A new book reveals how health-care inequality fueled the spread of anti-science conspiracy theories. “Wellness is a $6.3 trillion industry, according to a 2024 report from the Global Wellness Institute, an industry trade group. That’s bigger than the GDP of Germany, and nearly four times the size of the global pharmaceutical industry. The real growth has been within the past 10 years—the GWI’s report calls it the “wellness decade.” And women represent most of its consumers. In a nation known for its relatively poor health, nearly everybody seems to be thinking about how to be healthy: According to a 2024 … Read More
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“less than one third of physicians graduating from primary care residency programs plan on practicing primary care. Often-cited culprits of this workforce shortage include burnout, administrative burdens, income disparities between PCPs [primary care physicians] and specialists, and loss of autonomy amid a shift toward increased ownership of physician practices by health care systems and corporations. Increasingly, however, the shortage of PCPs is being exacerbated by another phenomenon: the evolution of primary care — long championed as a common good — into a private, free-market commodity. [..] most DPC practices operate entirely outside the insurance system, with patients paying a monthly … Read More
Besides being launched by Amazon alumni, General Medicine has close business ties to a senior Amazon health exec Excerpt – A new digital health care marketplace, launched last week, has a good amount of Amazon in its DNA. General Medicine, with $32 million in funding, came out of stealth with three former Amazon employees as co-founders and investors, a business model that could compete with Amazon’s One Medical — and behind the scenes, a current senior Amazon executive. The former employees, including the founders of PillPack — the pharmacy company that Amazon bought in 2018 for about $750 million and … Read More
Too often, doctors pursue ‘normal’ numbers instead of looking closely at the patient “Once we base our definition of disease on numerical abnormalities, we can change the numbers in a way that expands those who have the disease. This has been occurring in dramatic fashion the past 20 years, especially since Medicare (by congressional decree) relinquished the task of defining normal numbers to specialty medical societies. Hence the American College of Cardiology can change the definition of an abnormal cholesterol reading or abnormal blood pressure reading such that more people will be labeled with a diagnosed disease related to these … Read More
A disease doesn’t have to be real to cause worldwide damage “While I am deeply concerned about the long-term existential threat of AI and synthetic biology to create new or modified pathogens, my extensive experience detecting and controlling outbreaks around the world makes me fear a more immediate threat: a rogue actor using existing AI tools to simulate a bioterrorism attack that would destabilize a region or the world. [..] Freely available AI tools now permit people to create “deepfakes” that are almost impossible for a person to differentiate from reality without special tools. It’s not simply a question of whether … Read More
New systems for documenting outpatient visits are adding features and moving into hospitals; ‘we are just scratching the surface’ Excerpt – “We are just scratching the surface of what this technology can do,” says Dr. Lance Owens, regional chief medical information officer at University of Michigan Health, which uses Microsoft’s DAX Copilot ambient-listening technology. “I see it being able to provide insights about the patient that the human mind just can’t do in a reasonable time.” By connecting older data with new information in the medical record, for instance, the technology could help make sure that an incidental finding years ago was followed … Read More
“The largest health care companies in the US are no longer just health insurers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), physician practices, home health agencies, hospices, data warehouses, data analytics firms, or hospitals. They are increasingly all of the above. A small number of unavoidable health care intermediaries are incorporating these services into essential platforms that simultaneously serve as payers, providers, and everything in between. While these companies claim to rationalize health care and realize the promise of coordinated, integrated care, the reality may be quite different. The creation of “big health care” platforms risks worsening the already serious problem of monopoly … Read More
It used to be progressives who distrusted the experts. What happened? “Citing evidence, ignoring appeals to authority, reserving judgment, demanding more research—these are potentially exhausting traits in a conversational partner, but they’re also marks of a scientific mind. Rather than being “anti-science,” [Robert F] Kennedy [Junior] seems enchanted by it. His accusatory book “The Real Anthony Fauci” (2021) is packed with discussions of clinical studies, and it bears a blurb from a Nobel-winning virologist. (Anyone worried about the lack of public appetite for complex writing should contemplate the fact that this nearly five-hundred-page, data-drenched work of nonfiction has sold more … Read More
Results could help build case for insurance coverage for prescription digital therapeutics “In a new report, the Peterson Health Technology Institute (PHTI) finds that Rejoyn, an app for depression from Otsuka Precision Health, and DaylightRx, an app for anxiety from Big Health, warrant further adoption because their clinical trials show strong evidence of benefits. Both apps are intended to be used alongside ongoing mental health treatment, and in most cases, the institute found the apps will save money. PHTI was founded in 2023 with $50 million to conduct independent evaluations of health technology. Its findings, both positive and negative, have ruffled feathers in the industry, and have … Read More
STAT reviewed dozens of studies, interviewed chronic disease experts, and landed on three focus areas for RFK Jr. to boost health Excerpt – Among Kennedy’s primary focuses so far has been convincing food companies to remove chemical additives and artificial dyes: an admirable goal, many nutrition experts say, but not the kind of change that would substantially improve people’s health when compared to other needed reforms. He will need to go bigger, they told STAT. However, some researchers say Kennedy is right to keep his eyes on the environment Americans inhabit — the products in their supermarkets, the toxins in … Read More