The Christmas Rush is On

From press conferences, interviews, and events in Washington, D.C.
Senate Democrats are preparing to give the President an early Christmas present– passage of health reform legislation. A vote is scheduled for Christmas Eve and it appears that Democrats have the votes to pass the bill. It’s been a tough road. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D- [...]

Talk is Cheap. Or Is It?

On Wednesday, as the U.S. Senate continued to debate a potential overhaul of the American health care system, the Republican party made its strategy clear: it’s going to talk the bill to death.
Up until yesterday, the tactic was executed in a relatively polite fashion. Republican Senators took to the floor and spoke at length about [...]

FDA Panel’s Crestor Vote is More About CRP

Yesterday afternoon, Dec. 15, an FDA advisory panel voted 12-4 in favor of AstraZeneca’s application to broaden its labeling for rosuvastatin (Crestor) to include patients who meet enrollment criteria from the company’s large JUPITER study.
In short, the new indication would approve use of rosuvastatin for patients who have “normal” blood levels of LDL cholesterol (less than 130 mg/dL), but [...]

Cheaper Drugs, More Medicare: The Policy & Practice Podcast

The health reform battle slogged on last week, with new proposals emerging to break the stalemate: allowing reimportation of drugs from other countries, and ditching the public option in favor of expanding Medicare to include people aged 55-64. Meanwhile, physicians were left wondering whether Congress was going to act to stave off an impending 21% [...]

I Have a Dream

My dream is far more modest than Dr. King’s but possibly just as ambitious.  I have a dream that one day there will be a single, comprehensive repository of medical disclosures and conflicts of interest.
Our editorial policy is to include a statement about a researcher’s or physician’s potential conflicts of interest—even if it’s only to [...]

Senate Plods Along on Health Reform

From hearings, press conferences, and interviews in Washington, D.C.
Senators were in Washington over the weekend, sloughing away on health reform legislation. Democrats are hopeful that with slow, but steady progress they can get a final bill by Christmas.
In this week’s Policy & Practice Podcast, we take a look at one of the first amendments made to [...]

H1N1 Vaccine: The Slow Supply Slogs On

It had been a month since I wrote about the H1N1 influenza vaccine supply, and I was curious what had happened during November. The numbers aren’t pretty.
According to a Dec. 4 Webpost by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of Dec. 3, a total of 63.3 million H1N1 doses had shipped to U.S. providers. Shipments [...]

Not All Turkey and Football: The Policy & Practice Podcast

The Senate cleared a big hurdle last week when it voted 60-39 to bring its health reform bill to the floor for debate. Now the horse race begins as senators jockey with Majority Leader Harry Reid for the provisions they would like to see changed or added. In the meantime, physicians are waiting to see [...]

New Mammogram Recommendations Miss the Real Fear

My 40th birthday comes in less than a month and, right on schedule, my ob.gyn handed me the paperwork last week to get my first screening mammogram.  Yesterday, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued new recommendations that will now have women younger than 50 years skipping screening mammograms completely.  Will I still be getting [...]

No Pause In The Debate: The Policy & Practice Podcast

From press conferences, interviews, and more around Washington, D.C.
Congress took a holiday last week to honor America’s military heroes both past and present, but the veterans of the health reform debate did not pause.
A breakaway group of physician organizations mounted a challenge to the American Medical Association’s backing of the House-passed reform bill.  Activists on [...]