Health Glance
Rwanda has had national health insurance for 11 years now; 92 percent of the nation is covered, and the premiums are $2 a year.
Sunny Ntayomba, an editorial writer for The New Times, a newspaper based in the capital, Kigali, is aware of the paradox: his nation, one of the world’s poorest, insures more of its citizens than the world’s richest does.
A Dirt-Poor Nation, With a Health Plan
Cheap drug could save tens of thousands of accident victims by stopping bleeding
An inexpensive drug could save tens of thousands of lives lost in accidents and war every year by minimizing excessive bleeding, British researchers reported Monday. The drug, called tranexamic acid, is already used during surgeries in many developed countries to prevent unwanted bleeding, but the results from a massive clinical trial reported in the journal Lancet indicate that it could be used on an everyday basis even in the poorest countries.
Physicians had feared that such widespread use of the drug might lead to heart attacks, embolisms or other problems resulting from clot formation, but the new study showed an excellent safety profile for the drug.
Millions of cancer survivors skip care over cost, study finds
Millions of cancer survivors have put off receiving medical care because they could not afford it, according to a new study.
More than 2 million of 12 million U.S. adult cancer survivors did not get one or more needed medical services, the researchers estimate.
Big Pharma lies about statin drugs finally exposed in British Medical Journal
To hear Big Pharma tell it, statin drugs are "miracle" medicines that have prevented millions of heart attacks and strokes. But a recent study published in the British Medical Journal tells a completely different story: For every heart attack prevented by the drug, two or more people suffered liver damage, kidney failure, cataracts or extreme muscle weakness as a result of taking the drug.
Statin drugs, in other words, harm far more people than they help.
F.D.A. Faults 5 Companies on Genetic Tests
The Food and Drug Administration is cracking down on 23andMe and other companies that sell genetic tests directly to consumers.The F.D.A. sent letters this week to five companies involved in that business, saying their tests are medical devices that must receive regulatory approval before they can be marketed.
Study shows how radiation (mammograms to CT scans) causes breast cancer
"Our work shows that radiation can change the microenvironment of breast cells, and this in turn can allow the growth of abnormal cells with a long-lived phenotype that have a much greater potential to be cancerous," Paul Yaswen, a cell biologist and breast cancer research specialist with Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division, said in a statement to the press.
Report says FDA struggles to keep food safe
A new report says the Food and Drug Administration is stretched thin and needs to reorganize to better keep the nation's food safe.
The report released by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council Tuesday says the agency needs to become more efficient and better target its limited dollars to prevent foodborne illness outbreaks. The 500-page report says the FDA lacks the vision necessary to protect consumers.
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