August 24th, 2010 by Jeffrey Benabio, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips
No Comments »
“All natural. Certified organic. Made from natural ingredients. Pure botanicals. Chemical free.”
You might guess I’m standing in the farmers market. Nope. I’m in the “Health and Beauty” aisle at Target. The ubiquitous all-things-natural trend has overtaken the cosmetic industry. How do you know what’s real and what’s marketing hype? Here are five things you should know about organic beauty product labels:
1. Labels that say “natural ingredients” or “botanicals” are not certified organic. These statements are not regulated. Most natural ingredients used in beauty products are actually modified in a lab. Truly botanical ingredients, like you’d pick in your garden, are usually unstable and would spoil like food.
2. Natural doesn’t always mean better. Would you buy: Poison Ivy Eye-Cream? Stinging Nettles Anti-Itch Gel? The most toxic and allergy-inducing ingredients are naturally occurring substances, not manufactured ones. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Dermatology Blog*
August 23rd, 2010 by GruntDoc in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
No Comments »
CAIRO — A Saudi judge has asked several hospitals in the country whether they could damage a man’s spinal cord as punishment after he was convicted of attacking another man with a cleaver and paralyzing him, the brother of the victim said Thursday.
Every time I think my country is screwed up, I read this sort of thing and feel better about it. And kudos to the hospital that (apparently) just said, “No.”
SOURCE: “Saudi judge considers paralysis punishment” – World News – Mideast/N. Africa – MSNBC.com
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
August 23rd, 2010 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
No Comments »
Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) figure prominently in the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The concept behind ACOs is that by tying both physician and hospital compensation to outcomes via a bundled fee (say for pneumonia) we can expect to see an improvement in quality and value.
In principal, accountable care makes a lot of sense. Practicality speaking, however, doctors and hospitals must address a huge challenge before they can expect benefit financially. Before doctors can be held accountable for the care they deliver, they must first be held accountable for the quality of their communication with patients.
Take hospital readmissions, which are a big healthcare cost driver today. According to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, 20 percent of all Medicare patients discharged from hospitals were readmitted within 30 days, and 34 percent percent within 90 days. The Joint Commission and others rightly believe that inadequate communication between physicians — as well as between physicians and patients — is a major contributing factor. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
August 23rd, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed
No Comments »
I’ve seen the very clever journalism warning labels pictured and offered on TomScott.com. Many good friends and contacts wrote me about this, some urging HealthNewsReview.org to produce its own — and we may. Of the many great labels offered, this one is perhaps my favorite:
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
August 23rd, 2010 by DrRich in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
2 Comments »
DrRich has pointed out several times that it is very important to our new healthcare system, as a matter of principle, to be able to discriminate against the obese.
The obese are being carefully groomed as a prototype, as a group whose characteristics (ostensibly, their lack of self-discipline, or their sloth, or their selfishness, or whatever other characteristics we can attribute to them to explain how their unsightly enormity differentiates them from us), will justify “special treatment” in order to serve the overriding good of the whole.
The obese are a useful target for two reasons. First, their sins against humanity are painfully obvious just by looking at them, so it is impossible for them to escape public scorn by blending in to the population, unlike some less obvious sinners such as (say) closet smokers, or pedophiles. And second, since true morbid obesity almost always has a strong genetic component, successfully demonizing the obese eventually will open the door to the demonization of individuals with any one of a host of other genetically mediated medical conditions. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*
