‘Outrageous’: why was a US health worker charged with spreading Covid?
Attempt to hold a worker criminally liable for the spread of Covid resulted in Josefina Brito-Fernandez losing her license to work, fearing deportation More
And the ‘Shkreli Award’ goes to …
Through the years, we’ve learned not to underestimate the lengths to which institutions and individuals will go to protect their bottom lines. We like to think that no bad behavior can surprise us anymore—but then we learn better. Last year, we found a pharmaceutical company seeking the financially advantageous “orphan” drug designation for a drug it said was for a rare disease. The disease was COVID-19.
When we put all the examples of Shkreli-like behavior together, they stop looking like anecdotes and start looking like evidence. That’s the point of the awards: to highlight the structural weaknesses in health care that allow this kind of behavior to occur.
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A U.S. company that ruined vaccine doses gave its top executives hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses.
The government has so far paid Emergent BioSolutions $271 million, even though American regulators have yet to clear a single dose of vaccine produced at its manufacturing plant in Baltimore. More
Some Tucsonans report being billed for free COVID-19 vaccines
Some vaccinated at Banner Health sites in Tucson have received $71 bills. Banner says the bills were a mistake and that anyone who paid them can get their money back. More
Covid Killed His Father. Then Came $1 Million in Medical Bills.
Insurers and Congress wrote rules to protect coronavirus patients, but the bills came anyway, leaving some mired in debt. More
Buoyed by Federal Covid Aid, Big Hospital Chains Buy Up Competitors
The pandemic barely dented the financial outlook for some major networks, which continued to acquire weaker hospitals and ailing doctors’ practices. Critics worry consolidation leads to higher prices for medical care. More
‘There’s no way I can pay for this:’ One of America’s largest hospital chains has been suing thousands of patients during the pandemic
One of America's largest hospital chains, Community Health Systems, has filed at least 19,000 lawsuits against patients in the last year, a CNN investigation finds. More
How COVID broke the evidence pipeline
The pandemic stress-tested the way the world produces evidence — and revealed all the flaws. More
Lead, Mistrust, and Trauma—Whistleblowing Pediatrician Discusses the Legacy of Flint’s Water Crisis
This Medical News article is an interview with Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, MPH, the Flint, Michigan, pediatrician who discovered elevated blood lead levels among children exposed to the city’s drinking water. More
Ethical Issues Raised Over FDA Collaboration with Biogen on Failed Drug
The FDA collaborated with Biogen to conduct repeated re-analyses of aducanumab for Alzheimer's and FDA committee members are raising concerns. More
Rather than turning its back on the QALY, pharma should collaborate on efforts to improve it
The quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) attempts to capture the impact of disease. It's a metric worth improving, not discarding. More
Hospitals get 1st CMS warning on price transparency failure
CMS has started issuing its first round of warning letters to hospitals not in compliance with the hospital price disclosure rule, a CMS spokesperson confirmed to Becker's May 5. More
Covid Testing Has Turned Into a Financial Windfall for Hospitals and Other Providers
Because there are no caps on cost, consumers and insurers often get billed hundreds of dollars for the most reliable PCR covid test. Prices are rising and they can’t fight back. More
Mass General Brigham’s plan for surgical centers in suburbs stirs controversy
An ambitious expansion plan by Mass General Brigham for Westborough, Westwood, and Woburn has set off a fight about the future of outpatient health care in Massachusetts. Competitors worry that the already dominant health care provider could become even more powerful. More
Drug pricing watchdog says there’s ‘insufficient’ evidence that Biogen’s Alzheimer’s medicine would help patients
In a draft report, Boston-based ICER cites conflicting data from two trials. The Cambridge biotech says it “does not accurately reflect the possible holistic value” of the experimental treatment. More
Drug pricing watchdog says there’s ‘insufficient’ evidence that Biogen’s Alzheimer’s medicine would help patients
In a draft report, Boston-based ICER cites conflicting data from two trials. The Cambridge biotech says it “does not accurately reflect the possible holistic value” of the experimental treatment. More
Op-ed: FDA’s ‘abundance of caution’ should extend to supplements
Supplements — vitamins, hormones, herbs, enzymes and probiotics — are only lightly regulated, and the existing rules are poorly enforced. The pandemic underlines why this is not a good thing, writes Sarah Green Carmichael in an op-ed. More
Hospice Tax Status and Ownership Matters for Patients and Families
The increase in ownership of hospices by private equity (PE) firms and publicly traded companies (PTCs) documented by Braun and colleagues follows almost 2 decades of steady growth of for-profit ownership of hospice agencies, from one-third of hospices in 2000 to almost two-thirds by 2017. More
Opinion | ‘That’s Heartbreaking’: How American Health Care Looks From Abroad
We asked eight people around the world what they thought. It didn’t go well. More
Americans paid two to four times as much for some drugs as in three other countries
“We can no longer tolerate the American people paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. More