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Of Consuming Interest - 01/31/12
January 31, 2012
Of Consuming Interest - 12/27/11
December 27, 2011
Of Consuming Interest - 11/29/11
November 29, 2011 Of Consuming Interest - 11/22/11
November 22, 2011
Jim's guest today is Thomas J. Miller, Resident Fellow of the American Enterprise Instiutute for Public Policy Research. Jim and Mr. Miller talk about the issues before the U.S. Supreme Court presented by states that challenge the constitutionality of an individual mandate to purchase a health care insurance policy. Mr. Miller was formerly on the staff of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress as a health policy specialist.
Of Consuming Interest - 11/15/11
November 15, 2011 Today's guest was Greg Conco, Senior Fellow at the Completive Enterprise Institute talking about solving the shortage of prescriptions drugs by the issuance of a Presidential Executive Order, the 2012 Prescription User Fee Reauthorization Act and other regulatory health matters connected with the emerging health reform policy changes.
Of Consuming Interest - 11/1/11
November 1, 2011 Jim Turner’s guest is Gary Conko, Senior Fellow in Drug studies for The Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. They discuss President Obama’s Executive Order on Nov. 1, 2001 to deal with shortages of some prescription drugs.
There are shortages of about 250 drugs this year, up sharply from an annual average of just a few dozen prior to 2005. Most of these are low-cost generic drugs for which profit margins are very low. But even among those, there have been severe shortages in cancer medicines, potent antibiotics, and anesthesia drugs that are hugely important in medical treatment. When doctors and hospitals can’t get access to these products, they have to substitute more expensive brand drugs or less effective alternatives. President Obama issued an executive order on Monday that is intended to address some of the causes of drug shortages. The executive order may have some minor positive effect. But addressing the root of the problem is not something the President can do on his own. Instead, it will require action by Congress.
Part of the problem stems from the Food and Drug Administration becoming increasingly aggressive in shutting down manufacturing facilities for minor legal violations that don’t necessarily raise safety concerns for patients. And, when manufacturing facilities are closed, other rules make it difficult or impractical for competitors to increase their production to take up the slack.
A 1992 law requires manufacturers to sell drugs to certain hospitals and clinics, as well as to state and federal health programs for below market prices. That resulted in driving a number of producers out of the market, to the point that for many essential drugs, there may be just two or three manufacturers. And a provision of the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug Act forbids generics manufacturers from raising the prices charged to Medicare by more than six percent every six months. So, when the shut down of one manufacturing facility results in a shortage, there is little incentive for other manufacturers to ramp up production. Even if competing manufacturers wanted to increase production, they must get FDA approval to do so.
The executive order will shift some FDA resources into clearing these approvals in a more timely fashion, and shift some FDA resources into clearing facility inspections to get closed facilities back on line faster once quality control issues are corrected. Those things will help at the margins. The order also request that manufacturers give the FDA prior notice any time they intend to cease manufacturing an important drug, or when they anticipate production shortfalls due to a shortage in raw materials. That will at least help the FDA and physicians to better plan for finding alternatives ahead of drug shortages. But the President cannot address on his own the underlying market problems associated with the price controls. That will require congressional action.
The final element of the executive order is the initiation of a study of so-called price gouging associated with drugs that are in short supply. Some of these drugs have seen significant price spikes associated with the shortages, as purchasers are bidding up the prices in order to secure access. However, when shortages occur, rising prices send a signal to physicians to conserve use of the drugs in question, and to shift to alternatives where doing so makes sense. If the government were to prevent so-called price gouging, the artificially constrained prices would send a signal to physicians that conservation isn’t necessary, thereby exacerbating the problem.
Of Consuming Interest - 10/07/11
October 7, 2011 Download this episode (right click and save)
Dr. John Ryder is a psychologist, author of Positive Directions and mental fitness expert here to talk about how to stay on the positive side of life…
They nicknamed him “The Mental Fitness Expert” because he knows what goes wrong with the mind and how to exercise the mental muscles to become stronger and more flexible.
Of Consuming Interest - 09/23/11
October 3, 2011 Download this episode (right click and save)
Jim Turner interviews Manhattan-based psyhiatrist Dr. John Shershow about a new FDA-approved machine to treat victims of depression. The machine is called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) but there is no medication and the procedure, while expensive, is not invasive as it works on the part of the brain's left front lobe where neurons might cause depression and other maladies. TMS is also being experimented with now for off label treatments such as autism or chronic ringing in the ears.
Of Consuming Interest - 09/16/11
October 3, 2011 Download this episode (right click and save)
The guest if James Pinkerton who worked in The White House under President George. H. W. Bush in the 1990s. Pinkerton talks about his group Serious Medicine Strategy that studies ways to tackle the analysis and treatment plans for many major diseases that consume end of life resources such as Alzheimer's. He cites the March of Dimes sponsorship of polio vaccine research from 1938 until Dr. Jonas Salk invented a vaccine in 1955 as a model to look at.
Of Consuming Interest - 09/09/11
October 3, 2011 Download this episode (right click and save)
Today's guest is Arlene Holen of the Technology Policy Institute in Washington, DC. who talks about the challenge of protecting the privacy of person medical records in the age of digital records and the Internet.
