Friday, September 30, 2016

Healthcare deductible costs rose at 16x the rate of inflation since 2006/ NYT

A NYT editorial discussed healthcare costs last week using two simple graphs. In case you still have good insurance, take a look at what has happened to the rest of us.  Over seventeen years, the cost of insurance premiums has risen at 6 times the rate of inflation.  Over ten years, deductibles rose at 16 times the rate of inflation. Someone called this "strip mining the middle class." The NYT says,
"The reaction to opening a medical bill these days is often shock and confusion — for the insured and the uninsured. Prices and deductibles keep rising, policies are drowning in fine print, and doctors are jumping on and off networks...  With incomes for most Americans stagnant, individuals and families insured under the Affordable Care Act or through employers are bearing more of the cost of medical treatment..."




Workers’ contribution
to premiums
+242%
+213%
Health
insurance
premiums
200%
Workers’
earnings
100
+60%
+44%
Inflation
’99
’05
’10
’16

Thursday, September 29, 2016

CDC urges Americans to get a flu shot as soon as possible/ NPR

NPR tells us influenza vaccine comes in twelve flavors this year.  You can pick 3 antigens or 4.  With or without a squalene adjuvant? (Fluad is the first US vaccine to use the MF59 squalene adjuvant, though its manufacturer worked to get it into the US market for almost 2 decades.)  High dose or regular strength? Made in armyworm cellsdog kidney cells, or just the usual egg-based vaccine?

Sorry--the nasal spray flu vaccine (FluMist by AstraZeneca) is not recommended this year, since it didn't work the last three years.

CDC is concerned that fewer elders got flu shots last year.  Maybe that is because they, or their doctors, finally learned that there is no reliable evidence flu shots work in those over 65. Also see this.  (They do work to a degree in younger adults and older children.)

I averaged the efficacy results for the last 12 years, from CDC's website and an MMWR report for the 2008-9 seasonal flu vaccine, since CDC had omitted that (negative efficacy) year from its list. Using CDC's own data, the average efficacy of flu shots (how well they work in controlled clinical trials, which may be better than their real life efficacy) was a whopping 37%.

So if 5% of the population gets flu each year without being vaccinated, only 3 or 4% will get the flu when everyone is vaccinated.

As the Cochrane Collaboration noted in a 2014 review of this subject (one of many they have done) you would need to vaccinate 71 people to prevent one case of flu.

Got it?  Now go get your shot.

P.S.  There are 80 million American children.  Last year, there were 85 influenza-associated deaths in children, or one in a million.  We have no idea how many children suffered serious side effects from influenza vaccines.  We have no idea how many suffered side effects from FluMist, which gave them no protection.  Fifteen million doses of Flumist were delivered to the US market last year, at a cost of about $23 each, or $350 million total.  Nice work if you can get it.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Five Recent Medical News Stories That Invite Cynicism/ John Mandrola, MD

From Dr. Mandrola at Medscape, a compilation of recent events in medical "science" that make one wonder whether the practice of medicine is going to last much longer, given the amount of corruption now woven into it:  
Cynic: A person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons
I don't want to be this person. Cynicism is ugly.
But when it comes to the making and translating of medical evidence, five recent events are ugly.
Event Number 1. The Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC)recently retracted a paper[1] published earlier this year. This is notable because JACC is cardiology's biggest journal and because retraction is the highest form of scientific punishment.
The retracted paper reported the results of the OASIS trial—a test of whether ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF) using the controversial Topera Physiologic Rotor Mapping Solution was better than conventional techniques.
The OASIS trial results dealt a crushing rebuke for rotor ablation. The proprietary mapping system failed to deliver. The authors of OASIS, led by Dr Andrea Natale, are widely published and influential in the field. Their paper was presented as a late-breaking session of this year's Heart Rhythm Society meeting.
JACC retracted the paper because of irregularities in the randomization process (basically, the editors said OASIS was presented as a randomized trial, but it wasn't) and because patients were recruited before the trial was registered.
Dr Natale countered publicly, saying that industry influenced the decision to retract the paper. In an email toheartwire from Medscape journalist Patrice Wendling, discussing the decision by JACC's editors, Dr Natale said the information contained in letters to JACC were known only to the investigators and industry; "thus, it [was] obvious that these individuals were acting on behalf and in the best interest of the company."
I wrote a column outlining three possible explanations for this event, all of which, in my opinion, are depressing: a seriously flawed trial made it through the editorial and peer-review process of a major journal, or an influential research group were guilty of scientific misconduct, or industry influenced an editorial decision of a scientific journal.
Event Number 2. Another cynicism-inducing paper[2] out this month detailed the finding that the "sugar industry paid for and was closely involved in development of an influential literature review,"[3,4] published by the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967. This review downplayed dietary sugar's links to coronary heart disease while pointing the finger at fat and cholesterol intake."
Authors from University of California, San Francisco analyzed internal documents from the Sugar Research Foundation, the precursor to the Sugar Association, to probe the history of how dietary guidelines were developed. They looked at more than 1500 pages of documents from a range of publicly available sources, including damning correspondence between sugar-industry representatives and Harvard researchers.
Speaking to heartwire , Dr Cristin E Kearns, the lead author of the report, said that if the evidence had been fairly presented, the recommendations would have been to reduce both fat and sugar, not just saturated fat.
Think of the people that may have been harmed by substitution of sugar for fat.
My friends—this is a big story. Think of the people that may have been harmed by substitution of sugar for fat. Look around at the populace of Western countries.George Santayana's famous, often misquoted, quote fits: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."[5]
Event Number 3. The third article[6] that gets me down deals with the problem of medical overuse.
In a structured review of English-language articles on PubMed published in 2015, Daniel Morgan and colleagues identified 821 articles which addressed medical overuse. Their paper, published in JAMA Internal Medicine and available in full text online, identified the 10 most influential of these papers, detailing important types of overuse.
I see overuse too often; it's harmful to patients because it exposes them to more harm than benefit, and it is harmful to society because it wastes resources. At the core of the overuse detailed in this review was poor translation of evidence into practice. Does overuse persist because people are motivated out of self-interest?
Event Number 4. Recent decisions at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) suggest the bar for approval of new devices and drugs is too low.
Last year, the FDA approved the Watchman (Boston Scientific) left atrial appendage closure device, which is a plug placed in the left atrial appendage to prevent stroke. Only it doesn't.
In a clinical trial called PREVAIL, the device was tested against warfarin—the standard of care. The trialists set the lowest possible bar for the device; all it had to do was prove noninferiority. It failed. In counting up events, the device proved inferior to warfarin.
That an agency charged with judging clinical science considers the opinion of Hollywood actors demeans the process.
How did Watchman get approved, then? Advocates for the device used multiple tactics. They combined previous trial data, they "meta-analyzed" multiple studies; they criticized the PREVAIL trial for providing management of warfarin patients that was too good; and they harnessed the power of patient advocacy. The well-known actor Wilford Brimley spoke at the FDA session on behalf of the device. That an agency charged with judging clinical science considers the opinion of Hollywood actors demeans the process.
Event Number 5. And finally, a far worse crisis at FDA came to light on September 19, 2016, when the agency gave accelerated approval to eteplirsen (Exondys 51, Sarepta Therapeutics), the first drug for a rare form of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, specifically patients with a confirmed mutation of the dystrophin gene amenable to exon 51 skipping.
During the first pass at the FDA, an advisory committee evaluated the data and rejected it by a 7 to 3 margin with three abstentions. The scientific advisors rejected the drug because the trial included only 12 boys and had deeply flawed methodology.
Despite the negative vote, patient-advocacy groups and others pressured the FDA into a second hearing. And now, the agency has gone against its advisors and granted approval. A clinical benefit of eteplirsen, including improved motor function, has not yet been established, and in its approval, the FDA did require that the manufacturer complete a clinical trial to confirm the drug's benefit. The company estimates the cost of the unproven drug will be $300,000 annually.[7]
Compassion for patients with rare diseases does not mean we can or should suspend scientific principles.
Compassion for patients with rare diseases does not mean we can or should suspend scientific principles. Luciana Borio, MD, the acting chief scientist at the Agency Scientific Dispute Process Review Board, the board that resolves internal disputes at the FDA, wrote that she "does not believe the available data and information support accelerated approval of" the drug."[8]
Ellis Unger, MD, the director of FDA's Office of Drug Evaluation within the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and the chair of the advisory committee, in an appeal of this eteplirsen decision, exuded both empathy and common sense: "Many of us would wish to approve this drug if we could. DMD is a horrible disease and there are no approved treatments. FDA takes seriously the patient perspective and our mandate to be flexible."[8]
But in this case, Unger explains, "FDA is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that drugs are shown to be effective prior to marketing, based on substantial evidence. If we were to approve eteplirsen without substantial evidence of effectiveness, or on the basis of a surrogate end point with a trivial treatment effect, we would quickly find ourselves in the position of having to approve a myriad of ineffective treatments for groups of desperate patients—in essence, allowing marketing based on desperation, patient lobbying, and the desire and need of hope."[8]
The Sarepta story is terrible because it shows the darkest side of healthcare—one that I see too often: the hijacking of fear and hope in susceptible people in order to foster profits and self-interest of others.
Editor's note: The FDA has made a Summary Review of this decision, including documents from FDA's scientists, available in full online.]
Patients and doctors want to approach new developments in science and medical evidence with the belief that it is honest and born from the desire to foster the greater good. We want our default bias to be rooted in a place of benevolence.
Taken together, these five events give me great concern about the profession that is my life's work. I will continue to fight back cynical thoughts, but it's getting harder.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

We don't know if it works or is safe--but don't let that stop you, Doctor. Push Gardasil

WebMD Professional
Developed under the direction and sponsorship of Merck.
Helpful information when talking to parents about HPV vaccination

Prescribing Information     Patient Information
When talking to parents about the HPV vaccine…
Focus clearly on cancer prevention
The CDC suggests:
Consider telling parents that HPV vaccination is about cancer prevention: cervical, vaginal, vulvar, and anal1
Example:
"HPV can cause certain cancers, and the vaccine helps prevent HPV-related cancers and diseases caused by 9 types. I want to help protect your child from these cancers."
CDC=Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Indication
GARDASIL 9 is a vaccine indicated in females 9 through 26 years of age for the prevention of cervical, vulvar, vaginal, and anal cancers caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) Types 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58; precancerous or dysplastic lesions caused by HPV Types 6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58; and genital warts caused by HPV Types 6 and 11.

GARDASIL 9 is indicated in males 9 through 26 years of age for the prevention of anal cancer caused by HPV Types 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58; precancerous or dysplastic lesions caused by HPV Types 6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58; and genital warts caused by HPV Types 6 and 11.
(Indication continued below)

Select Safety Information
GARDASIL®9 (Human Papillomavirus 9-valent Vaccine, Recombinant) is contraindicated in individuals with hypersensitivity, including severe allergic reactions to yeast, or after a previous dose of GARDASIL 9 or GARDASIL® [Human Papillomavirus Quadrivalent (Types 6, 11, 16, and 18) Vaccine, Recombinant].
(Select Safety Information continued below)
Learn more about how to clearly recommend
HPV vaccination in your office ▶