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Doctors Report Major Progress Toward ‘Artificial Pancreas’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Doctors are reporting a major step toward an “artificial pancreas,” a device that would constantly monitor blood sugar in people with diabetes and automatically supply insulin as needed.

A key component of such a system — an insulin pump programmed to shut down if blood-sugar dips too low while people are sleeping — worked as intended in a three-month study of 247 patients.

This “smart pump,” made by Minneapolis-based Medtronic Inc., is already sold in Europe, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reviewing it now. Whether it also can be programmed to mimic a real pancreas and constantly adjust insulin based on continuous readings from a blood-sugar monitor requires more testing, but doctors say the new study suggests that’s a realistic goal.

“This is the first step in the development of the artificial pancreas,” said Dr. Richard Bergenstal, diabetes chief at Park Nicollet, a large clinic in St. Louis Park, Minn. “Before we said it’s a dream. We have the first part of it now and I really think it will be developed.”

He led the company-sponsored study and gave results Saturday at an American Diabetes Association conference in Chicago. They also were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.

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US Medicine Facing Crisis: Only 25% of New Doctors Becoming Primary Care Physicians, Rural Areas Face Severe Shortages (+video)

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photo credit: jillk61

Despite a shortage of U.S. primary care doctors, less than 25 percent of new doctors go into this field, and fewer still work in rural areas, researchers say.

Lead study author Dr. Candice Chen, an assistant research professor of the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, said the study also found only 4.8 percent of the new primary care physicians set up shop in rural areas.

“If residency programs do not ramp up the training of these physicians the shortage in primary care, especially in remote areas, will get worse,” Chen said in a statement. “The study’s findings raise questions about whether federally funded graduate medical education institutions are meeting the nation’s need for more primary care physicians.”

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By 22-Point Margin, Voters Favor Obamacare’s Repeal

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard It would be a major understatement to say that Obamacare has had a bad spring. Around the time of Lincoln’s birthday, registered voters told Fox News that, by a margin of 6 percentage points (48 to 42 percent), it would “be better to go back to the health care system that was in place in 2009” than it would be “to leave the new health care law in place.” Three months later, as we head into Memorial Day, nostalgia for the good ol’ days of 2009 now beats Obamacare by a whopping 22 points (56 to 34 percent).

That’s saying something, because, back in 2009 — largely as a result of Republicans’ refusal to do much of anything on health care in the nearly decade-and-a-half between their defeat of Hillarycare and their defeat at the hands of Obama — Americans clearly weren’t very happy with the health-care status quo. Every one of the half-dozen polls published by RealClearPolitics in the first half of 2009 — before Obamacare clearly took shape — showed Americans favoring efforts to reform our health-care system. Now, Obamacare is even more unpopular than the unpopular pre-Obamacare status quo — and that has been true for nearly four years.

None of this, however, should lull Republicans into thinking there’s no need for them to advance conservative, limited-government reforms in lieu of Obamacare’s liberal, big-government model of centralized control over American medicine. For at least two main reasons, it’s crucial that the GOP push not only for the full repeal of Obamacare, but also for real reform.

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Vermont Passes Law Allowing Doctor-Assisted Suicide

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Photo Credit: ReutersVermont on Monday became the fourth U.S. state to end legal penalties for doctors who prescribe medication to terminally ill patients seeking to end their own lives.

The law, which includes a number of safeguards over the next three years as the state adapts, marked the first time a U.S. state has used the legislative process to make assisted suicide legal. Oregon and Washington have similar laws passed through ballot measures and a Montana court authorized the practice in 2009.

“Vermonters who face terminal illness and are in excruciating pain at the end of their lives now have control over their destinies. This is the right thing to do,” said Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, who signed the law on Monday.

Supporters of the practice are hoping Vermont’s law will lend momentum in other states, such as Connecticut and New Jersey, that have considered similar legislation. A bill legalizing the practice failed in Massachusetts last year.

The law allows physicians to prescribe death-inducing medications, which terminally ill patients wishing to commit suicide could then administer to themselves. It limits the prescriptions to residents of the state.

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Businesses Already Boosting Employee Premiums, Co-Pays for Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner Already hit with cost increases to cover minor Obamacare demands, businesses are boosting employee payments through higher insurance premiums and doctor visit co-pays in advance of the bulk of the health reform law’s rules taking effect Jan. 1.

A sweeping survey of several hundred U.S. businesses by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans found that their costs have already jumped because of a rule requiring them to cover employees’ children up to age 26.

To prepare for the full impact of Obamacare, said the foundation, employers are implementing “diverse cost-management initiatives.” Some 43 percent are boosting premiums, 34 percent are increasing employee dependent coverage costs, and 31 percent are raising co-pays or “out-of-pocket limits.”

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Birmingham Schoolgirl “Murdered in Bid to Harvest Her Organs”

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Photo Credit: birmingham mailA Birmingham schoolgirl was murdered by health workers in India in a failed attempt to harvest her organs, her devastated parents have sensationally claimed.

Gurkiren Kaur Loyal’s family said she was being treated for a simple case of dehydration when staff at a clinic gave her a mystery injection which took her life.

But her relatives guarded the eight-year-old’s body so that her organs could not be taken in time to be used in transplant operations.

They claimed she was subjected to a “medieval” post-mortem examination during which all her major organs were removed in a bid to hide the truth of how she had been killed.

Gurkiren’s family said the Indian police and medical authorities made little attempt to investigate the death.

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Experimental Drug Helps Girl Born Without Bones

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Photo Credit: warriorwoman531A breakthrough drug has helped a little girl survive after being born without many of her bones, The Tennessean reported.

Janelly Martinez-Amador was born with hypophosphatasia, a genetic disease that disrupts the mineralization process of a person’s bones and teeth. The disease occurs in about one out of every 100,000 infants, and Janelly had the most severe form of the condition – which is usually fatal.

At birth, she didn’t have ribs to support breathing, according to the Tennessean. Her parents, Salvador Martinez and Janet Amador, wondered if they would have to take their daughter off life support shortly after birth.

But Janelly fought, and at almost 3 years old, she began a clinical trial at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbuilt in Tennessee. Now, four years later, Janelly can dance.

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Dr. Ben Carson: ‘We’re Being Crucified by Political Correctness’

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Photo Credit: AP

Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Dr. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon and best-selling author, spoke about how even regular reading by young people can improve their lives and society, but he stressed that a social hurdle is that “we’re being crucified by political correctness,” an unwillingness to tell the truth because it might offend someone or be deemed judgmental.

In an interview with black conservative activist Star Parker, founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, she asked Dr. Carson, “Now, this is where you seem to put a lot of emphasis with your life’s work, is that you can break poverty, you can break this cycle even in your family, even if everything around you is broken as you just described in this particular environment, with reading is it really that simple?”

Dr. Carson said, “That’s one of the major components

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Another Obamacare Casualty: More Docs Plan To Retire Early (+video)

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Photo Credit: Every Day Health

Most physicians have a pessimistic outlook on the future of medicine, citing eroding autonomy and falling income, a survey of more than 600 doctors found.

Six in 10 physicians (62 percent) said it is likely many of their colleagues will retire earlier than planned in the next 1 to 3 years, a survey from Deloitte Center for Health Solutions found. That perception is uniform across age, gender, and specialty, it said.

Another 55 percent of surveyed doctors believe others will scale back hours because of the way medicine is changing, but the survey didn’t elaborate greatly on how it was changing. Three-quarters think the best and brightest may not consider a career in medicine, although that is an increase from the 2011 survey result of 69 percent.

“Physicians recognize ‘the new normal’ will necessitate major changes in the profession that require them to practice in different settings as part of a larger organization that uses technologies and team-based models for consumer (patient) care,” the survey’s findings stated.

About two-thirds of the survey responders said they believe physicians and hospitals will become more integrated in coming years. In the last 2 years, 31 percent moved into a larger practice, results found. Nearly eight in 10 believe midlevel providers will play a larger role in directing primary care.

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Your Doctor To Become 1-Person Death Panel?

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Photo Credit: WND

A government-funded “mortality index” study – which helps doctors determine whether a patient has a “good chance” of dying within the next 10 years – raises renewed concerns about health-care rationing under Obamacare.

Federal grants from the National Institute on Aging and the American Federation for Aging Research helped pay for researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, to create a “mortality index” designed to aid doctors in decision-making about “preventive intervention” for older patients.

The index provides doctors with 12 measures to assign points to an elderly patient. The lower the patient’s total points, the better his or her odds of survival. The highest score, 26 points, represents a 95-percent chance the patient will die within 10 years.

The index assigns all male subjects 2 points automatically because men on the average have a lower life expectancy than women, the study noted. Men and women aged between 60 and 64 get 1 point; ages 70 and 74 get 3 points, while 85 or over get 7 points.

Two points are further assigned in the following cases: Patients with a current or a previous cancer diagnosis, excluding minor skin cancers; lung disease impacting on physical activity or requiring oxygen; heart failure; smoking; difficulty bathing; difficulty managing money because of health or memory problems; difficulty walking several blocks. One point is assigned to those with diabetes or high blood sugar; difficulty pushing a large object; being thin or of abnormal weight.

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