The Health Show: The Chart

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Don't call it the war room

The WHO is preparing its response team for the possibility of an influenza pandemic, even as the experts involved acknowledge it very well might not be enough. [WP]
posted 12:29 PM Nov 28

Go drugs!

The fact that drug reps tend to be good-looking and enthusiastic has been noted in the health biz for some time. So if drug companies are looking to recruit a bunch of these people, where might they find a bunch of them? [NYT]
posted 12:26 PM Nov 28

Medicare drug benefit sign-ups start

And it still doesn't seem to be any easier to understand. [WP]
posted 11:28 AM Nov 15

There just might be something about this exercise stuff

All sorts of research has indicated that exercise can help stave a range of health problems. And now a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine reports that regular exercise helps people live longer. [WP]
posted 11:25 AM Nov 15

Research supports mammograms

There had been some doubt as to whether mammograms reduced death rates for breast cancer, but a study published in NEJM indicates the screens are useful. [NYT]
posted 4:41 PM Oct 27

Understanding the flu

Three physicians break down the health risks related to a typical influenza season and the effectiveness of the vaccine. Their conclusion: both the risk of death and the benefits of the vaccine are probably overstated. [WP]
posted 4:34 PM Oct 27

McDonald's pushes nutrition info... a little

The burger chain announced it will be adding nutritional info to its packaging, including little pictograms indicating what percentage of daily intake the items represent. [USAT]
posted 4:27 PM Oct 27

Nobel Prize for Medicine winners announced

This year's prize goes to two Australians who were involved in figuing out that H. pylori causes stomach ulcers. [AP]
posted 4:04 PM Oct 3

Speaking of food and cancer

A link to this article was posted on the front page of MSN today. Here's the thing about that...
posted 3:47 PM Oct 3

Not so fast

There have been a lot of theories regarding food and cancer. Unfortunately, many of them don't seem to be panning out. [NYT]
posted 3:44 PM Oct 3

Post-Katrina public health challenges abound

You name it -- medicine shortages, infectious diseases, accidents -- it's a problem right now throughout the affected area. [NYT]
posted 4:19 PM Aug 31

Healthy school lunches are possible

Just ask the folks in Opelika, Alabama. They made a commitment to serve healthier lunches ten years ago. The first step they took: getting rid of the deep fryers. And this is the South. [AP]
posted 5:21 PM Aug 30

Grass roots health coverage

Fewer than 10 percent of people in Africa have health insurance. Many governments there have been slow to extend what little coverage already exists, so people are forming their own health plans. [NYT]
posted 2:13 PM Aug 30

If bird flu strikes, who's in charge?

If you said public health officials, you'd be wrong. It's the Department of Homeland Security, according to the DHS secretary. [AJC]
posted 5:23 PM Aug 25

Another instrument disinfection mishap

This time it was in Virginia, and it involved an endoscope. No surprise, as The Health Show found out early this year, endoscopes are not easy to clean. [WP]
posted 5:19 PM Aug 25

Merck loses first Vioxx trial

The jury awarded more than $250 million in damages, but that figure will almost certainly be reduced. [AP]
posted 5:30 PM Aug 19

When MRIs attack

Sort of. MRI machines contain very powerful magnets (the "M" stands for magnetic), which can be a real problem if objects made of iron, nickel or cobalt are around. Accidents have become surprisingly common, prompting calls for stricter regulations. [NYT]
posted 10:06 AM Aug 19

Pseudoephedrine falls victim to meth war

This week Oregon became the first state in the nation to move the common over-the-counter decongestant pseudoephedrine back behind the counter. Pseudoephedrine is a key ingredient for making methamphetamine and officials hope the new law will cut down on production of the illicit drug. The market may have other ideas. [AP]
posted 5:12 PM Aug 17

Zoned out

There are no sure-fire ways to eliminate jet lag, but there are a few things you can do to lessen its effects. Maybe. [BS]
posted 5:06 PM Aug 17

Word on the street

An investigation by the Seattle Times concludes that hedge funds are essentially buying information about drug trials from doctors -- before that information is made public. [ST]
posted 4:05 PM Aug 8

Can you see me now?

Two hospitals in Boston will soon be experimenting with online "house calls" for patients with acne. The Boston area has one of the nation's longest waits for seeing a dermatologist. The hope is this new arrangement could get patients seen faster. [BG]
posted 3:31 PM Aug 8

Sweet, sweeter, sweetest

The artificial sweetener biz is more than a hundred years old, and there's still nothing like sugar. [LAT]
posted 3:09 PM Aug 8

Milk for sale

And it's not 2%. A company called Prolacta wants to sell breast milk to hospitals. The California-based company also wants to develop breast milk therapies for sick babies. [BBC]
posted 4:38 PM Aug 4

Dentists to the rescue

Dentists haven't typically figured into plans for disaster response, but a professor from NYU asks, "Why not?" [NYT]
posted 4:11 PM Aug 2

Strike!

Rafael Palmeiro, one of major league baseball's most accomplished players, recently tested positive for steroids. His response: I didn't know what I was taking! Doping experts' response: you're kidding, right? [BS]
posted 3:19 PM Aug 2

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On July 13, President Obama appeared before an invited audience at the White House to not only fulfill a campaign promise, but to bring the fight against AIDS back into the minds of Americans. Saying that the nation was at a crossroads, he announced the first ever national HIV/AIDS strategy for the United States. On this week’s Health Show we’ll hear the goals of the new strategy and talk to the director of an HIV practitioner’s organization to see if it goes far enough. Then we’ll hear a conversation with a New York Times reporter who has written a series of controversial stories about the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

THE NEW NATIONAL AIDS STRATEGY
On Tuesday, July 13, President Barack Obama stepped to a podium at the White House...and before an audience of enthusiastic invited guests announced the first ever national HIV/AIDS strategy for the United States.

You can download the full strategy document HERE.

You can download the strategy implementation plan HERE.

HIV/AIDS Providers React To The Strategy
Here to talk about the new national strategy is Jim Friedman, the executive director of the American Academy of HIV Medicine, an organization that represents front-line practitioners of HIV care reaching about three quarters of HIV patients in active care in the US.

A Reporter's Take On HIV/AIDS In Africa
According to NY Times reporter Donald McNeil, there’s a new AIDS crisis looming in Africa. He writes, in a nutshell, that the number of people with AIDS is increasing dramatically every year...and funding from the west isn’t nearly enough to stem the epidemic. Peggy Wehmeyer of The World Vision Report spoke to McNeil about his stories and started by noting that billions of dollars have already been allocated to fight AIDS over the past decade. Why hasn’t it been enough.

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