Two new surveys published in the February 22, 2006 Journal of American Medicine (JAMA) raise serious questions about Board Certification of Hospital and Health Plan Pediatricians. And by extension other medical disciplines.
Hospital Study Results

Of 159 hospitals a total of 124, or 78%, did not require general pediatricians to be [...]

The controversy over a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine five years ago is hot again.
The Journal charged in December 2005 that the drug company Merck did not reveal important data that linked Vioxx to possible heart attacks. the journal charged that the company left out a number of heart attacks [...]

A popular nutritional supplement for joint pain doesn’t seem to make a difference for most people, according to a study in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The combination of glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate is taken by millions of Americans, at a yearly cost of about $730 million. Researchers from the University of Utah analyzed [...]

The English paper the Telegraph is reporting on a “secret” government report that catalogs hundreds of possible adverse vaccine reactions and the deaths of eighteen babies following childhood vaccinations in the last four years.
There were nearly 800 reports of possible bad reactions from childhood vaccinations. However, some experts contend that only about 1-in-10 [...]

FDA notified healthcare professionals and patients of the request for recall of all brands and sizes of Balanced Salt Solution (BSS) manufactured by Cytosol Laboratories, Inc. because product lots were found to have elevated and dangerous levels of endotoxin. BSS is a drug used by health professionals to irrigate a patient’s eyes, ears, nose and/or [...]

Reports of dozens of deaths, and an FDA safety panel urges immediate warning of serious risks for drugs used for children, but FDA bureaucrats and drug companies stall, calling for more study.
An expert Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel has called for the strongest possible safety warning be issued for the drugs Ritalin, Adderall [...]

G. V. Ramanjaneyulu8 February 2006Source: SciDev.Net
G. V. Ramanjaneyulu (the executive director of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Hyderabad, India) argues that insect-resistant crops will eventually require an increased use of pesticides, and that farmers around the developing world will suffer as a result.
Thousands of farmers in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh have committed suicide [...]

Three European different studies, (in Germany, England and Sweden) by three different research groups found a significant increase in the risk of brain tumors in cell phone users of ten years or more. While we all love our cell phones it seems advisable to use common sense cautions, especially for our kids.
The studies [...]

FDA notified healthcare professionals and patients about a Public Health Notification on continued risk of bacterial meningitis in children with cochlear implants. The notification provides new information about the risk of meningitis in children with cochlear implants with positioner beyond twenty-four months post-implantation. This new information is based on a CDC study that published in [...]

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that the number of human bird flu cases in Turkey may be 12, not 21.
Tests on samples from patients suspected of having the bird flu confirmed only 12 as the deadly H5N1 virus. The other samples had a negative diagnoses.
The WHO website, reports that the number of [...]