"The U.S. health care system, although it's the costliest in the world, doesn't even deliver the goods when it comes to delivering health." That's the …
Month: October 2009
Face It
In the 1997 Academy Award-nominated movie Face/Off, terrorist Nicholas Cage had his face surgically replaced with that of FBI agent and sworn enemy John Travolta. …
National guidelines for salt intake questioned
The debate on national nutrition policies is heating up as two federal panels begin work on the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. At the center …
Benefits of dialysis for frail elderly debated
USA Today readers debated the topic of the benefits of dialysis treatment for the frail elderly with kidney failure in response to the story "Risks …
Max and me: Crossing Montana with Senator Baucus
There are only a few days left before Congress adjourns for summer recess, and Baucus, a Democrat from Montana, is in a familiar position: trying …
The Atlantic questions H1N1 vaccination
A new story in The Atlantic on influenza vaccination is sure to raise the ire of the public health officials now encouraging everyone and their …
More clues about narcolepsy
The Oct. 24 issue of ScienceNews focuses on sleep and discusses researchers' recent findings on insomnia, narcolepsy and other disorders. Stanford researcher Adi Aran, MD, …
Get out your running shoes, Mom
Between my job here and all the pregnancy/parenting books I've consumed over the past three years, I thought I knew all the pros and cons …
Handle with care
At a time when patients nationwide are getting older, sicker and heavier, nurses also are aging, with micro tears and back injuries that result from …
Greider on women in science
I wrote below about the unusual number of women recognized during the 2009 Nobel Prizes. Since then, another woman , Elinor Ostrom, PhD, shared the …
T.R. Reid talks about health-care reform
In his new book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, journalist T.R. Reid writes: On September 11, …
Consistency, please
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) announced today a new policy for disclosure of study authors' financial ties or potential conflicts of interest. …
Living 'patch' mends broken hearts
Bioengineers at Duke University have developed a living patch that one day could be implanted into patients with heart disease to repair damaged tissue. During …
The price of life
The value placed on medical activity is society-specific and highly situational. It varies greatly with time, place and human environment.
The value placed on medical activity is society-specific and highly situational. It varies greatly with time, place and human environment.
Skepticism and questions about AIDS vaccine trial
Yesterday I attended a fundraiser in Palo Alto for the Rotary's Child AIDS Project, where some national leaders in the AIDS fight expressed skepticism about …
The great IVF debate
Over the weekend, the New York Times ran a piece on the costs of the twin pregnances and births that often result from in-vitro fertilization. …