilly had a potential blockbuster drug for Alzheimer’s in the third and final phase of FDA trials. If it won approval, […]
Do you want this stuff on your dinner plate? Action Alert! Researchers have conducted a groundbreaking new study that shows a link between Roundup and severe liver damage. The study found that Roundup administered to rats at extremely low doses caused non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) over two years. NAFLD can lead to cirrhosis, and […]
Another example of profits coming before people in the medical establishment. (Note that prostate and breast cancers have many similarities, so women may want to read this for themselves as well as for the men in their lives.) Last year, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published an editorial advising doctors to be […]
How strontium can help you rebuild your bones. Last December, a seventy-seven year old woman (we’ll call her Sarah, although that’s not her real name) told me that she’d been advised that her recent bone scan was 100% normal. In 2010, she’d been told she was “into osteoporosis.” She’d been advised to use a patent […]
PABA (vitamin B10) can help treat Peyronie’s disease and scleroderma. Side effects are very rare and disappear when PABA treatment is decreased or discontinued. So far, no researchers have discovered the cause of either Peyronie’s disease or scleroderma. Peyronie’s disease (scar tissue forming in the penis which can progress to causing curvature, sometimes severe) […]