Latest California Healthline Stories
President Bush To Make Medical Liability Reform Legislation a Priority in Second Term
President Bush on Wednesday will address more than 1,000 physicians, business leaders and Republican officials in a speech in Collinsville, Ill., aimed at “reining in lawsuits” to stem a rise in medical malpractice premiums, according to Bush spokesperson Jim Morrell, the AP/Las Vegas Sun reports.
Disparity in Use of Implantable Defibrillators Has Closed Between Whites, Blacks, Study Finds
Black patients hospitalized with cardiac arrest or ventricular arrhythmia in 2000 received implantable cardioverter defibrillators at about 70% the rate of white patients hospitalized with the same condition during the same year, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Almost No Evidence Exists To Prove Effectiveness of Commercial Weight-Loss Programs, Study Finds
Almost no evidence exists to show that most commercial weight-loss programs are effective in reducing weight, according to a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the New York Times reports.
Open-Government Advocates Critical of Proposition 71 Committee
The Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, which is charged with determining how to distribute funds for stem cell research available through Proposition 71, faces additional criticism from some open-government advocates that it “isn’t trying hard enough to conduct its affairs in public,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
San Francisco Chronicle Examines Prospects for Legislation To Legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide
The San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday examined the prospects in the Legislature for a measure that would legalize physician-assisted suicide in California in some instances.
Democrats Propose Prescription Drug Legislation, Seek To ‘Embrace Middle-Class Agenda’
Democratic lawmakers on Monday “began to position themselves for the year” by establishing issues that will “rank high” on their agenda, including reducing the cost of prescription drugs and improving access to health care, the Sacramento Bee reports.
University of California-Irvine Launches Program To Train Physicians To Care for Latinos
The University of California-Irvine this summer launched a new program that trains medical students specifically on how to most effectively care for Latino patients, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Wall Street Journal Examines State Law Requiring Hospitals To Disclose Price Schedules
Some hospitals in California “are being forced to defend themselves against allegations that they have preyed on patients for debts that were inflated” after a law (AB 1627) requiring hospitals to list their pricing schedules has shown that prices for medical goods or services “fluctuate wildly” across the state, the Wall Street Journal reports.
FDA Health Advisory Recommends Limited Prescribing for COX-2 Inhibitors
FDA on Dec. 23 issued a health advisory recommending that doctors carefully consider a patient’s risk of cardiac disease before prescribing Pfizer’s COX-2 inhibitors Celebrex and Bextra, after several “conflicting studies” raised questions about the painkillers’ cardiovascular risks, the Baltimore Sun reports.
Smoking Cessation Counseling Benefit in Medicare To Begin in March
Medicare will pay for smoking cessation counseling for beneficiaries who smoke and have smoking-related diseases — such as heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, emphysema, weak bones, blood clots and cataracts — or take certain medicines whose effectiveness can be compromised by smoking, the Bush administration announced Dec. 24, the New York Times reports.