No Free Speech for Comparative Effectiveness Researchers?
We have repeatedly argued why comparative effectiveness research, under ideal circumstances, would be a good idea.  As I said before:Physicians spend a lot of time trying to figure out the best treatments for particular patients' problems. Doing so is often hard. In many situations, there are many plausible treatments, but the trick is picking the one most likely to do the most good and least harm for a particular patient. Ideally, this is where evidence based medicine comes in. But the biggest problem with using the EBM approach is that often the best available evidence does

Former McKesson CEO and Board Chairman Convicted of Fraud
Continuing with our annals of health care crime, Bloomberg.com reported a new verdict on a very old case:Former McKesson Corp. Chairman Charles McCall was convicted in a second trial of participating in a fraud 10 years ago that cost investors $8.6 billion, one of the largest white-collar crimes at the time.A federal jury in San Francisco yesterday found McCall guilty of five of six counts of securities fraud and circumventing accounting rules. He was acquitted of falsifying records. Sentencing is set for March 2. Ex-McKesson General Counsel Jay Lapine was found

Aetna Government Contract Discredited
Last week, the Sacramento Business Journal reported on irregularities in how health insurance/ managed care giant Aetna obtained a contract with the US military health plan Tricare:Aetna Inc. hired a former high-level Tricare employee with access to proprietary information about Health Net Inc.’s performance that could have given Aetna a competitive edge in its bid for a lucrative military health care contract, the U.S. Government Accountability Office has concluded.The GAO details six flaws in the procurement process in new documents posted online Tuesday and

Genzyme's "Remarkable Business'Strategy" and Contaminated Drugs
In June, 2009, an article in the Boston Globe described how the Boston area based biotechnology company Genzyme sold some astonishlingly expensive drugs, usinga remarkable business strategy: In countries from Colombia to Taiwan to Libya, the Cambridge firm has compiled an extraordinary track record of searching out patients like Tania, providing desperately needed treatment, and then successfully pressing their governments, even poor ones, to pay full price for the most expensive drugs in the world.The

Skip Mammograms Until 50, Says U.S. Panel: First Instance of Rationing of Care by Death Panels?
"Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death.” Hippocratic Oath, Modern Version [1]"Critical thinking always, or your patient's dead" - Victor P. Satinsky, M.D. [2]In reading an article today about the decision by a government task force that screening mammograms are unnecessary for women under 50, I recall that one of my best female friends with no family history had a small, deep breast calcification noted on a routine mammogram in her late 40's. Biopsy showed carcinoma. It was excised and she received the appropriate followup protocol; however within less than two years it recurred and she underwent a mast