Current medical news from today, including Medicare nominee Marilyn Tavenner receives lifetime payout from largest U.S. hospital chain, public school lunch reform, and progress in diabetes treatment.
The old Medtronic Infuse controversy is being stirred up again. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today published a story on Thomas Zdeblick, the chairman of the Department of Orthopedics & Rehabilitation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has received more than $25 million in royalties from Medtronic since 2003. The article calls to question Zdeblick’s position […]
Munck Wilson Mandala Partner Greg Howison shared his perspective on some of the legal ramifications around AI, IP, connected devices and the data they generate, in response to emailed questions.
Current medical news from today, including researchers fear the government's request to withhold bird flu research will impede scientific research, a second study linking chronic fatigue syndrome to a mouse retrovirus is retracted, and the best of Big Pharma in 2011.
Current medical news from today, including editors and researchers fight back on government's request to withhold bird flu formula, Chicago boost two new health accelerators, and Steve Burrill's big new biotech fund.
Current medical news from today, including questions about the study that found dangerous levels of BPA in canned soup, a boost in retail healthcare clinics, and the trouble with the Medicare physician payment formula.
Who owns DNA? Last year, in a case involving Myriad Genetics -- which holds patents on two human genes used as predictors of increased risk for breast cancer and ovarian cancer -- a federal judge ruled Myriad's patents were invalid because genes couldn't be patented. But on Friday, a federal appellate court overturned the prior ruling, saying that indeed, once again, genes can be patented. Ethical questions continue to envelop this case: Is it right to patent part of the human body? Do gene patents put barriers on further research?
At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
As the number of clinical trials in developing countries surges, legal and ethical frameworks to protect participants aren't necessarily following. For pharmaceutical companies, developing countries are attractive candidates for clinical trials because of lower costs and more patients who have not been exposed to other drugs or trials. For these countries, access to the newest medications seems promising. But a high percentage of participants have reported feeling uninformed about the nature of the study, and many do not feel free to quit trials, according to Sonia Shah's book The Body Hunters.
We have had many family conversations about education reform over the years. Whistleblower readers have seen some of this creeping through some prior posts. It’s an issue that affects every American and deserves the efforts of our most talented and innovative thinkers to elevate the system to a higher orbit. One of the mantras of […]
Tomorrow professional medical societies will be looking long and hard at how they disclose industry ties in response to an article published this evening by ProPublica (and co-published in USA Today) entitled: “Financial Ties Bind Medical Societies To Drug and Device Makers.” The investigative reporting by Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber examines the medical conference […]
Read current medical news from today, including: medical conflicts of interest, nurse staffing and a new medical breakthrough in cancer detection.
We will highlight Build My Health's revenue practice management tools, which could help physician practices add up to $250,000 to their practices.
Free drug samples and doctor ethics are always called into questions. But hospital marketing via patient rooms seems to kick this debate to another level. Hospitals in Ohio have some hotel-like patient rooms. Where’s the outrage here? Are these hundreds of millions of dollars helping sick people get well? Couldn’t this money be directed to a more worthy objective? Why aren’t health care reform-minded folks picketing and protesting? Or, does it make more sense to carp over free Nexium samples and pizza for the office staff?
We should all pay attention to our nomenclature. It’s not about “conflict of interest” — it’s about (as Secretary Sebelius correctly says) “interest.” And having an “interest” is not necessarily a bad thing — as long as you’re transparent about it. When it comes to “transparency,” we need to weigh “interest versus benefit.” Case in […]
As medical schools wrestle with how to keep drug companies from corrupting their faculties, Stanford University often is lauded for its tough stance. But a ProPublica investigation found that more than a dozen of the school's doctors were
There’s a lot of buzz this week about an unflattering report from the Senate Finance Committee (Staff Reports on Cardiac Stent Usage at St. Joseph’s Medical Center). This is a fairly extreme example. Most doctors don’t act this way, and medical device companies are not usually looking to work with doctors who get in trouble working with their devices.
A Baltimore-area doctor who was dismissed by his hospital for alleged fraud and sued by hundreds of patients in whom he implanted coronary stents manufactured by Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) was the recipient of research funding and gifts from the company, according to a newly released federal report. Abbott provided the perks to the St. Joseph […]