Internal company documents from IBM show that medical experts working with the company’s Watson supercomputer found “multiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations” when using the software, according to a report from Stat News.
E-commerce giant Amazon wiped out nearly $15 billion in value from Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid this week when it announced a nearly $1 billion deal to acquire PillPack, an online prescription service, sending the competition scrambling for cover. It’s unclear just how Amazon plans on integrating PillPack into the…
Officials with California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) have intervened to nullify a recent court ruling saying coffee sold in the state—say, like at a local Starbucks—must be accompanied by warning labels saying brewed coffee contains the carcinogen acrylamide.
The state of Massachusetts has filed a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma LP, the company that developed the semisynthetic opioid OxyContin in 1995 and aggressively marketed it while downplaying the risk of addiction. It’s part of a growing backlash to Purdue, a pharmaceutical giant the New Yorker characterized as an …
Despite the best efforts of a Republican-led Congress over the past two years, the Affordable Care Act has largely stayed intact. A recent study published in Health Affairs offers the latest bit of evidence that the sweeping health care law, flawed and incomplete as it might be, has been a net good. In California, the…
The U.S. Justice Department made an unusual argument to a federal court last night, claiming that Obamacare’s protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions are unconstitutional. Roughly 1 in 4 Americans have pre-existing conditions that would make it difficult to buy insurance without those protections.…
Today the Food and Drug Administration published a list of pharmaceutical companies accused of bogging down the development of generic drugs. The makers of brand name drugs are constantly putting up obstacles that delay the development of generic medications, according to generics manufacturers, and this new list…
Thousands of patients, including children, may have been affected in a doctor’s alleged scheme that funded his extravagant lifestyle.
Earlier this year, billionaires Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Jamie Dimon promised to launch a new partnership that would upend the healthcare industry and lower the cost of care for the employees of their very large companies. That has yet to come to fruition, in large part due to one very big problem: they can’t…
For more than three decades, the nonprofit United Network for Organ Sharing has run America’s organ transplant system, matching organs with those who need them thanks to a contract with the United States government.
It’s no secret that the US—when compared to similarly well-off countries—is not that great at keeping its infants (and new moms) alive. But a new study published Tuesday in PLOS-Medicine offers a detailed state-by-state look of how short of the mark we’re falling: Infants born in the US can be over twice as likely to…
There are huge gaps in scientists’ knowledge about gender-affirming surgery in the United States. How common is it? Who gets it, and whose insurance covers it?
The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines in hospitals are great at creating pictures of the human body. For decades, scientists have hoped that the same technology could be used to examine much smaller things, like individual molecules. Now, a team from Canada and the United States has revealed a new,…
Scientists announced that they have observed the structure of huntingtin, a large and essential protein in many animals’ bodies which, when produced by a mutated gene, causes Huntington’s disease in humans.
By using an artificially intelligent algorithm to predict patient mortality, a research team from Stanford University is hoping to improve the timing of end-of-life care for critically ill patients. In tests, the system proved eerily accurate, correctly predicting mortality outcomes in 90 percent of cases. But while…
A flu strain called H3N2 has sent thousands to emergency rooms in California—so many that hospitals are erecting tents to accommodate the all the extra patients, reports the LA Times.
The FDA has approved a new clinical platform for hospital staff that uses an algorithm to predict and prevent sudden patient death, makers Excel Medical announced Monday. Called the WAVE Clinical Platform, the system monitors patient vitals and sends alerts to connected smart devices up to six hours before patient…
In what serves as a very sad commentary on the current state of geopolitical affairs, the US Centers for Disease Control will hold a special session later this month to discuss ways in which American citizens should plan and prepare for nuclear war.
The White House’s purge of Barack Obama-era federal appointees has taken a few more turns with the termination of all remaining 16 members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDs, allegedly via a FedEx letter that offered no explanation, the Washington Blade reported this week.
At least four defectors from North Korea’s Kilju County, the location of the pariah government’s notorious Punggye-ri nuclear test site, have tested positive for symptoms of radiation exposure, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.
