Illinois is moving to rescind the licenses of 37 doctors and other healthcare workers under a new law that bans from their professions workers convicted of sex crimes or violent acts -- even as the measure is challenged in court. All told, 20 doctors, 11 nurses, five pharmacists and a dentist have been sent notices, according to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. The state announced 22 revoked licenses, with another nine planned in the next week. Of those 22 already announced, only six had active licenses. The rest were either on suspension or did not have their licenses renewed when they expired, records show. More revocations are expected as the agency reviews its records, spokeswoman Sue Hofer said. Venkatesan Deenadayalu, MD, indicated he planned to fight revocation because he already has been punished by the state agency for his offense and has been following its restrictions, such as having a female assistant with him when treating females. Deenadayalu, 65, was convicted of misdemeanor sexual abuse and battery of a patient in his Downers Grove clinic after a 1999 incident. The state temporarily suspended his license, but he was allowed to resume practicing medicine in 2008. "This is not fair," he said. "I was already punished fully. … After 10 years, there has been no case against me since, and they treat me like this. I'm a law-abiding citizen."
The domestic partners of gay and lesbian employees at Parkland hospital will soon have access to health benefits, after the facility's Board of Managers voted this week to approve a proposal first put forward nearly four years ago. The Board of Managers voted 6-0, with one member abstaining, to offer DP benefits to gays and lesbians who are among the Parkland Health & Hospital System's 9,400 employees. The addition of DP benefits at Parkland, which takes effect Jan. 1, is expected to cost $696,635 in fiscal year 2012. But Dr. Lauren McDonald, who chairs the Board of Managers, said offering the benefits will make the hospital more competitive for workers and improve the quality of care it provides to patients. "I think if anything it eventually enriches us as opposed to costing us money," McDonald said after the vote, adding that DP benefits have been "a long time coming." In September 2007, McDonald pulled a proposal to add DP benefits from the Board of Managers' agenda at the last minute, citing opposition from "ultra-right wing, homophobic" board members. Parkland is Dallas County's public hospital, and the Board of Managers is appointed by the Commissioners Court, which was then controlled by Republicans.
A new report scrutinizing the risks of eight common vaccines is over 600 pages long, combs through more than 1,000 research papers, and is the best analysis of suspected vaccine-caused medical problems that's ever been done, says the high-powered committee that wrote it. Even so, it's not likely to end the contentious debate about vaccine safety in Washington state, which has the highest rate in the nation of children who enter school without the required vaccines. A hotly contested law passed this year bars parents from simply signing to exempt their children; starting this fall, they must include a doctor's certification that they've been informed of vaccines' risks and benefits. Ideally, worried parents would be able to turn to such a report for answers. In some cases, the committee, convened by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, delivered the goods. In 14 cases the panel examined, it found convincing evidence some vaccines can cause rare adverse events in certain people, including seizures, brain inflammation and fainting. Those problems were, in most cases, experienced by people with immune-system deficiencies. The committee also found the evidence doesn't support any connection between autism and the MMR vaccine for mumps, measles and rubella (German measles).
Only about half of the teenage girls in the U.S. have rolled up their sleeves for a controversial vaccine against cervical cancer -- a rate well below those for two other vaccinations aimed at adolescents. The vaccine hit the market in 2006. By last year, just 49% of girls had gotten at least the first of the recommended three shots for human papilloma virus, or HPV, a sexually-transmitted bug that can cause cervical cancer and genital warts. Only a third had gotten all three doses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. In contrast, the CDC said about two-thirds of teens had gotten the recommended shot for one type of bacterial meningitis and a shot for meningitis and tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough. Granted, it can take many years for a new vaccine to catch on and reach the 90% and above range for many longstanding childhood vaccines. But use of HPV vaccine has been "very disappointing" compared to other newer vaccines, said the CDC's Melinda Wharton, MD.
The world is getting fatter, and packing on the pounds is not just for wealthy nations anymore. Obesity is sweeping into low and middle-income countries, reports the World Health Organization's obesity center, creating a dual problem of unhealthy weight gain in some segments of a country's population, and malnutrition in others. The warning comes as part of a special Lancet series on weight gain in the run-up to the United Nations high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases in September. World leaders will meet to plan a response to rising rates of heart disease, cancers, diabetes and other conditions closely tied to obesity. There are an estimated 1.46 billion overweight adults worldwide, and 502 million of them are considered obese. While nearly all countries are seeing rates rise, the severity of the problem varies greatly from country to country, said the WHO. In Japan, about one in every 20 adult women is obese, compared to one in four in Jordan, one in three in the United States and Mexico, and up to seven in 10 in Tonga.
A study published this month in the journal Health Affairs asked hundreds of physicians and administrators in private practices across the United States and Canada how much time they spent each day with insurers and other third-party payers, tracking down information for claims that were denied or incorrectly paid, resolving questions about insurance coverage for prescription drugs or diagnostic tests, and filing the different forms required by each and every insurance company. Physicians in Canada, where healthcare is administered mainly by the government, did spend a good deal of time and money communicating with their payers. But American doctors in the study spent far more dealing with multiple health plans: more than $80,000 per year per physician, or roughly four times as much as their northern counterparts. And their offices spent as many as 21 hours per week with payers, nearly 10 times as much as the Canadian offices.