Sunday, October 26, 2003

Growth in ER use fueled by insured patients, not uninsured.

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The nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Health System Change reports that most of the increase in ER use in recent years has been the result o...

GAO report on specialty hospitals.

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The article in this morning's NY Times on the rise of specialty hospitals (see below) mentions a report from the Government Accounting ...

From this morning's NY Times: More on Schiavo, PVS, Medicare.

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The NY Times is filled with stuff today: Schiavo I: article in "The Week in Review" about brain-damage and family decision makin...
Friday, October 24, 2003

FDA eases stance on importing medicines

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The FDA has softened the official (hard) line against importing drugs from Canada, according to an article in today's Boston Globe : ...

Slate opinion piece on the Schiavo case

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There was a very good column by Dahlia Lithwick over at Slate. It builds on Alta Charo's point that this is case is mostly about who s...

Schiavo case reviewed by Florida's medical ethics community.

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There's a good article in the Gainesville Sun today that contains the analysis of medical ethicists and legal experts in Florida. The...
Thursday, October 23, 2003

Schiavo redux.

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The Times ' web article on constitutional issues raised by the Florida legislation (mentioned here late yesterday) appeared in print tod...
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Schiavo: reactions the day after.

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Some reactions to the Florida legislature's and governor's intervention in the Schiavo case yesterday: Democratic presidential ho...
Tuesday, October 21, 2003

Senate Passes Ban on Abortion Procedure.

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The Senate passed the partial-birth abortion bill today, according to a Washington Post report . Here's the text of the bill, S. 3 (w...

Schiavo update #3

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The Florida Senate jumped on the bill like a june bug on a water lily, Governor Bush signed the law, and pursuant to the law, he ordered Ter...

Schiavo update #2.

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A senate committee voted 10-2 this morning to send the House bill to the Senate floor for a vote, tentatively scheduled to occur this evenin...

The Schiavo case: legal process run amok.

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As reported in numerous news outlets this morning, including the Sacramento Bee , the Florida House passed a bill yesterday that would autho...
Sunday, October 19, 2003

To quote Letterman: "Is this something, or is this nothing?"

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On Wednesday, Bayer Biological Products announced "the creation of an independent bioethics advisory body, the Bayer International Bio...
Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Another interesting grant of certiorari.

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Congress is fond of using its powers under the Taxing and Spending Clause to enact legislation that might be at least questionable if it was...

Terri Schiavo's final days.

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The New York Times ran an article by Abby Goodnough on the final legal and medical moves in the case of Terri Schiavo, diagnosed as being ...
Tuesday, October 14, 2003

SCOTUS declines review of medical-marijuana gag-rule case.

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The Supreme Court denied cert . in a 9th Circuit case ( Walters v. Conant , No. 03-40) that ruled doctors couldn't be prohibited by the...

Genetic discrimination bill passes Senate, 95-0.

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Modern Healthcare 's "Daily Dose" reports that S. 1053 passed in the Senate today by a 95-0 vote. (If you're looking fo...

Pregnancy Created Using Infertile Woman's Egg Nucleus.

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It's not all that common for a news story to give me an exam question in three of my courses, but this one comes pretty close. Denise...
Sunday, October 12, 2003

Stopping a clinical trial before it's complete.

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The New York Times editorialized today about a recent decision to end a clinical trial of a breast-cancer treatment because the results we...
Saturday, October 11, 2003

Separation of Egyptian conjoined twins begins in Dallas today.

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Excellent article in this morning's Dallas Morning News by Laura Beil about the ethics of performing surgery to separate two Eqyptian ...