Health Highlights – August 9th, 2007

Health Highlights is a biweekly summary of particularly interesting articles from credible sources of health and medical information that we follow & read. For a complete list of recommeded sources, see our links page.

Health Highlights

Websites Advertising and Selling Prescription Drugs Increase by 70%

According to The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, over the last three years the number of websites selling controlled prescription drugs such as opioids, depressants and stimulants has increased. The findings were presented in a new White Paper, “You’ve Got Drugs!” IV: Prescription Drug Pushers on the Internet, in May 2007 by CASA and released that same month at the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “Rogue Online Pharmacies: The Growing Problem of Internet Drug Trafficking” [1].

Online drugs

What You Believe Can Kill You

The Washington Post published a story yesterday stating that Personal Health Beliefs are Largely Hit and Myth. The story discusses the results of an American Cancer Society (ACS) study released last week, which will be published in the September 1st issue of the journal Cancer.

Pediatric Grand Rounds 2.8

Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsAt midnight just over a week ago, the seventh and final edition of the children’s wildly popular Harry Potter series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, was officially released.

To commemorate the occasion, each section of this week’s PGR begins with a quotation or some dialogue from the story. A total of 25 blog articles are included in this edition, each one just as magical as the next, and I hope you enjoy reading them all as much as I did. I intentionally kept my comments short so that you can focus on the content of each article.

So, without further delay, I present to you Pediatric Grand Rounds 2.8.

Physician Profiling

The Washington Post published an interesting article today on physician profiling.

In the fight to control healthcare costs, employers and insurance companies are now monitoring physican performance. Using sophisticated computer software to analyze millions of health claims and billing data, doctors are being profiled. Physician profiles are rated and used to direct patients to effective and reasonably priced healthcare.