Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Today the Princeton Review named my alma matter (University of Pennsylvania) as the university with the best business school (the Wharton School). While I don’t believe the rankings accurately reflect school quality, its always nice to be number one. ‘Hurrah, Hurrah, Pennsylvania…Hurrah for the red and the blue!’
What do you need to do to win a Nobel Prize these days? Simple, just figure out a way to shut down individual genes in the body. This is what Andrew Fire and Craig Mello–the 2006 Nobel Prize winners in Medicine–achieved in order to merit the award. Their technique holds the possibility of new therapies for…
The Health Care Renewal blog cites an editorial in the British Medical Journal describing how the spirit of medical professionalism is dying due to top-down administrative decision making. “And although medicine has embraced the need for evidence based medicine, policy making remains largely an evidence-free zone. [Richard Lehman wrote,] ‘the personal responsibility of our professional…
The New York Times (“In India, Water Crisis Means Foul Sludge“) gives a detailed look into the disastrous state of New Delhi’s water supply.
Some interesting bits I found on the Health Wonk blog-o-sphere: Joe Paduda looks at why Kaiser Permanente is starting to offer PPOs and high deductible plans. Fard Johnmar at Envisioning 2.0 discusses Walmart’s plan to offer generic drugs for as low as $4. A Wall Street Journal/Harris poll shows that the vast majority of healthcare…
The 2006-2007 Global Competitiveness Report has been released by World Economic Forum. The rankings can be found at the World Economic Forum website (PDF). “The rankings are drawn from a combination of publicly available hard data and the results of the Executive Opinion Survey, a comprehensive annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum, together…
The so-called genius awards (actually called the MacArthur Foundation fellows) are given to 25 individuals based on “their creativity, originality, and potential to be significant contributors in their fields.” Recipients receive $500,000 over five years with no strings attached. One of the recipients which interests this blog is Victoria Hale (bio). She is a pharmaceutical…
The Envisioning 2.0 (“Drug Importation“) speaks to the fact that the FDA has consistently tried to prohibit the importation of drugs from abroad, despite the fact that drug importation has broad popular support. Further the post cites a USA Today report which says that the US (but not Canada) has a serious drug counterfeiting problem.
Seven hundred twenty million dollars. This would the the annual cost to immunize all girls against the human papilloma virus (HPV). According to the Detroit Free Press (“Law…“), the state of Michigan is considering requiring all girls entering the sixth grade to receive the HPV vaccine. Is this good policy? Cervical cancer affects 9,700 women…
The BBC reports that patients in the EU may soon have the right to go to any EU country for medical treatment. In a September 5th article (“EU chief…“), one can see a future of medical tourism in the EU. Many EU members have argued that medical services fall outside the scope of the single…