Use of High-Cost Diabetes Drugs Varies Widely Across VA PITTSBURGH - Despite a tightly managed national formulary, the use of high-cost drugs to treat diabetes shows “substantial” variation across the VA healthcare system, according to a new research letter. The VA-funded report, published online by the Archives of Internal Medicine, notes that the adjusted percentage of patients with diabetes receiving oral medications who used a thiazolidinedione ranged from 1.4% at the lowest-using of 139 facilities to 25.4% at the highest. In addition, the adjusted percentage of patients receiving insulin who used long-acting analogues ranged from 4% percent to 71.2% across the VA. More
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell
WASHINGTON - Only days before the opening game of the NFL season, the NFL and Army announced they were teaming up to raise awareness about TBI, an injury that plagues both organizations. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell signed a joint letter to troops and football players stating the organizations “are seeking to integrate the uncompromising devotion to win with a need to address traumatic brain injuries with the necessary care, consideration, and commitment to prevention that these injuries require.” More
Front-Line Clinicians Get Practical Advice To Help Combat Military Suicides ROCHESTER, MN - With sweeping new initiatives from the White House and elsewhere in response to the burgeoning military suicide rate, little guidance has been offered to the clinicians in the trenches who are best positioned to recognize and prevent such drastic actions. To remedy that, two new articles recently published in prestigious medical journals offer practical advice to front-line physicians and other healthcare workers to identify and help patients at risk for suicide. More
Robotic Exoskeletons Allow Paralyzed Veterans to Exercise for Health NEW YORK - For veterans suffering from paralysis due to a spinal-cord injury (SCI), the inability to move a significant portion of their body is the obvious, immediate concern. Over the long-term, however, the extreme sedentary lifestyle caused by paralysis can lead to many secondary medical problems that can severely impact not only the quality of but also the length of their lives. To combat this, VA physicians are experimenting with the use of robotic exoskeletons to provide patients with limited mobility, allowing them to train and exercise and stave off longterm health effects. More
“There are two kinds of fools: those who can’t change their opinions and those who won’t.” -- Josh Billings (1818-1885)
Editor-in-Chief, Chester ‘Trip’ Buckenmaier III, MD, COL, MC, USA
Newly retired Air Force colonel and columnist, Harriet Hall MD, also known as the “The SkepDoc,” recently published an article in the Medical Examiner (08/21/2012) entitled, “Quackery and Mumbo-Jumbo in the U. S. Military – Cupping, Moxibustion, and Battlefield Acupuncture are Endangering Troops.”
In essence, she laments that our modern, technology savvy, military medical system is exploring integrative medicine techniques – acupuncture in particular. I was particularly struck by Dr. Hall’s characterization of the military’s integrative medicine efforts as “endangering troops.”
As a federal medicine provider who actually works in pain medicine at home and while deployed, I have had a sense that troops are in far more danger from our “modern” use of opioids than I ever had prescribing a course of acupuncture for a wounded warrior. More
