Current medical news and unique business news for anyone who cares about healthcare.
Questioning the reporting of healthcare news. A high-profile study on canned soup containing dangerously high levels of BPA — conducted by a Harvard professor, the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory — has gotten heavy media coverage. But Forbes’ Trevor Butterworth is throwing a penalty flag at the media for not doing its due diligence.
The study fed humans a diet consisting almost entirely of canned soup, which are known to contain especially high levels of BPA, so of course levels went up. But a study published last summer (but under-reported by the media, Butterworth says), demonstrated that high levels of BPA in the urine after meals did not translate into active BPA in the blood, which is the big concern with the chemical. His conclusion a nutshell: the media failed in doing proper research for reporting this study.
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
Since it’s a big retail day… Visits to medical clinics at pharmacies and other retail outlets increased ten-fold from 2007 to 2009, according to a new study by RAND Corporation. Patients — especially women, people ages 18 to 44, people making more than $59,000 and people in good health — were attracted by convenience and price.
Sustainable growth? Not so much. The formula for the Medicare physician payment is causing some trouble in Congress , which has forestalled required payment reductions each year since 2002 but has not changed the statutory requirements, creating a deeper debt hole each year. It’s been speculated that it would cost $300 billion to repeal the formula, but the CEO of Biomet suspects it won’t actually cost anything…
Lynn Margulis, a biologist and controversial environmental evolution writer, died on Tuesday in Massachusetts. Famous for her books and her Gaia concept — that the Earth’s physical and biological processes are bound together to form a self-regulating system — she was also an instructor at the University of Massachusetts and Boston University.
TrialBee could help CROs save money. Pre-launch startup TrialBee is aiming to help drug companies ease the burden of recruiting patients for clinical trials by partnering with drug companies to pre-screening patients for trials on its website, with mobile applications likely in the future. The company will launch its first project with CRO Commitum in January.
