At 1:30 AM, January 12, 2017, the Senate passed a budget resolution to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), with a party-line vote (51-48). A budget resolution needs only a simple majority to pass and thus represented the Republican Party’s quickest avenue to repeal the ACA. Congressional Republicans are pursuing a plan that would repeal parts of the law inContinue reading “CBO Projections for Impact of the GOP’s ACA-Repeal Plans on Healthcare Coverage and Premiums”
Category Archives: Preventive medicine
Retail Urgent Care Clinics Do Not Decrease Emergency Department Visits
A study published online today in Annals of Emergency Medicine (“Association Between the Opening of Retail Clinics and Low-Acuity Emergency Department Visits”) demonstrated that, contrary to expectations, retail clinics had little effect on rates of low-acuity visits to nearby emergency departments (EDs). This contradicts the popular theory that retail clinics would reduce ED visits. A 2015 report “Building aContinue reading “Retail Urgent Care Clinics Do Not Decrease Emergency Department Visits”
Two most common pediatric migraine medications no more effective than placebo
Neither of the two drugs used most frequently to prevent migraines in children–amitriptyline and topiramate–is more effective than a placebo, according to results of the Childhood and Adolescent Migraine Prevention (CHAMP) trial published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine. The investigators found no significant differences in reduction in headache frequency or headache-related disability in childhood and adolescent migraineContinue reading “Two most common pediatric migraine medications no more effective than placebo”
Medical ecology: tending the microbiome
Today, the Obama administration announces the new National Microbiome Initiative, intended to create scientific tools, discoveries and training techniques related to the human microbiome, the 100 trillion microbes that live in the human body. Tending the human microbiome may help in the treatment of infections, as well as disorders that would seem unrelated to microbes, including obesity andContinue reading “Medical ecology: tending the microbiome”
The Minimum Wage and the Social Determinants of Mental Health
A new study in Health Economics shows a temporal association between Britain’s minimum wage law and substantially improved mental health of the low wage workers benefitting from the policy. Source: The Minimum Wage and the Social Determinants of Mental Health
Should Doctors Undergo Opioid Prescribing Risk Training?
Earlier this week, an advisory panel recommended that the Food and Drug Administration require doctors who prescribe painkillers s to undergo training aimed at reducing misuse and abuse of the medications. The New York Times notes: It is the second time since 2010 that an F.D.A. panel has recommended expanding safety measures for painkillers. But the trainingContinue reading “Should Doctors Undergo Opioid Prescribing Risk Training?”
More evidence-concordant FDA guidelines increase access to mifepristone
As covered in the New York Times, this week the Food and Drug Administration relaxed the guidelines for taking mifepristone (Mifiprex, formerly RU-486), a pill that induces abortion, reviving one of the most contentious issues of the abortion debate. The change brings the directions for taking the drug, mifepristone, in line with what has become standard medical practice in most states: reducing the dosageContinue reading “More evidence-concordant FDA guidelines increase access to mifepristone”
Sitting is killing us, again
As an addendum to my last post related to the health hazards of excess sitting, a study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine added more evidence that excessive sitting is a risk factor for mortality. Using survey data from 54 countries, the researchers analyzed the association between time spent sitting more than three hours a day and mortality. They found thatContinue reading “Sitting is killing us, again”
Readmissions revisited
I am reposting a post by Garret Johnson and Zoe Lyon, both research assistants for Dr. Ashish Jha at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (who also has a great post on risk-adjustment for readmissions. The post eloquently explores an issue I’ve visited in a recent post: the importance of understanding the diverseContinue reading “Readmissions revisited”
Guns, Drugs and Cars
This week’s JAMA released a comparison of major causes of injury death and how they contribute to the gap in life expectancy between the US and other high-income countries. Here are their findings: Men in the comparison countries had a life expectancy advantage of 2.2 years over US men (78.6 years vs 76.4 years), asContinue reading “Guns, Drugs and Cars”
Marion R. Sills, MD, MPH 