Health Affairs

If one were to try and identify what issue has most roiled the biomedical community in the past few months it is surely the effort to censor two papers describing genetic modifications of the H5N1 flu virus. Background.  Last December, the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) was asked by the U.S. National... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: For more on Rick Brown’s life and work, see Chris Hafner-Eaton’s Health Affairs Blog post and Lee-Lee Prina’s post on Health Affairs’ GrantWatch Blog. E. Richard (Rick) Brown, a nationally recognized public health leader who advocated for health care reform and pioneered the collection and broad dissemination of health survey data to influence... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: For more on Rick Brown’s life and work, see Gerald Kominski’s Health Affairs Blog post and Lee-Lee Prina’s post on Health Affairs’ GrantWatch Blog. I humbly write what cathartically emanates from me regarding UCLA’s Dr. E. Richard Brown, who passed away on April 20, 2012. Rick Brown, as he was known to most... Read the rest of this entry »

The most-read Health Affairs Blog post for January was Tim Jost’s examination of the first set of briefs filed before the Supreme Court in the litigation over the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. The full top-ten list for the month also includes Jerald Winakur’s post on disruptions experienced by many patients during care transitions... Read the rest of this entry »

A belated tip of the hat to two Health Affairs articles included in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s five most influential research articles by RWJF grantees in 2011: Evidence Links Increases In Public Health Spending To Declines In Preventable Deaths, by Glenn Mays and Sharla Smith; and Nurses’ Widespread Job Dissatisfaction, Burnout, And Frustration With... Read the rest of this entry »

One of the priorities established in the Affordable Care Act is providing better, more efficient care to the “dual eligibles,” low-income seniors enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid. AcademyHealth’s 2012 National Health Policy Conference (NHPC) will feature a panel on this topic, which is crucial to the nation’s goal of restraining health care cost growth... Read the rest of this entry »

“A child is not a small adult,” but an adolescent is not a large child.  Adult oncologists, reluctant to care for cancer patients under the age of 16, believe that adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer patients should be within their purview.  We believe younger cancer patients are a special group needing special attention, even... Read the rest of this entry »

Last month the federal government issued new regulations governing the disclosure and management of potential financial conflicts of interest on the part of investigators in federally funded research projects. As explained below, these regulations, which replace earlier rules adopted more than 15 years ago, represent an important step toward transparency. However, they also contain important... Read the rest of this entry »