FDA Clears Drug Eliquis For the Prevention of Strokes, Alternative for Warfarin For Anti-Clotting–3rd Time is the Charm

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The drug was twice denied approval and the FDA wanted additional data before approval could take place.  Patients with artificial heart valves should not take the drug as it was not studied in that population yet.  Bristol-Meyers Squibb is the manufacturer and it will be co-marketed with Pfizer.  They are a little late to the game as Pradaxa was approved about 2 years ago as an alternative for Warfarin.  There are no regular blood tests required to monitor as there is with Warfarin.  Eliquis could prove to be better drug however since it is in a newer class of drugs.  In addition there is Xarelto that also competes in this arena.  In the clinical trial of 18,000 patients those taking Eliquis had fewer strokes.  BD 

FDA Approves Pradaxa–An Alternative to Warfarin To Treat Blot Clots Associated With Atrial Fibrillation

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WASHINGTON (AP) - The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it approved an anticlotting drug called Eliquis, developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Pfizer Inc. It's a potential blockbuster in a new category of medicines to prevent strokes.

The agency previously rejected the drug twice, most recently in June, awaiting additional data from company trials.

The FDA cleared the pill for treating the most common type of irregular heartbeat, atrial fibrillation, in patients at risk for strokes or dangerous clots.

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/20445496/fda-clears-anticlotting-drug-eliquis

Dr. Oz on Technology and Doctors–It’s Not About Medicine Depending Technology And Not Doctors But Rather About Developing an Awareness of Tools & Technology That Have Value And Are Available…

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This was a very “touch” interview of sorts. He makes good points as far as having “public” systems available with technology. Very carefully the word “nudge” is used which I think is the right terminology. He’s right with the new tools we have coming out but I don’t think the title here for this interview was maybe correct? I do not believe he is saying that the future of medicine is technology and not the doctors, again my opinion here. I would say more so he’s telling all to “pay attention” to some of the tools that are out there, and there are some good ones. Granted we get los in the “app for everything” concept that seems to breed today and finding the “value” in what we do see as being something we can use is a task. There’s crap out there too, but again I think he’s suggesting to look for the tools out there than can guide and educate.

Sure the car is mentioned but you have to ask yourself if we are ready for this or is the best scenario in a mall as he talks about to find time to educate yourself. I say this as when you are getting in a car to drive and go somewhere you have one thing on your mind, going somewhere, where as at a mall you are not focusing on operating a car but are walking around and looking anyway. Myself I don’t want a car to tell me what’s wrong with me right now as it could be a distraction and some of the technologies that are available could be included in time, but when you are bringing in healthcare at a time when you need to be on time for an appointment, its not the right time to disrupt. We all learn at times when it is either convenient or productive when we have “time” so to constantly throw analytics in your face whenever you want to go somewhere could spoil the party if you will.


We have a lot of years without a car telling us our heart rate and other information it could offer and thus so to move too quickly in this area without some “technology baby steps” could send a good thing over the edge too quickly, we all still need to adapt, thus I think this article was just a little out of context with what Dr. Oz was trying to say here, keep all things in context I say. 

When it comes to “context” today I have a couple my favorite videos that make this point better than I can with writing additional text on the topic and here’s the links to both posts and videos.  Give them a look and see what you think as unless you know some of the mechanics today on how formulas and math are used, it’s easy to get swept away and there’s a lot of great steroid marketing out there today to do just that as it makes money and has gone beyond just pharmaceutical companies advertising. 

Pharma has done it for years, why, because it works so take time and think about what is being presented and search out what you consider to be value, and it’s not always easy today.  At times when I give some deep thought to some of what I see out there, I do laugh at times, and other times it makes me mad that some of the marketing is done strictly for money and lacks value, but we all need to make those decisions for ourselves and sort it out.  BD 

Big Data/Analytics If Used Out of Context and Without True Values Stand To Be A Huge Discriminatory Practice Against Consumers–More Honest Data Scientists Needed to Formulate Accuracy/Value To Keep Algo Duping For Profit Out of the Game

Context is Everything–More About the Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception–Professor Siefe Lecture Given at Google’s New York Office–Big Healthcare Focus

http://www.businessinsider.com/dr-oz-on-the-future-of-medicine-2012-12

As The Fiscal Cliff Approaches, Time To Reflect With A Little Music For Thought: “This Is Not America”

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There was a move made a while back called “The Falcon and the Snowman” and it was about who selling America out and it was a good movie and the soundtrack alone was equally as good as the movie and one song that sticks in my brain today is this one as a “normal” environment we have known for years is changing and are we in a place that is no longer familiar to us in many ways…in watching our government with trying to agree and collaborate with solutions, which doesn’t seem to be going very well, this song keeps kicking around in my head (lyrics below) “this could be a miracle”?  How many snowmen are there out there?  Anyway the lyrics seem to somewhat say this is not the same as the country I grew up in as we watch current events and values get replaced  with new ones that seem to leave out some of the greatness of the past, inequality seems to be the big one that comes to mind. 

A little piece of you
The little peace in me
Will die
For this is not America
Blossom falls to bloom
This season
Promise not to stare
Too long
For this is not a miracle
There was a time
A storm that blew so pure
For this could be the biggest sky
And i could have
The faintest idea
Snowman melting
From the inside
Falcon spirals
To the ground
So bloody red
Tomorrows clouds
A little piece of you
The little piece in me
Will die
For this is not America
There was a time
A wind that blew so young
For this could be the biggest sky
And i could have the faintest idea
This could be the biggest sky
This could be a miracle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJRF8xGzvj4

Hospital Facility Fees Up for Discussion Again as Out of Pocket Costs Rise for Patients When Hospitals Buy Physician Practices And Appear to be Growing

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Facility fees are allowed by Medicare for hospitals to charge and these are tacked on, separate from medical services received.  More and more of these types of charges are appearing on medical bills, especially ones set up for outpatient services.  Sometimes insurers do not pay the fees and thus some patients begin looking for doctors who do not have this charge.  Facility fees are amounting up to a billion dollars a year that Medicare pays, so you wonder what is accomplished here as practices can charge more that are owned by hospitals too so does Medicare get the double whammy when they are trying to save money? 

So as a patient, pay attention if you can to if your doctor’s practice was sold to a hospital as you may begin seeing those soon.  The story quotes one woman getting a facility or services fee for 8k, so of course that was negotiated down by the insurance company and and she ended up having to pay over a thousand of that fee.  Better disclosure is certainly needed as they are not always posted either.  They all do it and back in 2009 I wrote about the fee that Cleveland Clinics charge and the $55.00 fee looks rather small compared to what is being charged now with some of these fees.  BD

Cleveland Clinic “facility fee” or “hospital services fee” has Patients up in Arms

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One family accustomed to paying about $120 in out-of-pocket costs for doctor visits and other medical services was outraged when their costs for similar visits soared to $1,000, Mullin said.

The reason for the increase: The physician practice had been bought by a local hospital, and “all of a sudden everything was charged differently,” said Mullin, a Republican.

The higher bills reflected “facility fees.” For years, hospitals that own physician practices and outpatient clinics have been allowed by Medicare to tack on these fees, separate from bills for doctors’ services, for the use of the facilities. As hospitals buy up medical practices and set up outpatient treatment centers, more of these fees are showing up on patients’ bills.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-23/national/36017221_1_facility-fees-hospitals-face-medicare-costs

FDA Approves New Drug for Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis, Sirturo –First New Drug in 40 Years for TB

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Amongst all the recalls Johnson and Johnson has had a good year with FDA approvals including this one as there has not bee anything new approved in years.  There is an inhaled TB vaccine in the works from a few years back.

Inhaled Tuberculosis Vaccine More Effective Than Traditional Shot

Probably more recent in the news was the “Occupy” location in Atlanta where homeless people were testing positive for TB.  The new drug is pretty hefty with warnings as well and is to be used after other medications have failed and carries the black box warning as it is considered a new class of drugs and there could be more deaths attributed to it’s use.    This type of TB is rare in the US but growing in other countries and TB is spread through the air.  BD

Atlanta Occupy Location Tests Positive for Tuberculosis and May Have to Relocate Again

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The Food & Drug Administration today approved the first drug to treat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE: JNJ) bedaquiline (Sirturo), an important breakthrough in the global fight against one of the world’s deadliest diseases.

Made by J&J’s Janssen Therapeutics division, based in Titusville, NJ, bedaquiline is meant for patients who have failed to respond to all other treatments.

It works by blocking an enzyme critical to the replication of M.tuberculosis bacteria, and the company said it is the first new drug in 40 years to attack TB via a new mechanism of action.

http://www.xconomy.com/new-york/2012/12/31/fda-approves-jj-drug-for-multi-drug-resistant-tuberculosis/

Koch threatens politicians with attack ads if they support Sandy victims (thenation.com)

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SOURCE http://www.thenation.com/blog/171906/david-koch-now-taking-aim-hurricane-sandy-victims#
Billionaire David Koch's prime political organization, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), having failed in its $125 million quest to oust President Barack Obama, is now aiming at a slightly less sophisticated political target: victims of Hurricane Sandy.
 Hurricane Sandy was the second most costly in American history, leaving 100 lives lost, over $50 billion in devastation, and tens of thousands of damaged or destroyed homes. Legislative efforts to help those who survived Hurricane Sandy's wrath will reach a major stumbling block.
 Earlier this week, AFP, which is chaired by Koch and believed to be financed by several other plutocrats from the New York City region, released a letter warning members of Congress not to vote for the proposed federal aid package for victims of the storm that swept New Jersey, New York City, and much of the surrounding area in October. An announcement on the group's website says that the vote next week for the Sandy aid package will be a "key vote" -- meaning Senators who support sending money for reconstruction could face an avalanche of attack ads in their next election. Already, opposition to the bill is growing, although it passed one procedural hurdle last night.
There is some legitimate criticism with aspects of the legislation, including the fact that some of the money will go to non-Sandy related reconstruction efforts in disaster areas. For AFP, however, the whole bill must die and victims of the storm deserve no help from the government.
 Koch's top deputy in New Jersey, a surly gentleman named Steve Lonegan, who heads the local AFP state chapter, called the aid package a "disgrace." "This is not a federal government responsibility," Lonegan told reporters. "We need to suck it up and be responsible for taking care of ourselves."
 It seems particularly cruel that the Koch political machine would use its vast network of paid activists and professional operatives to kill this bill. For one thing, this is David Koch's community. From his Upper East Side apartment, Koch lives only a subway ride away from the devastation in Red Hook. Notably, Koch's group gave away free gasoline during the election in a wide-scale anti-Obama stunt, yet had nothing to give to the victims of the storm. Now, Koch, one of the richest men in the world, is actually trying to take something away from them.
 There's another wrinkle to this political assault on the aid request that makes it even more heartless. (No, it's not the rather arbitrary decision to target this piece of federal funding over others. Recently, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta identified $74 billion in unnecessary military spending, but AFP has not demanded that the government immediately axe these funds.)
 The other tragedy of Koch's decision to target Sandy aid is that his company is the reason we will increasingly face extreme weather events like hurricanes, flash floods, droughts, and fierce storms. The Koch brothers, David and Charles, sit atop one of the world's largest privately held conglomerates. Koch Industries is a sprawling company with interests in commodity speculation, timber, oil refining, ethanol production, chemicals, pipelines, consumer products, and fertilizer, among others. The Koch empire, by one estimate, has an annual carbon footprint of 100 million tons.
 Not only does Koch's business contribute to climate change through massive carbon emissions, as Greenpeace reported, Koch is the largest financier of climate denial political organizations and media groups. (As an aside, unlike AFP, Greenpeace ignored partisan politics and sent many of its workers to Queens to assist with relief efforts.)
 Steve Lonegan, the AFP New Jersey staffer now crusading against federal support to his disaster-stricken state, led the effort to persuade Gov. Chris Christie to reject a New England regional system to reduce carbon emissions. In a self-discrediting opinion column for the Times of Trenton last year, Lonegan mocked the overwhelming scientific data that projects global warming will lead to increased hurricanes (emphasis added):

It's disturbing enough to realize the leading supporters of this reckless, irresponsible [cap and trade] scheme not only advance their argument under the banner of wild-eyed claims about increased rates for hurricanes and tornadoes due to global warming, for which there is no valid scientific proof — such increased rates have occurred regularly over the centuries.

As I've extensively written, Koch's political machine has largely used "conservative" and populist political efforts to advance their bottom line. Koch Industries makes a fortune by avoiding having to repay society for contributing millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Before AFP fought efforts to curb carbon emissions, the group (then known as Citizens for a Sound Economy) blasted efforts to curb acid rain and asthma-causing dust from factories, using much of the same rhetoric and hard-edge tactics. They lost those battles; but in recent years, they've won major policy debates, especially on climate change.
 In this instance, there's no payout to Koch Industries. Instead, it appears the fight over the Sandy relief money is yet another proxy battle with President Obama and his party. If the bill is significantly sliced apart, or even blocked, Democrats will have a difficult time finding the funds to pay for other programs over the course of next year.
 Regardless of the politics though, it's just kind of sad that a man worth $31 billion would spend his money this way.

Analysis: GOP policies led to fiscal cliff blowup (YAHOO)

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SOURCE http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-gop-policies-led-fiscal-cliff-blowup-222503056--politics.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans seem shocked by their party's meltdown on the so-called fiscal cliff. They shouldn't be.

The uncompromising conservatives who blocked Speaker John Boehner's tax bill were merely sticking to policies that Boehner and nearly all other GOP leaders have pushed, without reservation, for years: It's always wrong to raise tax rates on anyone, no matter how rich. The nation's big deficit is entirely "a spending problem, not a revenue problem." And in any deficit-reduction plan, spending cuts must overwhelm new revenues, by 10-to-1 if not more.

To be surprised by Boehner's failure is to assume one of two things. Either House conservatives didn't really believe their party's bedrock principles; or they would compromise after seeing President Barack Obama win re-election on a deficit-reduction plan that called for higher taxes on the wealthy.

Neither was true. And now the Republican Party is reeling from unbending fealty to its core principles.

Congress' structure makes compromise essential, and the nation once lionized the 19th century senator and congressman Henry Clay as "the Great Compromiser." But the modern Republican Party is heavily energized by the tea party movement, which sees compromise as a triumph of flabby pragmatism over courageous conviction.

All these threads weaved themselves into a knot late Thursday that strangled Boehner's bid to position his party behind a tiny concession on tax hikes. Whereas Obama campaigned to raise tax rates on couples making more than $250,000 — a threshold he offered to raise in postelection negotiations — Boehner asked his House Republican colleagues to accept higher rates only on millionaires.

When an undisclosed number refused, Boehner had to abruptly send Congress home for the holidays and face reporters asking if he will lose his speakership.

"We had a number of our members who just really didn't want to be perceived as having raised taxes," even on millionaires, Boehner explained Friday.

And with good reason, many would say. The Republican establishment has long embraced activist Grover Norquist's drive to persuade nearly every GOP lawmaker to pledge never to raise taxes on anyone, no matter how big the gap between federal revenue and spending.

Even though conservative heroes such as President Ronald Reagan raised taxes at times, the anti-tax pledge became the Republican Party's "brand," as Norquist often said.

Norquist on Wednesday said Boehner's proposed tax on millionaires would not technically violate the pledge. But it was too late, or too little, for many House Republicans.

"We made a pledge not to let taxes go up," said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas. Barton entered Congress 24 years before the tea party's birth, proof that unyielding tax aversion runs deep.

Such intransigence in the face of a narrowly divided U.S. electorate dismays Republicans who say compromise can be vital to a party's survival.

The collapse of Boehner's tax effort "weakens the entire Republican Party," said Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio, who is retiring after 18 years.

"It's the continuing dumbing down of the Republican Party," he said, "and we are going to be seen more and more as a bunch of extremists that can't even get a majority of our own people to support policies that we're putting forward. If you're not a governing majority, you're not going to be a majority very long."

Republican consultant and writer Craig Shirley told The Washington Post: "The national GOP is now simply a collection of warring tribal factions."

Republicans point to their success in maintaining control of the House, now assured for 16 of 20 years since 1994.

It's also true, however, that Democrats this year won more House votes nationwide than Republicans did. And Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections.

For some time, signs have indicated the Republican Party is shifting away from majority public opinion on key issues. They include taxes and spending.

Despite Republican leaders' insistence that the deficit be tackled with spending cuts alone, and no new taxes, a recent Pew Research Center poll found a different public view. The vast majority of Americans say the deficit should be addressed with a mix of tax increases and spending cuts in major programs.

Few prominent Republicans protested when Mitt Romney, the eventual presidential nominee, joined his primary opponents in saying he would reject a deficit-reduction plan even if it raised $1 in new revenue for every $10 in spending cuts. Some conservative writers said the GOP should exult in so lop-sided a deal.

But Romney's acquiescence contributed to the view that modern Republican leaders are well to the right of their predecessors, not to mention most American voters. In June, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and Reagan would have a hard time being nominated by today's Republican activists.

Scores, if not hundreds, of House members focus more intensely on their home district's politics than on their national party's reputation. Many Republicans from staunchly conservative districts fear a primary election challenge from someone to their right.

Obama said this week he realizes that many House Republicans "come from districts that I lost. And so sometimes they may not see an incentive in cooperating with me, in part because they're more concerned about challenges from a tea party candidate, or challenges from the right."

Obama has his own problems with unbending liberals who want to protect Social Security, Medicare and other social programs from virtually any cuts. Obama's positions have varied, but he clearly signaled in his 2011 "grand bargain" talks with Boehner that he was willing to slow those programs' growth as part of a deficit-reduction, tax-increase deal.

It's still possible that Obama, Boehner and Congress can reach a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" before the Jan. 1 deadline. For now, however, the House Republicans' internal warfare makes it easier for opponents to paint them as extremists, unworthy of serious negotiations.

"The president and Congress have no obligation to radical Republicans who have no ground to stand on," said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

It's doubtful that any congressional Republicans see themselves as radicals. Polls nonetheless show that key GOP policies are drifting from mainstream American sentiment. The Republican establishment has yet to do much about it.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Charles Babington covers Congress and politics for The Associated Press. Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.

An AP News Analysis

Zero Dark Thirty does not present torture as a silver bullet that led to bin Laden; it presents torture as the ignorant alternative (wired.com)

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SOURCE http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/12/zero-dark-thirty/

One scene features a bloodied, disoriented and humiliated man strapped to a wall with his pants around his ankles. A second scene depicts the same man having liquid forcibly poured down his throat; later, he's shoved into a box that could barely hold your stereo. And all of this takes place in the first 45 minutes or so of Zero Dark Thirty, the new movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It's enough to make you wretch. It's arguably the best and most important part of the movie.

Kathryn Bigelow's new film about the decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden begins with an unsparing, nauseating and frighteningly realistic look at how the CIA tortured many people and reaped very little intelligence. Never before has a movie grappled with post-9/11 torture the way Zero Dark Thirty does. The torture on display in the film occurs at the intersection of ignorance and brutality, while the vast, vast majority of the intelligence work that actually does lead to bin Laden's downfall occurs after the torture has ended.

You wouldn't know this from the avalanche of commentary greeting the film. Bigelow is being presented as a torture apologist, and it's a bum rap. David Edelstein of New York says her movie borders on the "morally reprehensible" for presenting "a case for the efficacy of torture." The New York Times' Frank Bruni suspects that Dick Cheney will give the film two thumbs up. Bruni is probably right, since defenders of torture have been known to latch onto any evidence they suspect will vindicate them as American heroes. But that's not Zero Dark Thirty.

Bigelow instead presents a graphic depiction of what declassified CIA documents indicate the torture program really was. (A caveat: The CIA has actively blocked disclosure into that program, going so far as to destroy video recordings of it.) The first detainee we meet, in 2003, is a bruised and mentally unstable man forced to stay awake by having his arms strapped to thick ropes suspended from the walls of his undisclosed torture chamber. Or, in the bureaucratic language of former Justice Department official Steven Bradbury: "The primary method of sleep deprivation involves the use of shackling to keep the detainee awake."

Later, the detainee — apparently Amar al-Baluchi, nephew of 9/11 conspirator Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, or based on him — is shown to be kept hooded in that position, in a dark room while deafening music blasts. (Specifically, "Pavlov's Dogs" by cerebral early-'90s New York hardcore band Rorschach.) He is interrupted by his captor, CIA agent "Dan," who informs him: "When you lie to me, I hurt you" and that "partial information" will be treated as a lie. The detainee is stripped from the waist down to be humiliated in front of a woman CIA agent — the film's protagonist, Maya; more on her in a second — before being stuffed into a wooden box the size of a child's dresser. That would be the "confinement box," one of the earliest torture techniques the CIA used on an al-Qaida detainee known as Abu Zubaydah. (The agency wanted to put insects in it, to heighten Abu Zubaydah's fear levels.)

The film goes on like this for about 45 brutal minutes. "Uncooperative" detainees are held down by large men and doused through a towel with water until they spew it up. (There's no "boarding" in this "waterboarding.) Helpless detainees are shown with rheumy eyes, desperate for the torture to stop, while their captors promise them nourishment and keep their promises by forcing Ensure down their throats through a funnel. Amar al-Baluchi, mocked for defecating on himself, is stripped and forced to wear a dog collar while Dan rides him, to alert the detainee to his helplessness.

These are not "enhanced interrogation techniques," as apologists for the abuse have called it. There is little interrogation presented in Zero Dark Thirty. There is a shouted question, followed by brutality. At one point, "Maya," a stand-in for the dedicated CIA agents who actually succeeded at hunting bin Laden, points out that one abused detainee couldn't possibly have the information the agents are demanding of him. The closest the movie comes to presenting a case for the utility of torture is by presenting the name of a key bin Laden courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, as resulting from an interrogation not shown on screen. But — spoiler alert — the CIA ultimately comes to learn that it misunderstood the context of who that courier was and what he actually looked like. All that happens over five years after the torture program initiated. Meanwhile, the real intelligence work begins when a CIA agent bribes a Kuwaiti with a yellow Lamborghini for the phone number of the courier's mother, and through extensive surveillance, like a police procedural, the manhunt rolls to its climax. If this is the case for the utility of torture, it's a weak case — nested within a strong case for the inhumanity of it.

Nor does Bigelow let the CIA off the hook for the torture. "You agency people are sick," a special operator tells Dan. Dan, the chief torturer of the movie, is shown as not only a sadist but a careerist. "You don't want to be the last one holding the dog collar when the oversight committee comes," he tells Maya before decamping to Washington. Other CIA bureaucrats are shown sneering at the idea of canceling the torture program — more fearful of congressional accountability than of losing bin Laden. Maya is more of a cipher: she is shown coming close to puking when observing the torture. But she also doesn't object to it — "This is not a normal prison. You choose how you will be treated," she tells a detainee — and Maya is the hero of the film.

"It's a movie, not a documentary," screenwriter Mark Boal told The New Yorker. "We're trying to make the point that waterboarding and other harsh tactics were part of the C.I.A. program." That quote has electrified the internet as a statement of intent to gussy up the importance of torture. But the fact is torture was part of the CIA's post-9/11 agenda: dispassionate journalists like Mark Bowden presents it as such in his excellent recent book.

Zero Dark Thirty does not present torture as a silver bullet that led to bin Laden; it presents torture as the ignorant alternative to that silver bullet. Were a documentarian making the film, there would surelybe less torture in the movie: CNN's Peter Bergen considered an early cut of those scenes overwroughtin their gruesomeness and reminds that senators who have investigated the CIA torture program reject the idea that torture led to bin Laden.

At the same time, the film makes viewers come to grips with what Dick Cheney euphemistically called the "dark side" of post-9/11 counterterrorism. Meanwhile, former Bush administration aide Philip Zelikow, who termed the torture a "war crime" in a recent Danger Room interview, will probably find the movie more amenable than Cheney will. What endures on the screen are scenes that can make a viewer ashamed to be American, in the context of a movie whose ending scene makes viewers very, very proud to be American.

.@Starbucks Why r u teaming up with anti-Social Security group & forcing your employees to lobby for them?

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source http://boldprogressives.org/starbucks-is-inappropriately-enlisting-its-d-c-employees-in-fiscal-lobbying/

With six days to go before January 1st and both Clinton tax rates and the spending sequester takes effect, some in Washington are desperate to cut a deal, even if it's a bad deal that involves painful cuts to Social Security benefits.

CNN reports that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has written a letter to his chain's 120 stores in the Washington, D.C. area to ask employees there to write "Come Together" on coffee cups on Thursday and Friday.

"Rather than be bystanders, you and your customers have an opportunity — and I believe we all have a responsibility — to send our elected officials a respectful but potent message, urging them to come together to find common ground," Schultz wrote in his letter to the stores. He also apparently cited Fix The Debt, the powerful corporate front group that has been pushing for an agreement to cut Social Security benefits and lower corporate tax rates for months.

In a statement to CNN, the company stressed that these messages are voluntary.

But by even asking employees to voluntarily influence lawmakers to reach an agreement, Schultz is inappropriately pressuring them to take a political stand they may not agree with. For example, some of these employees may benefit from veterans or Social Security benefits that are at risk of being cut in a bad deal.

Starbucks employees should be able to decide for themselves what politics they endorse and should not be asked to write these messages as a part of their employment.

UPDATE: Read the full letter from Schultz here. It claims, without evidence, that the United States is experiencing a debt "crisis." Schultz also pivots from sympathy for the Sandy Hook massacre to the need to come together to address this so-called "crisis."

UPDATE II: I talked to a Starbucks employee in the D.C. area. This is what they had to say about being asked to take part in this campaign:

[It's] absolutely stupid. I don't get paid nearly enough to write that on all the cups. It's like I'm being punished in elementary school, except instead of a chalkboard, I have hundreds of cups. The message is Starbucks doesn't care about their "partners." They will be forced to do more work that is necessary or good, and not compensate them for it, and try to put out their message even if the "partner" doesn't agree with it. … Compromise would get something done, but it'll leave a [bad] deal for the working poor and the middle class.

sports socialism: The Bills Blackmailed New York Taxpayers Into Covering 84 Percent Of Stadium Renovations

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source http://deadspin.com/5971468/the-bills-blackmailed-new-york-taxpayers-into-covering-84-percent-of-stadium-renovations

You might have missed this in the pre-holiday news dump, which it was specifically timed for—it's a good idea to downplay the implications of a story like this. An agreement was announced in a "hastily called news conference" to keep the Bills in Buffalo (actually Orchard Park) through at least 2020. But the real story is in the details: the Bills have been allowed to pick up just 16 percent of the costs to keep them in town. If you've ever had the slightest curiosity as to how sweetheart a deal an NFL team can possibly get, the full agreement can be read below.

It's going to cost $271 million for upgrades to Ralph Wilson Stadium and 10 years of running the place on gameday. The Bills will pay just $44 million of that. Erie County will cover $103 million, while the state of New York is on the hook for $123 million. If that turns out to be not cushy enough, the Bills can buy their way out of the lease after year seven. We and others have railed against the outrage of public financing for stadiums for years, but it's still shocking to see in 2012 a textbook case of a community held for ransom, forced to give in to every last demand of a franchise threatening to move.

rest at http://deadspin.com/5971468/the-bills-blackmailed-new-york-taxpayers-into-covering-84-percent-of-stadium-renovations

First U.S. Patient Treated Following FDA Approval of Cook Medical’s Zilver® PTX® Drug-Eluting Peripheral Stent

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This is the first patient to receive the leg stent as it was only approved by the FDA in November of 2012.  This one took a long time to come to market and being a stent that goes in your leg, there’s a lot more work into securing it as your legs move physically where your heart does not.  At the link below there’s some additional information from a prior post.  A while back I interviewed Rob Lyles from Cook as well.  BD

 

Cook Medical Gets FDA Approval for Zilver PTX Drug Eluting Stent for the Treatment of Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD)

Press Release…

BLOOMINGTON, Ind.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Just weeks after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Cook Medical’s Zilver® PTX® Drug-Eluting Peripheral Stent, Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, has treated the first patient with the device as part of Cook’s U.S. commercial launch.

“It was a great honor for my institution to be first to implant Cook Medical’s Zilver PTX as part of the stent’s commercial roll-out,” said Gary Ansel, M.D., director for the Center for Critical Limb Care at Riverside Methodist Hospital. “This technology is so advanced and offers such prolonged patient benefit, I believe it will very quickly challenge older PAD treatments such as balloon angioplasty and bare metal stenting in the U.S. as the standard of PAD care.”

Zilver PTX, approved for use in the above-the-knee femoropopliteal artery, is the only drug-eluting stent approved for use in a peripheral artery in the U.S. The device has a proven drug effect¹ that reduces by more than 50 percent the need for followup procedures to reopen the artery. These followup procedures can be expensive, which places extra burdens on patients, physicians and facilities.²

“The first commercial use of this stent represents what I think will be the start of a complete shift in the way physicians will treat PAD patients in this country,” said Rob Lyles, vice president and global leader of Cook Medical’s Peripheral Intervention division. “Zilver PTX, the only FDA-approved stent that brings the proven benefits of drug elution to the peripheral arteries, is an effective treatment option for patients who suffer with the painful and potentially debilitating consequences of PAD. We are extremely proud to bring this technology to American doctors and the patients they treat.”

This unique combination therapy device combines the mechanical support of stenting with the drug paclitaxel, which limits cell growth that can reclog the artery. The combination has been shown to maintain arterial blood flow to the superficial femoral artery (SFA) in seven out of ten patients through 24 months after implantation.³

The disease Zilver PTX targets, peripheral arterial disease (PAD), is one of the fastest-growing and most pervasive diseases of our time, affecting an estimated 8-12 million Americans each year.⁴ PAD is a disease in which plaque builds up in the arteries, which carry blood to the head, organs and limbs. While PAD typically affects arteries in the legs, it can also affect blood flow to the head, arms, kidneys and stomach.⁵ People aged 50 and over who have a history of diabetes, smoking and high blood pressure are at higher risk for PAD.⁶Other treatment modalities for PAD include medical management, lifestyle changes such as exercise, balloon angioplasty, bare metal stenting and surgical bypass of the blocked artery.

Zilver PTX is currently available in 54 markets, including the European Union, Brazil, Australia, Taiwan and Japan. Thousands of patients worldwide have been treated with Cook’s device.⁷

Dr. Gary Ansel is a principal investigator in the global Zilver PTX clinical trial. He is a paid consultant to Cook Medical with respect to its medical devices.

About Cook Medical

A global pioneer in medical breakthroughs, Cook Medical is committed to creating effective solutions that benefit millions of patients worldwide. Today, we combine medical devices, drugs, biologic grafts and cell therapies across more than 16,000 products serving more than 40 medical specialties. Founded in 1963 by a visionary who put patient needs and ethical business practices first, Cook is a family-owned company that has created more than 10,000 jobs worldwide. For more information, visit www.cookmedical.com. Follow Cook Medical on Twitter and LinkedIn.

New Dissolving Female Condom That Helps Fight HIV, STDs, Powerful and Discreet

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The research at the University of Washington was funded by the Gates Foundation and if this comes around, condoms will never be the same.  This is definitely tech condom in design for sure.  It has to do with the fibers used to create it and one fabrics dissolves within a few minutes while another fabric dissolves slowly over a few days.  The secondary dissolve process is part of the HIV protection.  Electrospun fibers deliver the drug agents when it dissolves.  This is a pretty fascinating concept and a complex condom and this combines the best of both worlds it sounds like with drugs and a device.  BD 

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A new, more discreet condom protects from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and dissolves after use.

The micro fibers allow for a more appealing family planning and STD prevention option. This modern condom, which dissolves during use, also delivers viral and pregnancy preventative drugs. According to the study, "We show that electrospun fibers deliver agents that inhibit both HIV and sperm in vitro in addition to physically preventing sperm penetration.

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The hope is that this more powerful condom is, at the same time, more discreet. It doesn’t really matter how effective a condom is if people don’t use it. CDC estimates a reported 49 percent of pregnancies in the United States were unintended in 2006, a slight increase from 48 percent in 2001.

The dissolving condom could also have an impact on STDs, especially HIV. In the U.S., approximately 50,000 people are newly infected with HIV each year.

http://blogs.discovery.com/dfh-sara-novak/2012/12/dissolving-condom-releases-preventative-drugs-after-use.html#mkcpgn=twdh1

Allscripts Ousts CEO Glen Tullman and Lee Shapiro, President, Appoints Board Member To Take Over

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Allscripts has had a rocky year no doubt and again in my opinion it all began with not having enough time to write all the integration code needed when Eclipsys was purchased.  I am giving a technology view from what I have read like everyone else.  Paul Black has bee appointed as the new CEO and has a background in the medical records business having been a COO at Cerner in the past.  In August the company went back to Microsoft for some help to expand Allscripts' application developer program.

Allscripts Turns to Microsoft To Expand Their Application Development

If you go back to 2010 you can read about the Eclipsys and Microsoft Amalga integration which is part of the new integrated systems to go into the Allscripts system, so I am guessing too that the integrated system is going to have components of Amalga in there as well for the intelligence type reporting.  Before the merger with Allscripts, Eclipsys and Microsoft were already working together with Amalga, which is now no longer under the Microsoft umbrella but rather moved over to the new company formed by GE and Microsoft, Caradigm so I thought perhaps looking at technologies only there could be a home there. 

Eclipsys and Microsoft To Integrate Sunrise Enterprise Suite With Amalga Unified Intelligence System

Caradigm–New Name for New Microsoft GE Healthcare Company

 

Recent activities have not looked good with filing the lawsuit over the lost business in New York other than it being an action to show they are doing “something”, but what if anything will it accomplish.  Truly I just think this all became bad news when sales projections were put out there and the code work was not done yet.  You can’t rush programming. 

If you read here enough I try cover the mechanics of some of this as best I can to bring an awareness and education around. “The short order code kitchen burned down years ago and there was no fire sale”  is what I keep telling all.  The whole campaign on Medicare with the idea of changing their IT infrastructure to vouchers was also just a farce that the media kept going as to work on a project so large, the budget would have been out of this world for the IT work, not to mention the fact that the US would have probably had to outsource it to both India and China to find enough qualified engineers.  Again folks in technology knew the voucher idea was a farce a long a time as as the money and time was not feasible and all the talk was vapor. 

Again that is what I see happened to a degree with Allscripts here too and that work combining two huge architectures like that is big, takes money and time so the days of CEOs romping out there making promises and expecting IT folks to deliver within “their” time frames are gone.  I think with sales pressure that is what occurred here and you just can’t serve up “raw” code and expect it to work.  This is exactly why people stall off beta programs too as it’s better to have it done correctly than to put out a half baked product that will result with a lot of unhappy clients.  Again get a  CEO this time who has some computer science or IT in their background is what I would say, it helps. 

Allscripts Sues NYC Health and Hospital System Over Contract Award to Epic - EHR Vendor Playing the Same Game as Health Insurance Companies With Lawsuits

Their executive vice president of culture and talent is also due to leave in 30 days and perhaps a little IT knowledge there too would not be bad.  With their efforts to get Microsoft to help them with apps for Windows 8 for one, again it still tells me they need more code written. BD

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More recently, the company said speculation about a potential deal had hurt its third-quarter results by causing customers to delay decisions. Mr. Tullman in November said the company would have a "clean, unencumbered selling environment" once it decided whether or not to go forward with a strategic move.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323777204578189951583494808.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Woman Moves 10 Miles in California, Blue Cross Raises Premiums From $418 a Month to $524–Quantified “Crap Algorithm” For Geographic Risk, Killer Algorithms Chapter 50 That Sustain Inequality In The US

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Yes we are having issues with algorithms all over the place today and here’s another example.  The woman moves 10 miles and her premiums increase over $100 a month.  These are some very complicated formulas used by insurers today.  As a matter of fact some of the calculations today just might be a little “too” complex.  She’s seeing the same doctors and getting the same care, just living in a new place 10 miles down the road.  Consumers are getting the brunt of all of the analytics used today and of course doctors get this type of evaluation too.  Here’s something to look at from United for a comparison and all of them are using complex formulas to evaluate doctors and patients and this means there’s a ton of room for errors with one small parameter being incomplete or if it falls into a another category.  Take a look at this link and see if you can figure out if a doctor meets what United wants them to meet in credentialed areas.  It’s a mess.  Doctors get something along this line from all the insurers they work with.  It’s now just moving into the consumer area with analytics on steroids.  If that doesn’t get you we have the auto refill pharmacy Algorithm which gives consumers headaches.

The Automatic Prescription Refill Algorithm Causing Havoc at CVS When Not Personally Authorized By the Patient–Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 40

Over in the car insurance world I had my own rogue algorithm attack with data mining and the new owners of my house, six months after the sale, get added to my car insurance policy. Obviously is was data mining looking for information they thought I had omitted?  My local office had everything correct and said it was that “other division” that was having problems getting some of their data corrected.  The other division, guess that was the data miner group running queries through public records and anywhere else they can go.

Insurance Company Data Mining With Automated Transactions? What Is Being Done With Consumer Data–My Flawed Corporate America Data Shows Up -Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 45

One think I can say for sure for insurance analytics, they are going into the crapper when it comes to accuracy.  It has to do with this addition with selling data and the automated algorithms that run the processes and it’s getting worse.  I’m guessing that this woman in her appeal to Blue Cross is waiting for someone to modify the parameters of this algorithm that caused her monthly premiums to raise.  One other area the insurers use today and that is MIB and fat chance of getting things fixed there is they have errors.  It can take years as their focus right now is making money selling data.  Their operation of being just a holding place for consumer data has changed and they have become pretty aggressive in marketing. 

The MIB – Health Insurance Bureau Business Intelligence Mining May Go Beyond Just Healthcare Information

In addition to an individual’s credit history, data collected by the Medical Information Bureau (MIB) may include medical conditions, driving records, criminal activity, drug use, participation in hazardous sports, and personal or family genetic history, among other facts.   Here’s more on that topic as they also sit around and calculate how long you may or may not live.  Who knows when insurance carriers pull some of these analytics to add to your risk assessment?  It’s out there.  It’s all about data for sale and the heck with the consumer.  Everything is not transparent and we have no clue what data they used to evaluate risk.  So perhaps they added some of this information as well to her file when she moved? 

MIB Solutions and Hooper Holmes Working Together to Assess Morality Risk – Analytics and Consumer Files Used for Underwriting And To Estimate How Long You May Live And What Your Body Will Cost Over Time

We need to license and tax the data sellers and have a federal page of disclosures from all who sell data and with violations then law enforcement has a leg to stand on to fine or retract licensees to sell data.

Start Licensing and Taxing the Data Sellers of the Internet Making Billions of Profit Dollars Mining “Free Taxpayer Data”–Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 17 - “Occupy Algorithms”– Help Stop Inequality in the US

Watch this video from Christopher Steiner who wrote the book “Automate This” and get in touch with what is really being done with math and algorithms…who gets to be the kingpin of the algorithms that move the money he asks.  The Blue Cross Algorithm took over and made this decision with the consumer with no other recourse than to appeal and see if Blue Cross will adjust any parameter that made this change take place.  If you need more, watch the videos on the left had side of this blog and you will get educated very quickly.  When are these processes with algorithms a utility and when do they become a menace he says.  The woman’s husband is on Medicare and says he’s glad he no problems like this!    She also had pre-existing conditions to she’s stuck with not being able to change either.  BD 

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This kind of arbitrary rate increase is legal, according to the Times, because insurance companies have divided the state into rate zones based on the average cost of local doctors and hospitals. Move into another rate zone, and your premiums can go up. This just looks like another way to gouge citizens in their time of need, and stuff corporate pockets with more of people’s hard-earned money. It has absolutely nothing to do with providing good health care. If California could implement a universal, publicly-financed health system, you would never have to worry about how your premiums will be affected if you relocated. Because your premiums would be $0.

http://californiaonecare.org/palm-desert-woman-gets-socked-with-106-rate-hike-for-10-mile-move/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=palm-desert-woman-gets-socked-with-106-rate-hike-for-10-mile-move&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=365+Ad+Campaign