You'd better shop around

Medicare beneficiaries are well advised to compare prices before they commit to buying one of the new Medicare-endorsed drug discount cards. For example, www.drugstore.com beat the discount card price of cholesterol-lowering Lipitor. Even greater savings were available by ordering through www.minnesotarxconnect.com, a site that links you to online Canadian pharmacies visited and recommended by Minnesota state officials.

Medicare officials say the drug discount card prices could come down as card sponsors react to competition. They recommend that seniors visit www.medicare.gov and window shop for a couple of weeks before commiting.

For low-income senior citizens, the Medicare-endorsed cards are a good deal. The annual fee is waived if you make less than $12,569 a year (less than $16,862 a year for a couple). Those folks get $600 in credit toward their medication purchases with the card.

Now that's health food!

The low-carb fad now has its own seal of approval. LowCarb Living magazine, which debuted in January, will test food and drink to verify carbohydrate claims. Products that pass the test can use the Total Carb Count Certification seal on labels and in ads.

This is the part I find incredible: The first product to get the seal, with a carb count of zero, is Bacardi Superior rum.

Seattle to study Canadian drug importation

Seattle has joined a growing list of cities and states exploring importing prescription drugs from Canada. The Seattle City Council voted Monday to study reimbursing employees who buy Canadian medications, the Seattle Times reports. The hope is to reap savings, potentially $1 million a year.

Better vision while you sleep

If you're mildly to moderately nearsighted, you may be interested in corneal refractive therapy. It's a new kind of contact lens that reshapes your cornea and corrects your vision while you sleep. You have to wear them every night, which could be a hassle for many people. But they're no riskier than extended-wear contacts and they're approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

My story on the topic is scheduled to run May 4. Meanwhile, visit the company's web site.

Paxil withdrawal can be rough

The May issue of Health magazine includes an article on people who have had harrowing side effects while trying to stop taking the antidepressant Paxil. Titled "The Down Side of Up," the article states that 2,000 of these people have sued drug maker GlaxoSmithKline over problems with the drug.

The article offers tips for tapering off Paxil with the guidance of a physician. The tips include: exercise, eat healthy foods, try a prescription for liquid Paxil to allow smaller doses, keep a daily journal of symptoms and expect it to take several months.

I found this site -- the Paxil Database -- that offers advice and stories from patients tapering off the drug.

Does being a guinea pig pay off in better health?

There was no health benefit for individuals with cancer from joining a clinical trial, concluded researchers with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The researchers compared what happened to people with cancer who were eligible but did not participate in trials to what happened to people who did participate.

Read more about the study and get other information about joining clinical trials at Informed Health Online.

State department of health responds to New York Times story on CJD disease cluster

I usually believe everything I read in the New York Times. But a March 28th story in the magazine section briefly alluded to a Washington state cluster of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and that contradicted my own reporting.

Last Sunday, the Times printed this letter:

"D.T. Max's article (March 28) might lead readers to believe that there was a 'group' or 'cluster' of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease cases in Washington State recently. That is inaccurate or, at the very least, misleading. It is true that we have had 35 possible cases over a six-year period, but they have not been grouped or clustered in any way. In this time period, that would be a typical number of cases for any area in the country with the same population. Additionally, we track C.J.D. when it is mentioned on death certificates. In these 35, C.J.D. was often just one of several possible causes of death mentioned. Of the 35, only 14 people had autopsies, so there is no way for us to confirm the true causes of death for the other 21. We are working to encourage more autopsies in suspected C.J.D. cases so we can have a better understanding of this disease."

Tim Church
Washington State
Department of Health
Office of Communications
Olympia, Wash.

Helpful resource on cystic fibrosis

Firefly Books has a "Your Personal Health Series" with titles on epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease and hepatitis C. Recently, a new book in the series, this one on cystic fibrosis, appeared in my mailbox. A colleague whose daughter has cystic fibrosis borrowed it and found the book helpful.

"I wish something like this had been available when my daughter was diagnosed eight years ago," she wrote me in an e-mail. "All her pediatrician had on hand when he gave us the news was a really outdated pamphlet, which made the whole thing much worse because it contained old information about life expectancy and general prognosis. I think it's a great resource for anyone who's interested in the disease."

Click here for more information on the book.

Low-calorie diet lowers risk factors

Their arteries looked more like children’s than adults. Eighteen people who voluntarily restricted their diets to between 1,100 and 1,950 calories for an average of six years lowered their cholesterol, their blood pressure and their risk of diabetes. The typical Western diet is between 1,975 and 3,550 calories.

The study from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis was published online yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read a Washington Post story on the study.

Hillary on health care

Hillary Rodham Clinton writes about crisis in the health-care system in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. You can read the article here and also e-mail a question to Sen. Clinton..

From Clinton's essay:

"We could make cosmetic changes to the system we currently have, but that would simply take what is already a Rube Goldberg contraption and make it larger and even more unwieldy. We could go the route many have advocated, putting the burden almost entirely on individuals, thereby creating a veritable nationwide health care casino in which you win or lose should illness strike you or someone in your family. Or we could decide to develop a new social contract for a new century premised on joint responsibility to prevent disease and provide those who need care access to it. This would not let us as individuals off the hook. In fact, joint responsibility demands accountability from patients, employers, payers and society as a whole."

Marketing gone amok

It’s marketing that pushes the bounds of good taste, but you’ve got to admire the execution. The Godsend Institute fertility clinic’s web site looks legit. It even has a dot org address. But it’s really a stunt to promote the Robert DeNiro movie "Godsend." DeNiro plays a doctor who convinces a grieving couple he can return their dead son to them through cloning.

But what about this petition to stop the Godsend Institute? Is is a real petition by someone who was duped by the Godsend web site? Or was it, too, posted by the movie publicists?

Well, I guess they got their free publicity from this blog.

Viagra: Buy six, get one free

My wallet contains dozens of punch cards for dozens of drive-through coffee shops, but it doesn’t contain a Value Card for Viagra. Pfizer, the maker of the original erectile dysfunction drug, announced the Value Card program today to mark Viagra's sixth anniversary. The card will allow men to fill a Viagra prescription six times and get a seventh refill free. Learn more.

Study estimates savings with Medicare drug discount cards

The average Medicare beneficiary could save $117 a year by using one of the new prescription drug discount cards, according to a study published today on the web site of Health Affairs.

Seniors without any other drug coverage could save an average of 17.4 percent -- or $1 billion a year total. The study, by a Harvard University health policy doctoral candidate and two colleagues, was commissioned by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The private companies offering the cards will start enrolling seniors next month. Watch this blog for continuing coverage of this issue.

Eye jewelry may be dangerous

Eye doctors of the American Academy of Ophthalmology are voicing concerns about the possible risks of implanting tiny pieces of jewelry in the eye’s mucous membrane.

Parents of teenagers can be grateful the fad hasn't yet arrived at kiosks at the local shopping mall. Only two clinics in the Netherlands are performing the procedure. You can see a picture of the results at this web site.

Virtual colonoscopy misses some cancers

Two years ago, Katie Couric of NBC’s "Today" show had a virtual colonoscopy on television. But the screening technique for colon cancer may not be ready for prime time.

A study published in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association reports that virtual colonoscopy missed two out of eight active cancers in a study of 600 patients.

The patients in the study had both a conventional colonoscopy and a virtual colonoscopy. Virtual colonoscopy uses X-rays and computer imaging to produce pictures of the colon. It is not as invasive as conventional colonoscopy and a previous study suggested it was almost as accurate.

The new study suggests that techniques and training need to be improved before virtual colonoscopy is widely used.

Read the abstract.

Internet tool will help consumers compare drug prices

It's going to get easier to shop for the best prices on prescription drugs when the federal government goes live with a new price comparision tool on its Medicare web site. The site, intended to help Medicare beneficiaries, will help other consumers, too, according to this New York Times story. The tool will start working later this month.

Meanwhile, some folks continue to buy their drugs from Canada. Read my story on the highly political, enormously profitable cross-border drug trade.

Today, a U.S. non-profit group, Results for America, announced it will collect stories from Canadians who have trouble filling prescriptions due to shortages caused by drug manufacturers' supply cutbacks. Manufacturers have cut off some Canadian pharmacies that sell to Americans. Canadians are asked to report shortages at this site.

Possible measles exposure on four airline flights

The Washington State Department of Health announced Friday the numbers of airline flights on which children traveled who were recently adopted in China and came down with measles.

There are now three lab-confirmed cases of measles among children recently adopted in China. The cases are in King and Snohomish counties. Another four probable cases are in King County.

The flights, all on March 26, were: United Flight No. 862 from Hong Kong to San Francisco, Cathay Pacific Flight No. CX 872 from Hong Kong to San Francisco, United Flight No. 476 from San Francisco to Seattle and United Flight No. 794 from San Francisco to Seattle.

Click here for more information.

Obesity: costly epidemic or hysterically hyped myth?

Stateline.org concludes a two-day series today on the cost to states of the obesity epidemic. An alternate view comes from the new book by Paul Campos, "The Obesity Myth." Campos challenges the orthodoxy that thin is healthier than fat. I’m looking forward to reading his explanation, promoted on the flyleaf, of "how weight-loss mania fueled the impeachment of Bill Clinton."

Sushi secrets

Frozen or fresh? Or both? About half the raw fish destined for sushi restaurants is frozen at some point. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration wants all raw fish, with the exception of tuna, to be frozen to kill parasites. Read more in this New York Times story.

Morning-after pill controversy continues

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration may pose restrictions on proposed over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill, the Washington Post reports. Also today, an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine questions whether the agency is being influenced by politics more than science.

Stranger than fiction ...

Eight hours from the nearest hospital, a 40-year-old woman in a small village in Mexico performed a caesarean delivery on herself using a kitchen knife. The case was reported in the April issue of the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Baby and mother survived.

A vote for smokeless tobacco

Health advocates should be more honest about how smokeless tobacco, such as a Swedish product called snus, can reduce harm and help people quit smoking, argues psychiatrist Dr. Sally Satel in this commentary printed in yesterday’s New York Times.

The upside of Portnoy's Complaint?

Frequent ejaculation may be protective against prostate cancer. Men who reported ejaculating more than 20 times a month cut their risk by one-third in a study published in the April 7 Journal of the American Medical Association.

But in this Bloomberg story, the researchers downplayed the headline-grabbing result because there were few men in the group reporting the highest frequency of ejaculation (7 percent of the nearly 30,000 men in the study).

Consumer Reports on 'dirty dozen'

Consumer Reports in its May issue names 12 dangerous dietary supplements that are still on the marketplace. Find out if you’re taking any of them.

Click here.