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MMS MediaWatch, Monday, November 17, 2014
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Today's Reports (30)
---Patients await opening of dispensaries (2)
---Addiction problem puts spotlight on doctors
---Peabody: Firm guidelines for e-cigarette shops
---"Apps" are seen bridging physician-patient gap
---Quincy center laid off before closure announcement
---States work to fix health care websites
---Nebraska: Ebola-infected physician dies
---Child homelessness soars to 2.5 million
---CDC: Deaths from heart disease are down
---More Americans are controlling hypertension
---Poll: Ebola still top health concern for many
---Insurance exchanges launch with few problems
---Gallup poll: Obamacare approval hits new low
---Small business reviews of Obamacare are mixed
---Health plans ask more patients for hospital pre-pays
---New data show long wait times remain at VA hospitals
---New drug helps skin cancer patients live longer
---Netherlands: Contagious bird flu strain discovered
---7 Biggest Health Problems Americans Face, The Motley Fool, November 16, 2014
---Meet America’s Top Ebola Doctor, Time.com, November 17, 2014
---The state must keep fighting opioid addiction, by John Keenan, in the Taunton Daily Gazette, November 17, 2014
---The most dangerous medical marijuana myth, by Sean Williams, The Motley Fool via USA Today, November 15, 2014
---Tobacco ban not the right move, by Dan Phelps, The Sentinel and Enterprise, November 17, 2014
---AIDS Group Wages Lonely Fight Against Pill to Prevent H.I.V., by Josh Barro, The New York Times, November 17, 2014
---Another ObamaCare Deception, by Tevi Troy, in The Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2014
---Not too late to quit, The Telegram & Gazette, November 17, 2014
---Citizens finally say 'enough is enough', The Lowell Sun, November 17, 2014
---Human services pose early test for Charlie Baker administration, The Boston Globe, November 17, 2014
---A Cuban Brain Drain, Courtesy of the U.S., The New York Times, November 17, 2014
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Across the Commonwealth
Hope that a prescription can
mimic marijuana’s benefits
The Boston Globe
---Two years after Massachusetts voters approved legalizing marijuana for medical use, [Haley] Osborn and many other patients are still waiting for dispensaries to open, even as other states legalize the drug for medical and recreational use.
Related Report
Marijuana as medicine?
The Boston Globe
---Patients and physicians don’t always see eye to eye on the potential benefits and risks of using marijuana — particularly smoking or ingesting marijuana plants — for medical use.
Full Report
Addiction problem puts spotlight on doctors
The Patriot Ledger, Quincy
---A mounting number of cases like Ryan Thompson’s – addicts whose drug dependence began with a legitimate prescription – is putting increasing emphasis on the role doctors play and whether they are too quick to hand out powerful painkillers to patients at risk of abusing them.
Full Report
Peabody Council sets firm
guidelines for e-cigarette shop
The Salem News
---City Councilor Barry Sinewitz has taken matters into his own hands and imposed numerous restrictions on a new vapor shop in West Peabody, including prohibiting sales of e-cigarettes to minors and banning vaping inside the shop.
Full Report
High blood pressure? There’s an app for that
The Boston Globe
---Among the ills of the American health care system is the disconnect between patients and their doctors. John Moore has an app for that.
Full Report
Quincy Medical Center trimmed its
work force prior to closure announcement
Boston Business Journal
---Quincy Medical Center had been decreasing employees in the months prior to its closure announcement, an indication of the hospital's deepening financial struggles.
Full Report
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From the States / Regions
States working to fix hobbled health care websites
Associated Press
---Massachusetts was one of several states where the ambition of running their own health insurance marketplace inside a new federal system ran into a harsh reality.
Full Report
Ebola-infected physician dies in Nebraska
USA Today
---A surgeon infected with Ebola while treating patients in Sierra Leone has died in Nebraska, Nebraska Medical Center announced Monday.
Full Report
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Across the Nation
Child homelessness surges to nearly 2.5 million
The Christian Science Monitor
---One out of every 30 children in the United States experiences homelessness at some point during the year. That’s nearly 2.5 million children, up from 1.6 million in 2010, reports The National Center on Family Homelessness in Waltham, Mass., part of the American Institutes for Research.
Deaths From Heart Disease Down, Up for
Blood Pressure, Irregular Heartbeat
HealthDay News
---From 2000 to 2010, the overall death rate from heart disease dropped almost 4 percent each year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers found. At the same time, death rates linked to high blood pressure-related heart disease increased 1.3 percent a year....
More Americans Controlling
Their High Blood Pressure
HealthDay News
---The increasing number of Americans with high blood pressure who are keeping their condition under control has reduced the numbers of heart attacks and strokes, and hospitalizations and deaths due to heart disease, the researchers noted in an [American Health Association] news release.
Full Report
Ebola still top health concern for many Americans
TheHill.com
---Seventeen percent of Americans polled by Gallup said that Ebola is the top health problem facing the country. Two other concerns — the cost of healthcare and access to care — ranked slightly higher.
Full Report
Insurance Exchanges Launch With Few Glitches
Kaiser Health News
---By most accounts, the federal marketplace that handles enrollment for 37 states ran smoothly — a far cry from last year’s disastrous rollout that turned www.healthcare.gov into an embarrassment for President Barack Obama, spurred several staff departures and made the site virtually unusable for two months.
Gallup: ObamaCare approval hits new low
TheHill.com
---Thirty-seven percent of Americans approve of the Affordable Care Act, according to a new survey from Gallup. The previous low was in January, when 38 percent said they approved of the law....Gallup found that approval of the law splits radically along party lines.
Obamacare: A blessing for some small
businesses, and a nightmare for others
The Washington Post
---Now entering the second year under some of the law’s key provisions, the reviews from small employers have been anything but uniform....here’s a look at how the health-care law has affected a pair of companies in Washington — one for the better, and one, well ...
Full Report
Health plans lead to more hospital pre-pays
The Louisville Courier-Journal via USA Today
---... being asked to pay a sum upfront for surgery, has become increasingly common as doctors' practices and hospitals navigate the world of employer-provided high-deductible health plans and the launch of the federal Affordable Care Act.
New data show long wait times
remain at many VA hospitals
USA Today
---More than 600,000 veterans — 10% of all the Veterans Affairs patients — continue to wait a month or more for appointments at VA hospitals and clinics, according to data obtained by USA TODAY.
Full Report
New Bristol-Myers Drug Helped
Skin-Cancer Patients in Trial Live Longer
The Wall Street Journal
---It is the first time a late-stage clinical trial has shown that one of a new class of drugs—which block an immune-cell component known as PD-1—improve patient survival compared to a comparator drug.
Full Report
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Bird flu: EU talks as Netherlands battles outbreak
BBC News
---The European Commission is discussing protective measures to contain a "highly contagious" strain of bird flu discovered at a poultry farm in the Netherlands.
Full Report
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Articles / Interviews / Features
7 Biggest Health Problems Americans Face
The Motley Fool, November 16, 2014
---So, what are the actual biggest health problems that Americans face? One way to answer this question is to look at what drugs are prescribed the most. Here are the seven top health problems based on the most-prescribed drugs in the U.S., according to Medscape's analysis of data provided by IMS Health.
Full Article
Meet America’s Top Ebola Doctor
Time.com, November 17, 2014
---Emory's Dr. Bruce Ribner, medical director of Emory University Hospital’s serious communicable disease unit in Atlanta, may be the only man in America who was truly prepared for Ebola.
Full Article
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Editorials
Not too late to quit
The Telegram & Gazette, Worcester, November 17, 2014
---The warnings began to be sounded as soon as the idea of banning tobacco sales was first floated....We don't condone the unruliness last Wednesday, but neither do we understand why the Westminster Board of Health found it necessary to put itself in an impossible position to begin with.
Full Editorial
Citizens finally say 'enough is enough'
The Lowell Sun, November 17, 2014
---The Westminster Board of Health has awakened a sleeping giant by considering a proposal to ban tobacco sales in the town. That giant awakened is democracy.
Full Editorial
Human services pose early test
for Charlie Baker administration
The Boston Globe, November 17, 2014
---Governor-elect Charlie Baker knows from experience that the state’s human services system — child protection, mental illness, welfare, and juvenile justice — will pose the stiffest challenge for his new administration at the highest stakes.
Full Editorial
A Cuban Brain Drain, Courtesy of the U.S.
The New York Times, November 17, 2014
---There is much to criticize about Washington’s failed policies toward Cuba and the embargo it has imposed on the island for decades. But the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, which in the last fiscal year enabled 1,278 Cubans to defect while on overseas assignments, a record number, is particularly hard to justify.
Full Editorial
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