Doctors are less likely to trust research studies performed with funding from corporate interests such as pharmaceutical companies, according to a new study. The report, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, reveals a long-suspected bias against such research among physicians. It also demonstrates the price companies have paid for public violations of trust, including examples of data manipulation and misrepresentation of study results. Within each category, a doctor's trust in the results was heavily influenced by the source of funding: They were only half as willing to prescribe drugs studied in industry-funded trials as compared with NIH-funded studies.
Use of the top two most expensive codes for emergency room care nationwide nearly doubled, from 25 percent to 45 percent of all claims, during the time period examined. In many cases, these claims were not for treating patients with life-threatening injuries. Instead, the claims the Center analyzed included only patients who were sent home from the emergency room without being admitted to the hospital. Often, they were treated for seemingly minor injuries and complaints. While taxpayers footed most of the bill, the charges also hit elderly patients in the pocketbook, increasing the amount of their 20-percent co-payments for emergency room care.
The largest cancer center in the U.S. is launching a massive "moonshot" effort against eight specific forms of the disease, similar to the all-out push for space exploration 50 years ago. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston expects to spend as much as $3 billion on the project over the next 10 years and already has “tens of millions” of dollars in gifts to jump-start it now, said its president, Dr. Ronald DePinho. The project aims to find cures and lower deaths. Although no overall benchmarks have been set, individual projects for various cancers have specific goals. With genetic information and more precise drugs, "we have many of the tools we need to pick the fight of the 21st century" and find ways to defeat these cancers, DePinho said.
MedCath, a Charlotte-based hospital operator that once had annual revenue of $636 million, is filing paperwork to dissolve Friday, brought down by changing regulations, consolidation, and a heavy reliance on the rapidly changing business of cardiac care. The company already has finished selling off its eight majority-owned hospitals, its two minority stakes in hospitals, and other cardiac care practices. After filing a certificate of dissolution in Delaware on Friday, the company will distribute $6.33 per share to its stockholders and halt trading of its shares for good.
The state of Arizona has filed a lawsuit against McKesson Corp., alleging the nation's largest drug wholesaler has artificially inflated the prices of more than 400 brand-name prescription drugs. Among the drugs that are alleged to have been marked-up inappropriately are: Allegra, Azmacort, Celebrex, Coumadin, Flonase, Lipitor, Neurontin, Nexium, Prevacid and Valium. The complaint was filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, alleging that the scheme began in 2000 to mark up the average wholesale price of many prescription drugs, costing consumers millions of dollars, according to Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne. The San Francisco company controls about one-third of the national wholesale drug distribution market, Horne said.
Florida Hospital's relationship with the University of Central Florida's College of Medicine is showing serious signs of strain, according to emails obtained by Orlando Business Journal. It’s not every day that I get a public records request back with a joint statement from two of Central Florida's most influential names. In the Sept. 21 issue of Orlando Business Journal, we have a story about the growing strain in the relationship between the University of Central Florida's College of Medicine and Florida Hospital. Rumors have been circulating for months that the relationship had gone sour. In this public records request, we got several emails between leadership at UCF and Florida Hospital from February and August. You can download the emails here.