In the 11th Report on Carcinogens, the US government added Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B, and certain papilloma viruses to their list of substances known to be carcinogenic. This represented the first time ever that viruses were included.

At the sixth annual International Conference of the American Association for Cancer Research, Dr. Andrew J. Dannenberg stated, “I believe that, conservatively, 15 to 20% of all cancer is caused by infections, however, the number could be larger, maybe double.” Read more →

Who is to blame when patients die in overcrowded and understaffed emergency rooms?

The story of the death of a psychiatric patient in a large Brooklyn, New York hospital got my attention, both as a nurse and as a human being. These stories are, thankfully, rare but still happen too frequently. In this case, lack of a bed for the patient was cited as the reason the patient was in the ER for almost 24 hours. The patient was reportedly suffering from a psychiatric condition, but deaths of patients have occurred in emergency rooms among patients with medical conditions as well. Read more →

The eighth leading cause of death in the U.S. is medication error. This statistic may surprise you. Other frightening statistics include the following:

* 7,000 deaths occur each year that are directly attributable to medication errors.
* Errors occur around 1 in 5 times that medication is administered.
* The FDA estimates 1 death per day due to medication errors.

The three most common errors are giving an improper dose, giving the wrong drug, and giving the drug by the wrong route (for example, intravenous instead of oral). Read more →

The compilation and selling of physician prescribing habits has been a common practice since the 1990’s. Many physicians were unaware that the issue was occurring.

Pharmaceutical companies argue that the mining of prescribing data has beneficial uses, such as providing information about drug interactions and long-term effects, and prevention of drug errors. Pharmaceutical companies have also stated that without the use of this information, they would be less able to target educational information. Doctors would see an increase in sales calls and a decrease in needed drug samples. Read more →

One of the biggest crises facing the United States today is healthcare. There are approximately 47 million people in the United States who have no medical insurance. Millions more have inadequate insurance coverage, cannot afford their premiums or deductibles, and have no access to dental care.

In the wake of recent international disasters (Myanmar and China to name the most recent), much publicity has focused on foreign aid. The U.S. spends billions of dollars every year to help those less fortunate in other countries. Read more →

The article I posted a few weeks ago in regards to the H5N1 vaccine caused me to consider a potential pandemic and the health care workers’ obligation to work should the event come to pass.

The World Health Organization estimates that

today a pandemic is likely to result in 2 to 7.4 million deaths globally. In high income countries alone, accounting for 15% of the world’s population, models project a demand for 134-233 million outpatient visits and 1.5-5.2 million hospital admissions.

Read more →