By Jacob Goldstein
A closer look at the HIV vaccine study results announced recently suggests the vaccine may be less impressive than originally suggested, the WSJ reports.
Researchers said last month that the vaccine lowered the risk of infection by about 31% — a “modest benefit,” they said, but one that was statistically significant, suggesting the finding was not a fluke. Another slice of the data that was … Continue Reading
By Laura Landro
In the push to get Americans vaccinated against both the seasonal flu and the swine flu, infectious disease experts and public health officials are also sounding the alarm about continuing low rates of adult vaccination for a host of other preventable diseases, as I write in my latest column.
Despite evidence that vaccines are among the most cost-effective ways to prevent disease, studies show a pretty high level … Continue Reading
By Jacob Goldstein
As we’ve noted before, it’s tough to know just how much medical malpractice contributes to health-care spending. Not only do you have direct costs like malpractice premiums, you also have the harder-to-quantify indirect costs of defensive medicine, like extra tests doctors order out of fear of lawsuits.
But its the job of the number crunchers at CBO to put a number on that sort of thing, and they’ve … Continue Reading
By Jacob Goldstein
The Senate Finance Committee’s health-overhaul bill leaves in place a planned 25% cut in Medicare payments to doctors in 2011. Congress probably won’t allow this to happen; lawmakers will likely swoop in, as they’ve donerepeatedly in recent years, and block the planned cuts.
But when CBO does its projections, it doesn’t take into account what Congress is likely to do — it looks … Continue Reading
By Jacob Goldstein
Johnson & Johnson’s third-quarter earnings, out today, provide the latest reminder of why other drugmakers want to be more like J&J.
In a nutshell: It’s a tough time to be in the prescription drug business, what with stiff competition from generics manufacturers and payers pushing for lower costs on branded drugs. So it’s nice to have other lines of business propping up sales.