December 10th, 2009 by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: Addiction Medicine, MassHealth Study, Programs, Psychiatry, Psychology, Quitting, smoking, smoking cessation
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Across the country health insurance coverage for smoking cessation treatment – both counseling and medications – has been extremely patchy. For example, we ask all the new patients attending our smoking cessation clinic in New Jersey if their insurance covers smoking cessation treatment, and the vast majority have no idea. Typically its also not easy for either the patient or provider to find out either. It doesn’t just depend on the insurer, but on the plan, the type of service, what they’ve already had in terms of preventive care. We’ve had many occasions where we call the insurer twice on the same day and get a different answer. And New Jersey is a state that is supposed to have relatively good insurance coverage for tobacco cessation! So it’s a mess nationwide, and the net result is that fewer patients get the treatment they need because they are put of by the uncertainty about the cost and difficulty finding out how much it is. Read more »
This post, Massachusetts Leads The Way In Smoking Cessation, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D..
December 8th, 2009 by Berci in Better Health Network, News, True Stories
Tags: Facebook, Inappropriate, Legal, Patients, Sexual Advances, Social Media, Surgery, Web 2.0
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There is an interesting article in E-Health Europe about how patients try to contact doctors on Facebook, the popular social networking site, and how doctors shouldn’t respond to them. In my “Medicine and Web 2.0” university credit course, we cover this important issue several times and I try to provide students with useful pieces of advice about how to avoid such problems.
The Medical Defence Union said it was aware of a number of cases where patients have attempted to proposition doctors by sending them an unsolicited message on Facebook or similar sites.
The medical defence body said it would be “wholly inappropriate” to respond to a patient making an advance in such a way. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
December 7th, 2009 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News
Tags: Amnesia, Autopsy, H.M., Henry Gustav Molaison, Neurology, Pathology
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Contrary to common misconceptions, real cases of amnesia are extremely rare. But Henry Gustav Molaison (known as patient H.M.) was subject of a radical experimental brain surgery in 1953 in an attempt to treat his epileptic seizures following which he was not able to form new memories. About a year ago, Mr Molaison passed away but left to science his fascinating brain which is currently being dissected at the University of California San Diego Brain Observatory. The researchers in charge of the project have setup a live video feed with an open invitation to anyone interested in viewing the slicing to join in the fun. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
December 4th, 2009 by Nancy Brown, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, News
Tags: CDC, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, Infectious Disease, sexually transmitted diseases, Sexually Transmitted Infections, STD, Syphillis
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The CDC announced last week that the latest statistics on Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis are still unacceptably high in the United States. The U.S. has some of the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections of any developed country in the world including 1.2 cases of Chlamydia in 2008 and syphilis cases, up 18 percent, are at 13,500. Men who have sex with men accounted for 63 percent of the syphilis cases, but the rate among women also increased 36 percent between 2007 and 2008.
Almost half of the 19 million new sexually transmitted infection cases reported each year are among 15- to 24-year-olds. Clearly marking the shift away from abstinence-only policies, the CDC called for better, more honest and open, sex education including how to use a condom, limiting the number of sexual partners, and avoiding people who have had multiple sex partners. Read more »
This post, Sexually Transmitted Infections Still On The Rise, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Nancy Brown, Ph.D..
December 3rd, 2009 by Steve Novella, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Quackery Exposed
Tags: Coma, Laureys, Locked In Syndrome, Minimally Conscious State, Neurology, Rom Houben, Vegetative State
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I don’t know. The mainstream media is doing a wonderful job sensationalizing this case, presenting it without skepticism. Some outlets are doing a good job of discussing the relevant issues – but they don’t have the information to have a meaningful discussion of this particular case. Details are tantalizing but thin.
The case is that of Rom Houben. The story was broke, as far as I can tell, by the Mail Online – yes, that is a huge red flag. It does not make the story wrong, it just doesn’t instill in me confidence in the reporting.
Mr. Houben was in a terrible motor vehicle accident 23 years ago and has been paralyzed ever since. His diagnosis has been PVS – persistent vegetative state. However, recently, we are told, his mother insisted on a neurological re-evaluation. This is actually quite reasonable, generally speaking (again, without knowing specific details of this case). Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
