Health Glance
Home health agencies, hospitals and consumer groups are complaining that a new rule intended to curb unnecessary Medicare spending will make it harder for senior citizens to get home care services.
Under the requirement, which is to take effect next Friday, Medicare beneficiaries will have to see doctors 90 days before or 30 days after starting home health services in order for the home health agencies to be reimbursed. Those face-to-face visits may be a burden for some home-bound frail seniors, as well as those who live in rural areas, the industry says.
At the supermarket, most shoppers are oblivious to a battle raging within U.S. agriculture and the Obama administration’s role in it. Two thriving but opposing sectors — organics and genetically engineered crops — have been warring on the farm, in the courts and in Washington.
Earlier this month (March 2011), Japanese authorities ordered doctors to stop using pneumococcal and Hib vaccines because four children died after receiving the shots. However, the real news was never reported: more than 2,000 babies died in the United States after receiving vaccines for these very same diseases, yet authorities refuse to warn parents and halt production. A safety review is vital to determine whether a recall of the dangerous shots may be necessary to protect additional American babies from disability and death.
Despite evidence that menthol cigarettes are a significant factor in the rise of smoking among adolescents, a federal advisory panel on Friday stopped short of recommending a ban on the cigarettes.
Banning sales of menthol-flavored cigarettes would improve public health, advisers have concluded in a draft report released on Friday.
The cholera epidemic affecting Haiti looks set to be far worse than officials had thought, experts fear. Rather than affecting a predicted 400,000 people, the diarrhoeal disease could strike nearly twice as many as this, latest estimates suggest.
There is renewed controversy surrounding influenza vaccines, with some studies showing people immunised against the seasonal flu might have been at greater risk during the swine flu outbreak.
