Ever wonder why the language describing dietary supplements always seems so vague, ambiguous, and…well…dodgy? It’s because federal law requires it to be so.
Over the last six months, federal agencies have made regulatory moves that could have significant impact on the practice of holistic, functional, and integrative medicine in the coming years. While none represent a direct threat to practice freedom, they set precedents that could greatly limit access to foundational practice tools.
Cognitive scientist George Lakoff has spent four decades studying how the human mind makes meaning, and how that factors into politics. He concludes that while people may believe they are “voting their conscience,” for the most part they are voting their “un-conscience.”
Outgoing President Barack Obama became the first American president to publish an article in a major peer-reviewed medical journal.
And not just any old medical journal, but the Journal of the American Medical Association. In it, he claims that healthcare reform has more or less succeeded in achieving its two main goals: expanding insurance coverage and curbing costs. But other health policy analysts aren’t so sure.
Data from a new Centers for Disease Control report based on interviews with almost 45,000 Americans indicate that public engagement with “complementary” practitioners and natural products is surging—and not just among affluent people.
Last winter at the American Medical Association’s annual Interim Meeting, the physician’s group agreed to adopt a resolution that surprised healthcare professionals and members of the public alike.
Like clowns at children’s birthday parties, there’s a whole cadre of healthcare policy professionals who ply a statistical version of balloon-twisting
They take claims data sets and twist them into forms that purport to be evidence-based pictures of the medical system. By extension, these statistical balloon-twisters are tweaking the lives of actual practitioners and patients because federal healthcare programs and private insurers use these statistical balloon animals to shape and re-shape healthcare payment systems.
When the balloon doggie pops–and it turns out the statistics are wrong–the tears start to flow.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s crusade against herbal products earlier this year has triggered a number of state and federal moves that could significantly change the way dietary supplements are regulated.
For decades, the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and other guardians of conventional wisdom about heart disease have urged physicians to follow rigorous “evidence-based” protocols based on defining treatment targets for LDL cholesterol, and then focusing statin prescriptions to reach these goals.
Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare is not the first documentary to bemoan the inadequacies of healthcare here in the US. But it is unique and commendable for the way it looks at potential solutions already known in “real world” practice.
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