In other news:
In April 2023, Brigham and Women’s received two anonymous complaints about Todd and launched an internal investigation. Todd was told he couldn’t conduct sensitive exams without a chaperone. In June, he was placed on administrative leave, then terminated a month later. The hospital said it also notified the Department of Public Health, the state Board of Registration in Medicine, law enforcement and his current and former patients.
OK, #1, there should always be a “chaperone” when these sort of exams are being done. (I hate the term, it is not a date, but it’s pretty well established at this point. In my office, there is a nurse in the room with us for all exams, so we don’t make a big deal over “special” exams or anything.) #2, really and truly struggling to figure out a legitimate reason for a rheumatologist to be routinely (it sounds like, anyway) performing pelvic or breast exams. I’m certain there are reasons on specific situations where it might be necessary, but seriously, it sounds like this was just SOP for him. No one thought this was odd?
In any group of humans, a certain number will be predators. That’s a fact. When it occurs in my profession, though, it seems so much worse. There are rules around this kind of thing for a reason, but if the public is unaware of them it doesn’t help much. 
I have doubted the previous findings (see here: Paracetamol use during pregnancy — a call for precautionary action | Nature Reviews Endocrinology ) for some time, and was waiting for the long-promised “needed further study.” Well, here it is.
Conclusions and Relevance Acetaminophen use during pregnancy was not associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability in sibling control analysis. This suggests that associations observed in other models may have been attributable to familial confounding.
Confounding variables unaccounted for can scuttle the most promising findings. The original paper features a lot of might be and could also, based on scanty data. Now to be fair, acetaminophen is one of those drugs I love to hate. I do not think it is very effective at what is supposed to do, and has toxicity that should make us all more cautious about its usage. But we should expect well-reasoned statements form researchers, and this struck me even back then as bordering on the hysterical. Nothing I’ve seen since has changed my mind. Still don’t like Tylenol, though.
Remember, any ‘research’ that doesn’t include older sperm as a risk factor for autism needs to stay in the limelight. Because what a woman does with her body must always be the reason for any presumed* negative outcome.
*Obviously, many of us do not PRESUME that autism is such a terrible thing.
One of the under-talked-about factors in autism is maternal fever, which does increase the risk of autism a tiny bit. One of the reasons I was so skeptical of the original finding was the fact that feeling the need to take acetaminophen alone will increase your risk a bit. So, yah, not shocked. And yes, older paternal contribution certainly is a risk factor as well. As are genetics (HUGE contributor there. Anther little know factor: 80% of first-degree relatives of an autist will have so-called “fragments,” which are characteristics consistent with autism, but not enough to tic all the boxes in DSM-5). But no, let’s focus on vaccines and Tylenol. 
I think I might’ve found that (for me, & right now) it’s the glass of water that’s helping (i.e. it means I haven’t drank enough), not the Tylenol. I’ve been trying to ingest more liquid this week and haven’t taken a Tylenol yet. (And I was only taking Tylenol because my innards had already reported a disagreement with NSAIDs.)
Further, rural areas have less access to health care and fewer health care resources. Both rural hospital closures and physician shortages in rural areas have been of growing concern among health experts, the researchers note. Last, some of the states with higher rural mortality rates, particularly those in the South, have failed to implement Medicaid expansions under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which could help improve health care access and, thus, mortality rates among rural residents.
tl:dr: Red areas seem to have much worse health outcomes and increased mortality, for reasons we are not going to explore. Yeah, those “dengerous urban areas” vs “the safe rural ones” again.
I just have no words…
Why? Because they choose to let their own people die rather than expand Medicaid that might help someone they want to look down on. Voting against your own interests, amazingly enough, is frequently against your own interests. The fascists have no shame left, and will somehow try to blame Biden, immigration, libs, whatever for this. I hate this timeline.
I was ahead on my time at 14.
Not to mention that it’s only a “crisis” because they expect hospitals to show a profit. Which is not really how it should work at all.
There are myriad reasons for the hundreds of drug shortages now facing doctors and patients, many of which remain unclear. But, as Ars has reported before, the root cause of shortages of low-cost, off-patent generic drugs is well established. These drugs have razor-thin to non-existent profit margins, driven by middle managers who have, in recent years, pushed down wholesale prices to rock-bottom levels. In some cases, generic manufacturers lose money on the drugs, disincentivizing other players in the pharmaceutical industry from stepping in to bolster fragile supply chains. Several generic manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy recently.
This is not a universal explanation, of course. But for a lot of the drugs we use, it contributes. Why make low cost, low profit margin drugs, when the same line could make some me-too chronic med with a huge profit margin. Have I mentioned before that profit motive has no place in healthcare? Because truly, it does not.
Here is a conspiracy theory answer from an Ars commenter that might actually bear looking into:
Want the conspiracy? Here’s the conspiracy answer. And remember, some conspiracies are real.
The same company makes both the generic and the name brand through different subsidiaries/shell corporations. The name brand costs a lot more. The generic exists so they can argue cheap alternatives exist so there’s no need to legislate, but since they’re only there as a political shield, making them profitable or widely available would be disadvantageous.
First off, I am of the opinion that mental health care is healthcare, so I think this belongs here. (Plus, it’s my thread and I’ll cry if I want to!)
I confess to being torn on this question. The way it was done in the past was horrific and should absolutely not be brought back, but the current system is pretty much a disaster as well. We need to be open to rethinking the issue, while keeping the lessons of history in our minds. Opinions?
Weight loss helping sleep apnea does not seem unexpected.
“Medicaid unwinding.”
Ever heard of it?
This is happening, now, here, in the U.S.
And it boggles my mind.
People who are sick and are being illegally denied healthcare are going to die because of this.
