Pressing Issues in Health Care
Q: Is there a lesson in studying new stem cell “markets”?
A: Yes: that anarchy only lasts for so long. It’s great to have periods of chaos and euphoria when technologies create new markets, but the best businesses will advocate regulation because protecting intellectual property rights and setting technical standards will be in their own best interest.
Using Baby's Blood
Storing newborns' blood for research creates a valuable resource—but some parents are trying to put a stop to the practice.
Drug Samples: The Cost of Free Drugs
Handouts from drug companies might seem helpful, but some experts contend that they create conflicts of interest and raise prescription costs.
Ghostbusting
A movement to ban uncredited contributors is growing among medical journals.
Come Together
Massachusetts has been a model of health reform (reform Scott Brown endorsed). Its 2006 plan, a compromise between Republicans and Democrats, has improved access to care while keeping costs well within projections. That’s the real lesson of the recent Senate vote.
Green Chemistry
Pharmaceutical companies are finding that reducing waste in drug manufacturing can also save them millions of dollars.
Joint Venture?
The need for a U.S. joint replacement registry is urgent, but should the government or orthopedic surgeons control the data?
The Future of Obesity?
A long campaign halved the percentage of U.S. smokers. Could a similar effort succeed against the nation’s obesity epidemic?
Is No-Pay the Way?
To save money and increase quality of care for Medicare patients, the government is considering denying payment to hospitals for certain procedures.
When the heart beats, all of the muscle’s cells contract in unison in one smooth movement. Re-creating such synchronized motion in a petri dish (both for research and therapeutic purposes) poses a particular challenge, one that a research team from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and the Draper Laboratory in Massachusetts met by taking inspiration from the humble accordion.
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Tune in to Proto: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Medicine on ReachMD. Host Dr. Bruce Bloom interviews Mass General experts about evidence-based medicine, hormone therapy and more.
“Your story even asks whether obese people should be “barred from indulging in public spaces”—what does it mean to “indulge” in public? Can I no longer patronize a restaurant because I’m not thin enough? Or should the cook be required to monitor my intake while I’m there? Are you going to ban me from the beach too?”
