Nearly two years ago, a giant earthquake off the coast of Japan sent a 13-meter high tsunami crashing into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing meltdowns in three of the six reactors and ultimately, triggering an explosion. Thousands were killed by the tsunami and earthquake.
FDA Contemplating Risky Move For Pain Patients
Late last Friday, an advisory panel to the US Food and Drug Administration voted – far from unanimously – to toughen restrictions on painkillers such as Vicodin, which contain the opioid hydrocodone. Typically, the FDA takes the advice of such advisory committees.
Bad, bad, bad move.
Your Personal Health Information Isn’t As Safe As You Think
It was almost child’s play.
Using a computer, an Internet connection and information available publicly online, researchers from the Whitehead Institute at MIT were able to figure out the identities of nearly 50 people who had submitted personal genetic information for a research study — information that purportedly had been “de-identified” so as to protect the subjects privacy.
Inside The Murky World Of Cosmetic Stem Cells
The woman in L.A. simply wanted a facelift. That’s all. But what she got was a nightmare – and a lesson for any of us who might be lured into the under-studied territory of cosmetic stem cell procedures.
A Common Sense Approach To A Deadly Problem
Fixing the twin public health “epidemics” in this country — abuse of opioid painkillers by addicts and under-treatment of legitimate pain patients who often need those same drugs — will take time, a lot of creative thinking and a willingness to change dysfunctional government policies.
Around The World, Living Longer But Not Living Better
A massive new study out today shows that around the world, people are living longer than they did 20 years ago, but there’s a catch: many of these extra years are spent in poor health — in some cases with conditions that might be preventable or treatable.
The Pill Without A Prescription: It’s Time
Earlier this month, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the country’s leading professional group for ob/gyn physicians, recommended that oral contraceptives — on the market for more than half a century now — finally be available over-the-counter.
It’s about time.
When The Vegetative Patient May Be Able To Communicate
One of the most vexing emotional and ethical issues in all of medicine is the decision by family members to “pull the plug,” that is, to take a severely ill, non-communicate relative off of the life-support systems keeping him or her alive.
Insuring Against Cancer Patients’ Infertility
Imagine being a young woman in your 30s. You have just received a diagnosis of breast cancer, as more than 10,000 women your age in the U.S. do every year. Other young women your age may get similarly horrifying news — ovarian cancer, leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Questioning The Ads For Below-The-Waist Surgery
Not surprisingly, the headline about “designer vagina” procedures in a press release this week from BMJ Open, an online publication of the esteemed BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) caught my eye — and stopped my coffee cup in midair.