ArticlePublished Jun 12, 2020Rates of cigarette smoking have dropped substantially in the US over the past few decades. But lots of Americans still smoke, and the burden of tobacco-related illness does not fall evenly across our population. That is tragic under normal circumstances, with tobacco use leading to heart attacks, strokes, cancers, and emphysema, to name but a […]
Read MoreArticlePublished May 15, 2020The Duke Alumni Magazine just published a Q & A about my new book, Sick to Debt. Here was the picture accompanying that article. Y’all agree that this should have been the “author photo” on the back cover? Link to the Q & A
Read MoreArticlePublished May 12, 2020I’m excited to announce that my book is now available through Audible, to accompany you on all those long commutes you are no longer making to your job every day. Sigh… But seriously, I think the topic of this book is more relevant than ever, and hope that having another way to “read” Sick to […]
Read MoreArticlePublished May 08, 2020A lot of hope on reopening businesses and returning to work in the U.S. hinges on COVID-19 testing and the development of treatments and a vaccine. But as the country ramps up antibody testing – analyzing blood samples for signs someone has been exposed to or infected with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 – physician […]
Read MoreArticlePublished May 01, 2020Antibody testing has accelerated in the United States in recent weeks: In one prominent study, for example, involving some 3,000 New Yorkers, roughly 14 percent of state residents were found to have been exposed to the virus — and 1 in 5 in New York City. Some proponents of such tests believe they could pave […]
Read MoreArticlePublished Apr 08, 2020In areas of the country hardest hit by COVID-19, clinicians are already being forced to make tragic rationing decisions: about who to admit to the hospital, who to transfer to the ICU and who to place on scarce ventilators. These decisions feel out of character with our national identity. We normally think of ourselves as […]
Read MoreArticlePublished Apr 06, 2020Here is a nice article by Dennis Thompson at HealthDay about the challenges people are going to face paying for medical care, especially if they’ve lost or been laid off from their jobs. I chime in at the end URGING people not to worry about money right now if they are sick. Get the care […]
Read MoreArticlePublished Apr 03, 2020The slow growth in coronavirus cases in North Carolina relative to New York and some other states puts North Carolina in better position to respond to the pandemic, according to a Duke University professor. Economist Mark McClellan, the director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, was U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner during the […]
Read MoreArticlePublished Mar 31, 2020On March 14, 1942, an American soldier with bacteria coursing through his bloodstream was treated with penicillin, a new wonder drug that saved his life. That single treatment exhausted half the nation’s supply of the drug. Two years later, as U.S. troops prepared to launch the D-Day invasion, America had more than 2 million doses of the drugready […]
Read MoreArticlePublished Mar 20, 2020The patient’s health was suffering because he couldn’t afford one of the cheapest, most effective medicines in the marketplace. He was coming back and forth to the Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Medical Center for his care. His physician, an internal medicine trainee at the University of Michigan, tried everything in her power to help the […]
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