Science Links and Papers | The Science Behind Healthcare
Physicians realize the limits of their training in substance abuse and mental health. Clearly, there should be a requirement that Primary Care Centers have a staff psychologist: See-
Health care reform law helps 1.3 million minority young adults obtain health insurance
New data released today by Health and Human Services shows that the Affordable Care Act has extended health insurance to a substantial number of racial and ethnic minorities nationwide. The health care reform law allows young adults to stay on their parents' insurance plans through age 26.
The data, based on combined estimates from the National Health Interview Survey and the Current Population Survey, indicate that approximately 736,000 Latinos, 410, 000 Blacks, 97,000 Asian Americans, and 29,000 American Indian/Alaska Natives have gained coverage because of the law.
Highlighted in an HHS issue brief, the data coincides with a research letter also published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
“As a result of the Affordable Care Act, we are making strides in giving every American regardless of race or ethnicity a fair shot at quality, affordable health coverage,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “Because of the law, more and more young adults can breathe a little easier knowing they have health coverage.”
The studies released today provide the first estimates of the law’s effects on young adults in minority groups.
“These results show that the Affordable Care Act has already made a real difference in the lives of young adults, and that the benefits have occurred for Americans across racial and ethnic lines,” said Richard Kronick, Ph.D., HHS deputy assistant secretary for planning and evaluation, and one of the study’s authors. “The Affordable Care Act has helped give millions of young adults – white and black, Latino and Asian – the security of health insurance as they begin to build their careers and their families.”
For more information about this topic, please see the HHS Issue Brief at
For more information about the JAMA research article released today, please visit
AHRQ News and Numbers
Only 10 percent of the U.S. population accounted for nearly two-thirds of all health care costs in 2008. The average annual cost for each of these individuals totaled almost $24,000, which includes costs covered by insurance and paid out of pocket. Approximately 45 percent of these individuals remained in this 10 percent of the population in 2009, based on their health expenses that year. [Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, MEPS, Statistical Brief #354: The Concentration and Persistence in the Level of Health Expenditures over Time: Estimates for the U.S. Population, 2008-2009.]
Mediator: Slimming Drug a Killer
However, these figures could well be an "underestimate," he said. The study, appearing in the specialised journal Pharmacoepidemiology & Drug Safety, finetunes an estimate by Zureik in 2010 that the death toll from the scandal was between 1,000 and 2,000.
Mediator, known by its lab name as benfluorex, was initially licensed to reduce levels of fatty proteins called lipids, with the claim that it
helped diabetics control their level of blood sugar. But it also suppressed appetite, which meant it gained a secondary official
use to help obese diabetics lose weight. In fact, it was widely sold on prescription for non-diabetics wanting to slim.
In 2009, Mediator was pulled from the European market amid evidence that it damaged heart valves and caused pulmonary hypertension.
Its French manufacturer, Servier, is being probed on suspicion of dishonest practices and deception.
According to Mediator, 145 million packets of Mediator were sold on the French market before the drug was pulled.
The Mediator case came to light after a scandal involving a similar type of anti-obesity drug, fenfluramine, in the late 1990s.
See lovely Science Web site at:
Alcohol and Drugs:
Alcohol and drug abuse are devastating American society, are a major source of healthcare costs, loss of industrial and workforce productivity, move countless families from the middle class into poverty, is over crowding jails, and makes up a large portion of emergency room and nursing home visits and placements. Societies are being attacked by criminals, cartels, and manufacturers of drugs and alcohol and social structure is being undermined. Large numbers of ill people (the addicted) have their illness ignored and untreated and go to waiting lists, jails without proper staffing and treatment for their illness, and are mislabeled "career criminals" instead of crime complicated addict lifestyles as a component of a serious illness. Below are basic learning materials to begin your process of understanding addiction in the brain, patient, family, and society:
A Very Extensive Benzodiazepine Review For Advanced Professionals:
Some Valuable Information about Anxiety Disorders:
Below is a film that has some valuable pathophysiology and pharmacokenetics related to anxiety and its control. This film has the typical Medical Model mistakes and faulty conceptualization. First, that medications such as anxyolitics and antidepressants "control most of the symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder". In fact, these classes of medications actually work with less than half of the people they are given to, and they only control a few of the many symptoms of these diseases and no medication has ever been found to rise to the level of cure or even stand alone treatment for a depressive or anxiety disorder (see: TruthInDrugs-www.nappp.org). Clearly, psychotherapies that effectively treat the entire syndromes of the anxiety disorders and depressive disorders are available and scientifically proven effective. Any real treatment plan for these diseases should include them, and should view medication approaches as short-term and palliative or minority symptom "control" techniques rather than a "treatment, or treatment plan". Clearly, anxiety and depression in their normal state are helpful emotions and cues that are needed by the higher cortical centers for decision making and valuing of expereince and needs. Our goal is to train our brain, or learn to interpret and appropriately apply these signals/affects without alcohol or drugs or maladaptive acting out these feelings. We simply can't be healthy by subscribing to a path of chemically controling these emotions and pretending that that is improving our self-management or achieving health. Medications are helpful, but not a solution, and those who pretend they are are short-sighted, lack expertise and training, or are inappropriately enamered with their chemistry set. Enjoy the film:
Differentiating medical from psychological disorders: How do medically and nonmedically trained clinicians compare?
Abstract 1991-24344-001 Publication Date Accepted: Nov 5, 1990 Revised: Nov 2, 1990 First Submitted: Feb 26, 1990
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Existing research has demonstrated that many medical disorders manifest with behavioral symptomology. A relatively conservative estimate of so-called "medical masquerades" is around 10%. This study compared 3 types of health care clinicians, 30 in each group, (psychiatrists, nonpsychiatric physicians, and nonmedically trained mental health psychotherapists) with regard to their accuracy in diagnosing 3 types of clinical vignettes (psychiatric, somatoform, and medical masquerades). There were few differences in the accuracy of diagnosis of the clinical vignettes as judged by the 3 groups of professionals. The nonmedically trained mental health psychotherapists were as accurate in judging the vignettes as were the 2 medically trained groups. The results do not support the contention that in the diagnosis of these disorders nomedically trained psychotherapists are less accurate than those medically trained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Overview of Behavioral Health's Future Configuration
For more information go to the Academy of Medical Psychology web site and click on Health Reform Guidelines (http://www.amphome.org/index.html).
Palentological Diet: Redoes all our previous concepts about nutrition based on top and emerging science: