Death in a White Coat
Two fourth-year Harvard Medical School students question the slow trickledown to medical schools from the 1999 Institute of Medicine report blaming medical errors for 98,000 deaths annually.
02 Mar
2010
23 Feb
2010
Saving Lives, Wasting Money
It’s paradoxical that our healthcare system, which excels at saving lives, can’t seem to cure itself of squandering money. A landmark comparative effectiveness study suggests ways to improve care and reduce waste — but appears to be ignored
16 Feb
2010
Who’s Minding the War on Bugs?
As China exports a wave of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the disjointed effort by three different government agencies to address food safety are not likely to accomplish much.
09 Feb
2010
GAO Hounds Supplement Makers
The Government Accounting Office has contacted makers of dietary supplements, announcing its review of the marketing of certain herbal supplements (chamomile, Echinacea, peppermint oil, ginger root, fennel seed). This is being done at the request of the Senate Select Committee on Aging.
09 Feb
2010
NIH’s New Radiation Policy
National Institutes of Health now requires all CT and other radiation-producing scanners used at NIH clinics to come with software able to track the dosage of radiation given to every patient and log it into an electronic medical record.
02 Feb
2010
How Hard is it to Spell ‘D’?
Each week brings new studies confirming the benefits of vitamin D, and yet there is widespread vitamin-D deficiency in industrialized nations. Why is the government standing in the way of our addressing this public-health crisis?
02 Feb
2010
Safety of Radiation Questioned
The doctor tapped by the Atomic Energy Commission to study the effects of radiation on humans has warned about the risks of medical radiation since 1990, even when administered “properly.” So why is it still business as usual?
26 Jan
2010
Shivering?
The University of California, Davis, recommends boosting your vitamin D intake during the winter months by a factor of 5!
26 Jan
2010
Vitamins, Minerals: Shouldn’t You Decide Your Dose?
Dr. Rob Verkerk, executive and scientific director of the Alliance for Natural Health International, has published a paper pointing to a fatal flaw in the model used by European authorities to determine the upper safe limits for vitamins and minerals used in dietary supplements.
19 Jan
2010
FDA Tiptoes Around BPA
The FDA’s failure to protect newborns and the unborn from BPA recalls the old joke “How many deaths does it take for the FDA to remove a drug from the market?” The answer (not all funny): all too many.