"WHEN FOOD MAKES MEDICINE KILL, NOT CURE"

Drugs can also interact with foods.

Doctors will be told to check patients' diets before prescribing powerful drugs. Medical drugs "are already toxic by their very nature" and could become more toxic when interacting with other prescribed drugs. Some patients are on as many as 10 drugs.

Warfarin can react with green vegetables. Its efficacy is reduced by ice cream & avocados etc. People prescribed statins should not drink grapefruit juice. Antibiotics' efficacy is reduced by milk & dairy products. People on Lithium should not vary their salt intake.

As many as 200 medical drugs may be affected by food.

Wholesale prices for name-brand drugs jump

By ELIZABETH WOLFE, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Wholesale prices for name-brand drugs jumped an average 7.1 percent in 2004 — the largest hike in five years and more than twice the rate of inflation, according to a study released Tuesday by AARP.

AARP's annual Rx Watchdog Report tracked prices drug manufacturers charged wholesalers last year for about 200 prescription drugs popular with older Americans. The price hikes were the largest annual jump since AARP, the nation's largest lobbying group for the elderly, began sponsoring the study five years ago.

"We are disappointed that brand name manufacturers have failed to keep their price increases in line with inflation despite consumer appeals for them to hold the line," AARP chief Bill Novelli said in a statement. "Much more needs to be done to slow down spiraling drug pricing."

The 7.1 percent hike, slightly higher than 2003's 7.0 percent jump, continues a trend of increasing drug prices. Since the end of 1999, prices of more than 150 popular name-brand drugs have risen an average 35.1 percent, nearly three times the 13.5 percent inflation rate over that period, the report said. In 2004, inflation was 2.7 percent in 2004.

Among the 25 best-selling brand-name drugs on the market in 2003 and 2004, the sleep medication Ambien (10 mg. tablets) saw the largest price jump at 11.9 percent. Flomax, used to treat enlarged prostates, 0.4 mg. rose the least — 1.5 percent.

By contrast, the price for 75 popular generic drugs hardly budged in 2004, rising 0.5 percent. In 2003, manufacturers' prices for generic drugs went up an average 13.3 percent.

The report was prepared by the AARP Public Policy Institute and the PRIME Institute of the University of Minnesota.

Demand for Natural Healing Therapies

Every year millions of Americans seek providers who offer health care therapies that are neither widely taught in medical schools nor generally available in U.S. hospitals. Researchers from Harvard Medical School studied the health care practices of U.S. adults and estimated that 22 million Americans sought providers of unconventional care in 1990. The study, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, estimates that in 1990 Americans made more visits to providers who offered unconventional therapies than to all primary care physicians—425 million compared to 388 million visits.

More on What is Out of Control

Seems as if several health research organizations have been monitoring increases in health care costs.

During the period 2000-2003 the following statistics have been reported -

• 6.9 % increase in Medicaid spending per person
• 9.0% increae in spending per privately insured person
• 12.6% increase in health insurance premiums paid in employer-sponsored plans

In the mid-70s, during the time I was a graduate student in nursing and working as an industrial engineer for a hospital corporation design team, I wrote an article about rising health care costs. I guess not much has changed.

This is part of the reason I encourage people to look at their role in staying healthy, to keep their personal health care costs affordable.

Little Interest in Ethics Today

According to a study reported by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN) 84 percent of all doctors have seen their colleagues take shortcuts that could be dangerous to patients.

Worse, less than 10 percent of this group reported what they saw.

My father was a physician and surgeon who fortunately completed medical school when medicine was still an art. He belonged to a group of doctors that agreeably monitored each other so that any harm to a patient or others might be avoided.

This degree of professionalism must be very hard to find today it seems.

More Drug Dangers

BEXTRA: DESIGNED BY PFIZER TO FAIL.

An Open Letter to Pfizer Inc. on the Underlying Reasons That Bextra Failed, on Why Pfizer Made Bextra Unnecessarily Risky -- and on How Pfizer Might Still Save Celebrex.

Jay S. Cohen, M.D., is a nationally recognized expert on medication side effects and an Associate Professor (voluntary) of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Cohen's scientific papers on drug safety have received worldwide attention, and his book Over Dose: The Case Against The Drug Companies (2001) was highly recommended by reviewers including the Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Cohen has long emphasized the need for better, more complete dosing and side-effect information on prescription drugs, and he has been a featured speaker at major medical conferences and at the U.S Food and Drug Association.

is it parity or is it camouflage?

Washington state now has parity for mental health coverage with medical/surgical care.

Yet there is no separation between general psychiatrists and specialty psychiatrists such as those for children. The fee is the same in spite of additional training (not the mention all the additional time it takes to work with kids). But that's another hurdle.

Given the ineffectivenes of current drug-based psychiatric treatments - the number of mentally disabled individuals receiving social security beneifts for that disabilty has doubled over the past 15 years - the major effect of mental health parity will be to accelerate the fiscal bankruptcy of medicare, medicaid and the medical care system in general.