The emergency contraception Plan B (what a name!) was recommended by the FDA to go over-the-counter, but the secretary of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, put the kibbosh on that idea in a rare Administration override to an FDA decision.

Sebelius is a career politician, has served as governor of Kansas, has been Barak Obama's Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA. 

Looks like a lot of these doc rating sites get their data from a small number of review sources.  The ongoing problem of lack of data credibility on the web affects medicine as well.

This from Barbara Duck--

I think George Carlin was on the mark when he said there are no rights.  If a country can imprison its own citizens (as in the Japanese internment camps during WWII) with no due process, there are no rights.

So where does that leave health care?

I think the word "dignity" is more apropos than "right" when it comes to health care.  The ability to see a doctor, to have a hospital nearby, to have a pharmacy nearby with good medicines and a skilled pharmacist, these are human dignities.

Dr. Richard Leff weighed in about resident work hour rules yesterday over at KevinMD.com.  I couldn't resist responding here.  Now InteractMD.com ain't KevinMD.com, but I thought I would like to add my two cents to the fray, for what it's worth.  Let's just say the intervening six years that have passed since residency have not diminished my interest in the question of how to create a more hospitable work environment for residents.  I think every doc that was once a resident needs to think about how the medical field can make things better for residents.  We all reap the benefits of our residency training, so it behooves us to try to incrementally improve the system.

1: PMID 20718168 Correction with instrumented fusion versus non-corrective surgery for degenerative lumbar scoliosis: a systematic review.

2: PMID 20718170 The post-operative analgesic efficacy of celecoxib compared with placebo and parecoxib after total hip or knee arthroplasty.

From the machine learning algorithm this morning, culled from over 3,000 new abstracts posted overnight.

1: Refractory rickets in the tropics.

2: "Functional food" for acceleration of growth in short children born small for gestational age.

3: Changes in opioid use and healthcare costs among U.S. patients with diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain treated with duloxetine compared with other therapies.

1: Discontinuation of Cholinesterase Inhibitor Treatment and Determinants thereof in the Netherlands: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

2: Low-dose doxepin: in the treatment of insomnia.

3: Borderline personality traits and disorder: Predicting prospective patient functioning.

However you feel about the guy, you gotta admit "You Don't Know Jack" was a well-done movie.

Certainly Jack Kevorkian is a controversial guy, and there are strong opinions on either side.  

I can imagine they'll be watching this movie in "Medical Ethics" classes in med schools for years. 

New study suggests that ovary removal may increase the risk lung cancer in women. Women those who undergo hysterectomies in which both ovaries are removed along with the uterus to prevent ovarian cancer. Researchers have found that women whose menopause had been induced medically were at 1.92 time’s greater risk of developing lung cancer than women who had experienced natural menopause.

Lotta items today in the news about an impending doctor shortage in America.  Ok, so the implicit message is good for medicine: not enough people in a field is good for the people already in the field, right?

I just got back from Costa Rica.  There aren't many hospitals, doctors offices, or pharmacies once you get out of San Jose, the capital.

So you figure the people are facing a lot worse life expectancy, right?