May 10th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in News
Tags: Botanicals, Death, FDA, Heavy Metals, Herbs, Neurology, Pediatrics, Seizures, Supplements, Tea
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About 9% of infants are given dietary botanical supplements or teas as young as 1 month old, prompting government researchers to warn physicians to look for side effects and other health risks.
Supplement use is common. Parents use them to help with fussiness, digestion, colic, and relaxation. Parents like them because there’s no prescription required, they’re traditional to many cultures, and they’re marketed as “natural.”
But, caution the authors of a paper that appeared in the journal Pediatrics, such supplements’ purity and potency are unregulated, they can interact with prescription medicines, they may contain heavy metals or other contaminants, and they may not adapt well to a newborn’s metabolism and body weight.
Supplement use is also common as a cause of emergency room visits. And they’re linked to seizures and death.
Researchers from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used data from the Infant Feeding Practices Study II, a longitudinal survey of 2,653 women studied from late pregnancy through the first year of the child’s life. The sample was drawn from a nationally distributed consumer opinion panel of healthy adult mothers with healthy term or near-term infants.
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
May 9th, 2011 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in News
Tags: Drugs, Generics, Internal Medicine, Lipitor, Lisinopril, Norvasc, Pharmaceuticals, Statins, Vicodin
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The top 10 prescribed drugs in the U.S. for 2010 in order of prescriptions written are:
- Hydrocodone (combined with acetaminophen) — 131.2 million prescriptions
- Generic Zocor (simvastatin), a cholesterol-lowering statin drug — 94.1 million prescriptions
- Lisinopril (brand names include Prinivil and Zestril), a blood pressure drug — 87.4 million prescriptions
- Generic Synthroid (levothyroxine sodium), synthetic thyroid hormone — 70.5 million prescriptions
- Generic Norvasc (amlodipine besylate), an angina/blood pressure drug — 57.2 million prescriptions
- Generic Prilosec (omeprazole), an antacid drug — 53.4 million prescriptions (does not include over-the-counter sales)
- Azithromycin (brand names include Z-Pak and Zithromax), an antibiotic — 52.6 million prescriptions
- Amoxicillin (various brand names), an antibiotic — 52.3 million prescriptions
- Generic Glucophage (metformin), a diabetes drug — 48.3 million prescriptions
- Hydrochlorothiazide (various brand names), a water pill used to lower blood pressure — 47.8 million prescriptions.
Notice that most of these are generic so they aren’t the ones that make the most money for Big Pharma. Those drugs are not offered in generic and they brought in n $307 billion in 2010. What was number one? Drumroll……..
Lipitor, a cholesterol lowering statin.
In case you wondered who is paying for these drugs…Commercial insurance helped pay for 63% of all prescriptions. Medicare Part D (Federal government) paid for 22% of prescriptions. The average co-payment for a prescription was $10.73. The average co-payment for a branded drug was $22.73.
If you are paying for prescriptions, make sure you ask your physician if it is available in generic. It can save you a lot of $$.
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
May 9th, 2011 by GruntDoc in News, True Stories
Tags: Ann Arbor, Danger, Emergency Medicine, Gas, Gastroenterology, Hazardous Material, Hazmat, Hematochezia, Hospital, Medical, Michigan, Superwarfarin, Warfarin
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Absent other information, the referred to ‘rodent poison’ is probably a superwarfarin. It’s like regular people-coumadin, but superconcentrated. It kills rodentia by causing them to bleed to death.
Which makes the ‘gas effect’ seem really odd, but possibly explainable.
A patient who apparently ingested rodent poison and is emitting potentially harmful gasses has created a hazardous material situation at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor.
The man is isolated in his room in the medical intensive care unit on the hospital’s sixth floor, 5301 McAuley at East Huron River Drive, hospital spokeswoman Lauren Jones said this afternoon.
via Patient emits potentially harmful gas; hazmat called to Ann Arbor hospital | Detroit Free Press | freep.com.
Two thoughts: 1) I sincerely hope this patient recovers, and 2) if this is just upper GI bleed smell someones’ going to have rotten egg smell on their face.
I looked up superwarfarins, found a couple of interesting case reports, but none that talk about abnormal gases.
(For the uninitiated, the smell of digested blood is amazingly awful. It’ll make experienced, hard ED staff retch). I can understand why the smell would set off alarms, except that it’s not that uncommon, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.
It’ll be interesting to see what come of this.
Lighting matches in the hospital is a nono, by the way.
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
May 9th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in News, Research
Tags: Angioplasty, Cardiology, Death Rate, Gender Disparities, Heart Attack, Hospital Medicine, MI, Mortality, Women's Health
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One-third (33.5%) of female heart attack patients receive surgery or angioplasty compared to nearly half (45.6%) of men, and among heart attack patients receiving an intervention such as coronary bypass surgery or angioplasty, women had a 30% higher death rate compared to men, reports HealthGrades.
The findings are based on an analysis of more than 5 million Medicare patient records from 2007 to 2009 and focused on 16 of the most common procedures and diagnoses among women.
The most noticeable disparities were in cardiovascular care. Heart disease is the #1 killer of women in America, surpassing all forms of cancer combined, the company said in a press release. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
May 6th, 2011 by BobDoherty in Health Policy, News
Tags: Gun Safety, Guns, NRA, Physician Communication, Questions, Safety, What Physicians Can Say
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Should the government be able to dictate to a doctor what he or she is allowed to discuss with a patient? Yes, says the National Rifle Association (NRA), which is pushing state legislation to prohibit physicians from asking patients about firearms in their homes.
An NRA-supported bill in Florida originally would have made it a criminal offense—punishable by fines and/or jail—if physicians asked a patient about firearms. The Florida Medical Association (FMA) fiercely opposed the bill as an intrusion on the physician-patient relationship. Now, a compromise has been reached between the NRA and the FMA that “allow doctors to ask questions about gun ownership, as long as the physician doesn’t ‘harass’ the patient, and doesn’t enter the information into the patient’s record without a good reason.” Violations would be policed by the state licensing board instead of being subject to criminal prosecution.
A long-standing ACP policy encourages physicians “to inform patients about the dangers of keeping firearms, particularly handguns, in the home and to advise them on ways to reduce the risk of injury.” But this issue is much bigger than guns, it is about whether the government should be allowed to tell physicians what they can and can’t say to patients. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
