health care

Flo's boss backs medical-marijuana effort in Massachusetts

adamg — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:00:16 +0000

The Patriot Ledger reports the chairman of Progressive Insurance has contributed $525,000 to a group pushing a ballot question to legalize the medical use of marijuana here. The group has raised $1,167 from other sources.

Local Susan G. Komen affiliate: Planned Parenthood's never asked us for money, so we're cool, right?

adamg — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:30:46 +0000

Susan G. Komen for the Cure Massachusetts posts on its Facebook page that the national group's decision to stop giving money to Planned Parenthood for mammography screenings because of, oh, trumped up allegations by Republican congressmen won't affect anything in Massachusetts because the local Planned Parenthood never asked it for money.

Of course, if Planned Parenthood did ask Susan G. of Massachusetts for money, well:

It is our hope that any investigations that impact our ability to fund organizations will be resolved in an expedited manner so that we may continue funding services for our residents through whichever programs best serve their needs.

Mass. General, Brigham and Women's not doing us any favors with newly announced rates

adamg — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:56:40 +0000

Paul Levy, who complained loudly about Partners Healthcare when he was CEO of Beth Israel, marvels at what he says is the spin on its recently announced contracts with Tufts and Blue Cross, that what the hospital holding company says is a willingness to rein in costs only perpetuates a system in which consumers and employers pay more than they should.

Looking back over the past decade, it is not unreasonable to posit that this system has added in the range of two billion dollars to the health care costs paid by the state's businesses and individuals. The newly announced deals change little in that regard, extending that hidden tax for years to come.

There's a downside to being America's Drunkest City

adamg — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 21:08:10 +0000

Ford Vox, medical director of the acute inpatient acquired brain injury program at New England Rehabilitation Hospital, reports:

Alcohol contributed to the vast majority of traumatic brain injury cases I treated this year.

The $676 bag of salt water

adamg — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:13:35 +0000

Mike the Mad Biologist analyzes the bill from a recent four-hour ER visit, including a %676 charge for a bag of saline solution.

When a doctor's wife is diagnosed with breast cancer

adamg — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:13:55 +0000

Dr. John Halamka at Beth Israel reports on his wife's diagnosis and plans - with her consent - to blog about her treatment:

Last Thursday, my wife Kathy was diagnosed with poorly differentiated breast cancer. She is not facing this alone. We're approaching this as a team, as if together we have cancer. She has been my best friend for 30 years. I will do whatever it takes to ensure we have another 30 years together.

She's has agreed that I can chronicle the process, the diagnostic tests, the therapeutic decisions, the life events, and the emotions we experience with the hope it will help other patients and families on their cancer treatment journey.

Group fails to get enough signatures for ballot question to repeal health-insurance mandate

adamg — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:41:42 +0000

WBUR reports on a group called MAIM that wanted to eliminate the requirement than individuals buy health insurance if they don't have employers who provide it.

Blue Cross patients could lose access to Tufts Medical Center

adamg — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:19:15 +0000

CommonHealth reports on the collapse of contract talks between the hospital and the insurer.

1,111 boxes of Cheerios on 11/11/11

adamg — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:20:11 +0000

Franklin Matters reports the Franklin Federated Church was trying to collect all those boxes for a program at Boston Medical Center for little kids who need extra nutritional help.

Why H1N1 killed otherwise healthy kids

adamg — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:31:14 +0000

CommonHealth alerts us to a Children's Hospital study that found kids infected with MRSA seemed to be especially at risk to death by flu. In some areas, up to 9% of kids now have the antibiotic-resistant bacteria living in their noses; such kids had an eightfold risk of severe and sometimes fatal H1N1 flu infections. And this, they say, is why kids need to get flu shots.

A big hand for Brigham and Women's

adamg — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:32:38 +0000

Plenty of background on the hospital's pioneering double hand transplant.

Via CommonHealth.

The inter-office politics of face transplants

adamg — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 16:36:37 +0000

The Globe has a long piece on what Dr. Bohdan Pomahac had to go through to get his hospital and a New England organ-transplant board to let him do Boston's first face transplant.

But the price includes the tip

adamg — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:19:16 +0000

Mass. General's list price for a circumcision: $23,000.

MIT researchers working on universal anti-viral drugs

adamg — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:58:46 +0000

The drugs, which are still a long way away from human testing, let alone the market, work by latching onto a form of RNA only generated by viruses inside living cells and signalling those cells to kill themselves, MIT reports:

"In theory, it should work against all viruses," says Todd Rider, a senior staff scientist in Lincoln Laboratory's Chemical, Biological, and Nanoscale Technologies Group who invented the new technology.

Cell suicide stops viruses because the organisms reproduce by reprogramming cells to become virus factories. Human cells have their own natural self-destruct systems, but many viruses have evolved mechanisms to short circuit them.

MIT researchers call their new drugs Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizers, or DRACO, which could make them a hit among older James Bond fans and younger Harry Potter fans, not to mention people with colds or far more severe infections.

Via Tinker Ready.

Debt deal could hit local teaching hospitals

adamg — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 12:57:20 +0000

WBUR reports on possible effects of research cuts on teaching hospitals in Massachusetts, which bring in more federal science funds per capita than any other state - some $2.4 billion just from the National Institutes of Health last year.