Tuesday News

I thought maybe we could use a little amusing strangeness this morning, so here's a story about the crazy things people swallow.

As we all try to regain our composure after this week-end's shootings, some remind us that the current truce over health reform is temporary. I hope that, when the discussion resumes, the tone is a bit toned down -- but I'm not counting on it.

And nobody's slowing down implementation. The Obama Administration is working on regulations that lay out the essential benefits package -- the minimum that every plan must cover -- trying to strike a balance between medical needs and costs.

But for the moment, at least in Congress, health reform is off the front burner, so here's a smattering of other health news.

The brilliant Jonathan Cohn talks about what happens when the FDA rules against a particular use of a drug. Is this the rationing that the right has been screaming about? The FDA has been doing this for decades, so we know it's not part of health reform. Still, some argue as if it were. What do you think?

Did you know that a fever in a child can be proof of an adequate immune system? Good to know.

One of the biggest problems in health care is how to keep people to their drug regimen. So how about pills that remind you to take them? And what about ways around injections and infusions for drugs you can't swallow?

A new study shows that specialists and primary care docs don't communicate as well as they need to for their patients.

The three technologies caregivers want most: a personal tracker, a medication reminder, and a caregiver coordination scheduler.

Patients ordering their own labs? Really?

Gail Sheehy on end of life planning.

Obese fibromyalgia patients suffer more than those at a lower weight.

Some insight into how cancer grows.

The road to heart disease begins in childhood.

Should public hospitals be allowed to sue pharmaceutical companies for not granting discounts? The Obama Administration says yes because of concern over a wave of lawsuits. But what about the poor patients?

A touching story -- an amputee who started a foundation to help other amputees pay for bionic prostheses.

Your mom was right -- breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So do it right.

And that's a broad and unsystematic overview of what's in today's news. Have a safe day. Jennifer