We will receive our first shipment of H1N1 vaccine by Monday. The staff is calling everyone we believe to be higher risk to get their shot early next week. More vaccine should arrive weekly so everyone who wants H1N1 vaccine should be able to get it over the next 3 weeks. At last.
A preventive medicine task force just suggested that women not have mammograms in their 40’s and should only be screened every two years after that. And don’t bother with breast self-exam or your doctor’s breast exam. And the gynecologists’ task force declared that no women should have Pap smears before age 21 and less frequently thereafter. What to make of this? Ask your doctor, they say. How do we make sense of this?
We have a short break in seasonal flu shot availability because production was stopped to allow conversion to H1N1. Full supplies should arrive in November, in plenty of time for the normal flu that starts in late December.
We need first to tackle the basic issues of health insurance. Preexisting conditions and other inequities. Do individuals get treated like groups? Are groups all treated the same? What is the range of insurance costs attributed to people of different ages? Ultimately, we must get everyone an affordable ticket to the health care arena. That’s what the fight is about. Then we need to manage our resources better.
The Kepler satellite was launched into sun orbit March 7, 2009. Its mission is to prove that life exists on other planets in our galaxy. We already have used less sophisticated instruments to prove the existence of several hundred planets in our neighborhood in the Milky Way in just the past few years. The new satellite contains sophisticated instrumentation that…
Information about H1N1 influenza and the forthcoming vaccine continues to evolve. Here is a summary of our most recent updates and recommendations.
Controlling and losing weight is extremely difficult. The biggest problem may be making a true commitment to succeed. How do we find our Start Button to initiate and sustain the behavior changes that are required? A success story.
Why our health care system is so wonderful and so dysfunctional is an immensely complex tale that is of immediate political importance to understand. Introduction to a planned series of reports.
Fall is arriving, along with traditional influenza and the new swine flu. With appropriate precautions and available immunizations, we should all be able to enjoy a healthy season. Here is the current status and our recommendations.
An FDA advisory panel was widely reported last week to recommend banning Vicodin and Percocet because the committee believes the amount (500 mg) of Tylenol those drugs contain is dangerous and contributes to liver damage and fatalities. What should we do about Tylenol dosage in general?