Category: Quality Control (Page 46 of 74)

Aspirin Therapy Under Review

January 9, 2012 / Staff

An aspirin a day used to be the recommendation for stroke and heart attack patients for preventative measures.

However the risk of heavy internal bleeding is worse than the potential benefits, especially to healthy people.

The message seems to be that aspirin therapy causes more harm than it’s worth.

Currently, U.S. guidelines all recommend aspirin for primary prevention as long as the benefits outweigh the harms, an equation that depends on baseline risk. This advice is backed by an editorial accompanying the new report.

Health Care Policy, Quality Control, Research, Wellness

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Antibiotic Use in Livestock Coming Under Scrutiny

January 9, 2012 / Staff

The Food and Drug Administration is calling for restrictions in use of antibiotics in animals.

Crowded and filthy conditions call for the use of the drugs to prevent illness in the animals which could be passed on to humans.

However, it seems that the antibiotics are indeed being passed on to humans and helping to create super-bugs which are becoming increasingly drug resistant.

Some 80 percent of antibiotic drugs in the United States were sold for use in food animals, according to the FDA. Many of those are used to help animals grow faster and prevent infections from breaking out on big farms. Today’s announcement on cephalosporins doesn’t affect those antibiotics in feed.
Still, the more the cephalosporins are used, the greater the chances that they will stop working because bacteria can become resistant to them.

Quality Control

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Dioxin Guidelines Under Review

January 8, 2012 / Staff

Farmers and the food industry are asking the Obama administration to ease coming federal guidance that will advise consumers to minimize their intake of dioxins, chemicals that may be harmful at certain levels.

The standards would, for the first time, set a limit on how much dioxin Americans can be exposed to and still be safe. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release the guidelines in January.

Dioxins are a byproduct of paper, metal and cement production, but the primary source of exposure for people is food. Meat and dairy products in particular absorb the chemicals, which are ubiquitous.

Quality Control, Research, Resources

Diaoxin EPA Toxic waste

Should Physicians Consider Cost When Treating Patients?

January 6, 2012 / Staff

Where does cost fit into health care decisions?

This subject is being discussed by a major medical group which recently proposed the position to doctors that they should consider cost-effectiveness when treating patients.

“The cost of health care in the United States is twice that of any other industrialized countries and we are not providing care to as many people as they do in other places, and we don’t even have as good outcomes,” said Dr. Virginia Hood, president of the group. “So given that, we really have to look at ways of doing things better.”

Doctors, Health Care Policy, Health Insurance, Quality Control, Resources

cost effectiveness of health care healthcare costs

Food Safety Concerns in China

January 6, 2012 / Staff

Food safety in China continues to be a concern as more and more overseas foodstuffs continue to enter the American consumer market.

The food safety regulator in Shenzhen said it had found excessive levels of aflatoxin in peanuts sold in three stores, and in cooking oil in four restaurants, the official Xinhua news agency said late Friday.

Milk was at the centre of one of China’s biggest food safety scandals in 2008 when the industrial chemical melamine was found to have been illegally added to dairy products to give the appearance of higher protein content.
At least six babies died and another 300,000 became ill after drinking milk tainted with the chemical.

Nutrition, Quality Control, Resources, Wellness

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