Category Archives: In the Money

Greed does not heal – it kills.

The Cure for WASTED Cancer Fund Donations

Editor’s NOTE: We have long been a proponant for ignoring the “cure for the walk” mentality. It goes a long way in paying salaries and for BIG advertising campaigns – to promote more donations, which go for…. well – you get the idea. (J.B.)

No More KomenCancer donations should be used to find natural remedies and promote regulations that keep chemicals out of food, drinks and body lotions. Instead, billions are spent on the “search for a cure” to a problem the United States breeds and feeds. Put simply, if there is a problem with weeds growing in the back yard, should one just walk around with clippers, chopping off the tops of them, believing they’ll go away? Continue reading

The Two Things That Rarely Happen After a Medical Mistake

med_mistakePatients seldom are told or get an apology when they are harmed during medical care, according to a new study based on results from ProPublica’s Patient Harm Questionnaire.

Patients who suffer injuries, infections or mistakes during medical care rarely get an acknowledgment or apology, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine report.

The study was based on responses of 236 patients who completed ProPublica’s Patient Harm Questionnaire during the one-year period ending in May 2013 and who agreed to share their data. Continue reading

Cancer Drug Company Accused of Hiding Cheap Alternative

This article is meant to simply showcase one of the many ways that Big Pharma practices corruption.

pills_money_pharma_greed-466Pharmaceutical companies have been known to discredit natural, cheap solutions that compete with their high-dollar drugs. Now, the British Medical Journal has unraveled new research revealing how the makers of a cancer drug are blocking public access to a cheaper, safe, and effective alternative. Continue reading

Monsanto Weed-killer Can ‘Probably’ CAUSE Cancer!

Pesticide_ReutersThe world’s most widely-used weed killer can “probably” cause cancer (non-Hodgkin lymphoma), the World Health Organization said recently.

The WHO’s cancer arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), said glyphosate, the active ingredient in the Monsanto Co herbicide Roundup, was “classified as probably carcinogenic to humans”.

It also said there was “limited evidence” that glyphosate was carcinogenic in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, said scientific data do not support the conclusions and called on the WHO to hold an urgent meeting to explain the findings. Continue reading

Ebola’s Other Contagious Threat: Hysteria

As health officials scramble to explain how two nurses in Dallas became infected with Ebola, psychologists are increasingly concerned about another kind of contagion, whose symptoms range from heightened anxiety to avoidance of public places to full-blown hysteria.

So far, emergency rooms have not been overwhelmed with people afraid that they have caught the Ebola virus, and no one is hiding in the basement and hoarding food. But there is little doubt that the events of the past week have left the public increasingly worried, particularly the admission by Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director the of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that the initial response to the first Ebola case diagnosed in the United States was inadequate. Continue reading

Big Ground Beef E. Coli Recall Expands Nationwide

A recall of nearly 2 million pounds of ground beef potentially tainted with dangerous E. coli bacteria has expanded to include distributors to restaurants nationwide — but don’t expect to know which ones.

Federal officials aren’t required to say which restaurants served the tainted hamburger linked to the largest recall of its kind in six years. And they don’t have to tell consumers what type of restaurant dished up meat recalled by Detroit’s Wolverine Packing Co., either — whether it was a sit-down diner or a fast-food joint, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. Continue reading

What your medical care really costs

On the lack of price transparency in health care

11.18-doctor-patientWhen Victoria Caras was battling thyroid cancer, she created a detailed spreadsheet of the various charges showing up on her medical statements so she could figure out the true cost of her medical care.

Seven years later, patients all over the country find themselves similarly perplexed by their bills, says Caras, a medical billing advocate who helps patients negotiate or dismiss burdensome medical costs. The Affordable Care Act was designed to change the way doctors get paid by transitioning to a system that rewards doctors, hospitals and other providers for coordinating care and reducing hospital re-admissions instead of paying for each service rendered. Continue reading

Johnson & Johnson Suspends Sale of Device Used in Fibroid Surgery

Move Involving Power Morcellators Comes Amid Concerns Over Cancer Risk

Johnson_&_JohnsonJohnson & Johnson, the largest maker of devices used in a popular uterine surgery, said Tuesday it has suspended sales of the tools amid concerns about their potential to spread a rare but deadly cancer.

The health-care giant said it was halting world-wide sales, distribution and promotion of the tools called power morcellators but not permanently pulling them from the market.

The action follows a Food and Drug Administration advisory on April 17 discouraging doctors from using the devices to remove fibroids—common but often painful uterine growths—because of a risk of worsening an often-hidden cancer. Continue reading

Whistleblower: “Drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline bribed doctors to boost sales.”

…and YOU believe that it’s only going on in Merry Ol’ England?

gskBritain’s biggest drug company, GlaxoSmithKline, allegedly bribed doctors in Poland using money that was meant to be spent on educating patients, according to new evidence revealed today by the BBC Panorama programme.

A GSK whistleblower claims that money put aside to teach patients in Poland about an asthma drug, Seretide, actually went towards paying doctors to prescribe more of the medicine.

Jarek Wisniewiski, who was with the company for eight years until 2012, worked on a marketing programme across the country in 2010 to push the asthma drug.

He told Panorama that although officially the money was to be spent on medical training, in reality it was used to bribe doctors to boost the company’s sales. Continue reading

Small Slice of Doctors Account for Big Chunk of Medicare Costs

Top 1% of Medical Providers Accounted for 14% of Billing, Federal Data Show

Da_Vinci_Vitruve_Luc_Viatour.jpgA tiny sliver of doctors and other medical providers accounted for an outsize portion of Medicare’s 2012 costs, according to an analysis of federal data that lays out details of physicians’ billings. The top 1% of 825,000 individual medical providers accounted for 14% of the $77 billion in billing recorded in the data.

The long-awaited data reveal for the first time how individual medical providers treat America’s seniors—and, in some cases, may enrich themselves in the process. Still, there are gaps in the records released by the U.S. about physicians’ practice patterns, and doctors’ groups said the release of such data leaves innocent physicians open to unfair criticism.

Medicare paid 344 physicians and other health providers more than $3 million each in 2012. Collectively, the 1,000 highest-paid Medicare doctors received $3.05 billion in payments. (See More Coverage)

Top Ten Ways the American Health Care System Fails

obamacare_weblogFrom time to time, medical experts reverse course on certain practices and procedures when science dictates a change in the standard of care. One classic example of a “reversal” is when hormone therapy for menopausal women came to a screeching halt when so many women developed blood clots, stroke, and breast and uterine cancers.

In an attempt to determine the overall effectiveness of our medical care, the Mayo Clinic tracked the frequency of these medical reversals over the past decade and published a report in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, August 2013.

The results are discussed by lead researcher Dr. Vinay Prasad in the featured video. Prasad and his team found that reversals are common across all classes of medical practice, and a significant proportion of medical treatments offer no benefit at all. Continue reading

How doctors make fake diagnoses for diseases

RappoportI never grow tired of explaining this issue, because people write to me with the assumption that they understand disease diagnosis. And they don’t. They’re not off by a little bit. They’re off by a mile.

Two of the most prevalent tests for diagnosing diseases are antibody tests and what’s called the PCR.

Prior to 1984, it was well understood by most doctors that the presence of antibodies specific to a given germ meant: the patient’s body had contacted and successfully thrown off the germ.

Antibodies are scouts for the immune system. They “go hunting” for germ invaders and ID them, so other troops can knock them out. That’s the conventional view. Continue reading

Top Cancer Centers Off-Limits Under Obamacare

obamacare_weblogSome of America’s best cancer hospitals are off-limits to many of the people now signing up for coverage under the nation’s new health care program.

Doctors and administrators say they’re concerned. So are some state insurance regulators. An Associated Press survey found examples coast to coast.

Seattle Cancer Care Alliance is excluded by five out of eight insurers in Washington’s insurance exchange. MD Anderson Cancer Center says it’s in less than half of the plans in the Houston area. Memorial Sloan-Kettering is included by two of nine insurers in New York City and has out-of-network agreements with two more. Continue reading

Death by Murder

surgical_instrumentsEighteen patients in North Carolina may have been exposed to a fatal brain disorder similar to ‘mad cow’ disease after undergoing surgery with instruments that had not been properly sterilised.

Surgeons at the Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem operated on the patients on January 18 using tools that had been used on a man suspected of having Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), the hospital said in a press statement.

The surgical instruments were sterilised using standard hospital procedures, but were not subjected to the enhanced sterilisation procedures necessary on instruments used in confirmed or suspected cases of CJD, the hospital added. Continue reading

Boy, 7, born with rare cancer loses his insurance because of Obamacare…leaving his parents needing $50,000 to pay for life-saving chemotherapy

Hunter AlfordLittle Hunter Alford needs chemotherapy to treat the rare and deadly cancer he was born with but has lost his health insurance under an administrative blunder seemingly caused by Obamacare.

While the president’s signature policy promised that no one with a pre-existing condition would not be covered, the Affordable Care Act has seemingly caused the seven-year-old Gainesville, Texas, boy to face an agonizing wait for treatment as his parents battle to get him back on his insurance plan.

‘Why would you cancel a kid?’ asked his mother Krista Alford. ‘I really want to send Obama and all of them pictures of my son. He has scars all over his head. He doesn’t want to leave the house because he’s afraid people are going to make fun of him because he’s bald.’

While mom Krista and dad Ron go out their minds with worry, Hunter – who was born with an extremely rare form of cancer called Plexiform Hishocyne Neoplasm – is battling the disease which has now spread to his brain. Continue reading