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H1N1 Flu Vaccine: No Adjuvants, Excellent Safety

In a recent post, Swine Flu:  H1N1 Flu Vaccine – Who Should Get It, Who Shouldn’t Get It and Is It Safe, a Healthin30 reader, Doriorio posted a comment and questioned the safety of the H1N1 Flu Vaccine.

Doriorio writes:

“Hi. Thanks for a great post. My pediatrician expressed concern to me about potential adjuvants in the H1N1 vaccines, saying that there are six manufacturers and potentially a wide variety in the vaccines among them. I know adjuvants are used more widely in Europe, but it’s not clear if the ones that may be used in the H1N1 vaccines have been tested for side effects. I think given the groups being prioritized for this vaccine, for instance infants, we should not be taking any chances in administering anything untested via vaccine. It conjures up the smallpox vaccine fiasco in the 1970s where the government had to set aside a vaccine injury compensation program for injured parties, some of whom were permanently affected. What do you know about adjuvants being added and the safety claims being made by the CDC when testing time has obviously been nonexistent.” Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*

Pitching Tents For Pandemic Flu

I walked out the back of the ER tonight to see this in the ambulance bay:

IMG_0292
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

And this inside: Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*

Who’s Paying For Healthcare Reform? You Are

If you read nothing else this morning, please read Margaret Polaneczky, MD’s (aka “TBTAM”) excellent post that vividly summarizes our current health care reform efforts underway while offering insights as to what real reform should look like:

Real reform won’t happen until the American people take their seat at the head of the table and invite doctors, ethicists and healthcare experts (not industry lobbyists) to bring their best knowledge about what interventions are most important, most effective and most cost efficient. Then we can sort out our priorities (you can call it rationing if you want) and create a budget.

Only then we can begin to negotiate with third parties (insurers, Big Pharma, etc) to sell us what we need at the best price. That’s called competition, and it’s what American capitalism is all about, right?

The problem is, the American healthcare consumer (and I include myself here) still thinks someone else is footing the bill. Who that someone is, I don’t know. Maybe the rich. Maybe our employers. Maybe the Federal Government.

What we have yet to get is that there is no “someone else”. The deep pockets are our own pockets, and they are empty. Our tax dollars. Our pensions. Our companies going bankrupt from paying employee health care costs.

Until the American people get it that it is our responsibility to get our spending in line, and until our representatives have the guts to turn away the industry lobbyists and represent their constituents instead of their campaign bankrollers, we will continue to have uncontrolled health care spending.

… and that’s just part of it. Read the whole thing.

*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*

Nurse Kim At Blog World Expo

meandhughFirst day of the general BlogWorld sessions and as usual, I came away with renewed energy, a plethora of ideas and a dramatically decreased bank account! No, not on gambling – I hit the Barnes & Noble on-site kiosk.

God, I love books!

But the highlight of the day? I met my Blogfather! Meet Hugh Hewitt, talk show host extraordinaire! I think if you did a “paternity” test on every blog online today,  75% of them would be related, in some way, to Hugh’s influence.

Blog World CEO Rick Calvert was interviewed by Hugh, and he mentioned the medblogger track! Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Emergiblog*

Medical Bloggers Frolick at Blog World Expo

I am sitting now in the medical blogger track at the Blogworld Expo.

As is generally the case, I got here too late to bum around with the med bloggers last night.  It happened when I went the the “Putting Patients First” summit in DC as well.  I just seem to have that kind of luck.

Anyway, the medical bloggers are forgiving and did not think I was being snooty.  They also didn’t mind it when I missed breakfast with them.  Why did I miss breakfast?  I was being interviewed by Ira Glass from NPR.  For some reason, this little ol’ blog got the attention of the producer from This American Life, the show that Ira hosts.   They are doing a series on health care costs being out of control, and read the post I did in January about the insanity of medical codes.  She felt that I would be a good person to discuss the reality of medical codes in the daily life of a doctor. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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