Healthcare Fraud

Top-10 Public Health Issues of 2013

By Gordon Schnell As we usher in the New Year with hopeful anticipation of all the positive public health developments that await us in 2014, here is a look-back at 2013 and our Top-10 listing of public health issues in the spotlight. 10.  Herbal Supplements.  The herbal supplement trade has grown into a multi-billion dollar business because these alternative remedies offer the promise of treating the old...

What’s in Your Herbal Supplement?

By Gordon Schnell The herbal supplement trade has grown into a multi-billion dollar business because these alternative remedies offer the promise of treating the old fashioned way some of our most nagging conditions.  No prescriptions.  No drugs.  No chemicals.  No synthetic compounds.  Just a simple dose of some unadulterated organic goodness.  What better way of tending to that nasty cold or flu, or dealing...

Attack of the Superbugs -- Time for the Government to Stand Up Against the Antibiotics Feeding Frenzy

By Gordon Schnell

The warnings keep coming.   The studies keep warning.  We are overdoing it on antibiotics.  They are over-prescribed by our doctors.  They are over-supplied to our farm animals.  And we seem to be heading in exactly the wrong direction. It was only two months ago that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the government watchdog of our long-term health and safety, came out...

Too Much Junk Science

By Gordon Schnell We read about them all the time.  The latest major breakthrough in taming one disease or another.  If not an ultimate cure-all, then at least a novel treatment to ease the condition or its associated symptoms.  In some cases, these reported advances really do result in groundbreaking remedies that improve the lives of many.  But in just as many cases it seems, after the initial hype has...

Fat, Stressed and not Very Healthy -- How We Rank in the Human Capital Index

By Gordon Schnell Just when it seemed like America's global standing could not get any worse, here is a new finding that sinks us even lower.  We are a country of overweight, highly stressed and generally unhealthy people.  That is the ultimate pronouncement from the Human Capital Report just released by the World Economic Forum.  It ranks the 122 major countries of the world according to how healthy,...

Death by Hospital Errors

By Gordon Schnell As if we did not have enough to worry about with healthcare these days.  Here is a new concern to add to the list -- getting seriously or fatally injured in the hospital from a medical mistake or accident.  Hard to believe with all our advances in science and medicine, but hospital errors now constitute the third leading cause of death in this country (behind heart disease and cancer).  And it...

How to Sell a Disease – The Low-Testosterone Marketing Blitz

By Gordon Schnell Decreased energy.  Depressed mood.  Diminished muscle mass.  Dampened sex drive.  These are the daily woes facing millions of middle-aged American men.  It is all caused by a deficiency of the mighty male hormone testosterone, a condition better known these days as Low-T.  The problem is that the principal promoter of this diagnosis is not from within the medical establishment.  It is the...

Another Preemption Decision Sheltering Drug Makers from Liability

By Marlene Koury Pharmaceutical companies are on a roll.  They continue to prevail in court by relying on the preemption doctrine to block injured consumers from suing over defective drugs.  First, in the recent Mutual Pharmaceutical v. Bartlett and PLIVA v. Mensing decisions, the Supreme Court held that federal law bars suits against generic drug companies for defects in the design or labeling of their...