Archive for News
Paula Deen + Diabetes = Missed Opportunity
Posted by: | CommentsPaula Deen did what every middle-aged woman who’s just been diagnosed with diabetes does: she went on the Today Show to announce that she’d still be cooking with plenty of butter, salt, and sugar. She’d just be practicing moderation.
Yeah, I’m kidding. About the Everywoman part, but not about the rest of it.
Photo credit: AP
To top it off, the Butter/Salt/Sugar Queen is also going to shill for Novo Nordisk, the maker of diabetes treatment medications.
There are so many things wrong with this picture, and this message, I honestly don’t know where to begin … but here goes.
After spending almost 30 years making and pushing foods that are literally gateway drugs to the insulin-dependency rehab zone, the Butter/Salt/Sugar Queen is now in the club herself. What a great chance for her to make a difference in the lives of the women she influences, and the families they prepare meals for.
But no. It’s ever so much more fun to push even more high fat/salt/sugar recipes … and the insulin to go with ‘em!
The diabetes epidemic in the US – and elsewhere in the developed world – started in the Wretched Excess ’80s, when restaurants took a page from the drive-thru playbook and started to super-size their portions. I remember the first time I noticed this, in a restaurant in the Washington DC suburbs that, among other things, served a heaping platter of cinnamon-butter rolls – huge things – as the bread basket. The portions for the entire menu were lucullan (look it up) taken to an extreme.
I fell for the con myself over the years, and have the GAS (Giant Ass Syndrome) to prove it. Luckily I’ve escaped the diabetes dx, and I work hard to make sure I keep it that way.
Humans are hard-wired to survive, like any other animal. The problem is that we’re Cro Magnons with smart phones and access to unlimited food options if we’re in a 1st-world country, and if we have any money at all. Even if we don’t have a lot of money, we can still buy all kinds of cheap food … that’s full of fat/salt/sugar, with little nutritional value at all. Sure tastes good and fills us up, though!
So if we’re surrounded by food, our reptilian hind-brains will say “Eat. It. ALL.” If it’s chock full of fat, salt, and sugar, and we eat it all, all the time, what do you think happens?
I recommend you ask Paula Deen. Who is now positioning herself as an “entertainer”, not someone that a person should pay attention to as a food expert.
I call bullshit, Paula. You’ve made a fortune inviting people to do as you do, and literally giving them step-by-step recipes for how to do exactly that. And now you’ll continue to push the fat, the salt, and the sugar out of one side of your mouth, while out of the other side you’re shilling for Novo Nordisk’s Diabetes in a New Light campaign?
Lying bullshit.
My food-porn crush Anthony Bourdain seems to agree in a conversation with Eater.com where he said, “When your signature dish is hamburger in between a doughnut, and you’ve been cheerfully selling this stuff knowing all along that you’ve got Type 2 diabetes… it’s in bad taste if nothing else.”
Werd, sir. Werd.
Calling all cancer warriors!
Posted by: | Comments
(c) Kill the Beast LLC
There’s a wave building far out in the virtual sea. One that will drown out all other voices but those of 1 million cancer warriors marching on the National Mall in Washington DC on Sunday, June 3, 2012.
It’s an election year, kids. Let’s make enough noise to drown out what Calvin Trillin calls “the Sabbath Gasbags”, and get attention for our cause – one that touches every single American life in one way or another: cancer.
Let’s end it. Let’s put an end to death by cancer.
Here’s how to get on board the bus:
- Contact me
- Tell me how many warriors are in your group
- Plan on being in Richmond by Saturday, June 2 so you can ride to DC with us on the Team Plaid Warrior Express, or
- Meet us in DC on Sunday morning at our Early Detection Rally Roundup and join us as we storm the National Mall
The warriors who have kicked off this effort are:
(c) Kill the Beast
Donna Guinn Kaufman, head weapon-wielder at Kill the Beast who became a cancer warrior when diagnosed with breast cancer, while pregnant, a little over five years ago
(c) Pink Sky at Night
Jennifer Salmon Melton, author of Pink Sky at Night, a remembrance of her father’s battle with lung cancer
and also on board to help make the Warrior Wave bigger than anything Washington has ever seen is Jennifer Stauss Windrum, the leading light of WTF Lung Cancer, who you’ve heard me sing out about here before.
(c) WTF Lung Cancer
You on the bus? You better be!
COME ON!!!
More motion on mobile health
Posted by: | Comments
I spent a day last week at Rutgers University in the company of some heavy hitters in mobile healthcare. I’ll be posting a full report soon on Disruptive Women in Health Care, but in the meantime, here are some highlights:
- “More people have mobile phones than have toothbrushes,” said Tom Wheeler of the mHealth Alliance (not good news if you get stuck in an elevator or on a subway with someone in the only-mobile-phone group)
- “Delight drives change” was an observation made by Dr. Gopal K. Chopra, the founder of pingmd, about what will drive successful mhealth ideas
- mHealth Gazelles was a phrase used (coined?) by Ernst & Young Entrepreneur in Residence David Shrier in his presentation about how venture capital can empower the growth of mHealth
- “Technology is the only path away from the drive off the cliff.” That was one of Joe Carr’s comments (he’s the CIO of the NJ Hospital Assn.) during a panel discussion about the market-readiness of mHealth – he was referring to the fact that healthcare costs are literally bankrupting the nation
- “The economic model of healthcare is institutionally perverse.” Al Shar, CIO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said that … and is HE right there or what?
- “We must kill the silos.” Jayant Parthasarathy, the Director of Innovation and R+D at United Health Care … another “is he right or WHAT?” moment
- It’s the user experience, stupid. No one actually said that, but it was the subtext of almost every panel. Including the one that I participated in, which made the local business pages the next day
As I said in the opening graf, watch this space for an update when the full report hits Disruptive Women in Health Care in the coming weeks.
And tell me what mobile health apps you use, or you dream of – I really do want to know, and I really will help bring them to life.
Mobile medicine: movable feast or meaningless motion?
Posted by: | Comments
The concept of mobile health and mobile medicine is enticing. “There’s an app for that” when applied to managing a chronic condition like diabetes, or navigating cancer treatment, sounds like real 21st century healthcare, doesn’t it?
Tomorrow (Dec. 1, 2011) I’m on a panel that’s part of mHealthCon at Rutgers University, a conference where a plethora of mobile app developers and thought leaders will be talking both the idea and the practical app of mobile in healthcare.
Our panel is self-described as the American Idol judges – I’m Simon, including the scowl potential – and we’re expected to give meaningful and frank feedback to the app developers that are in the session preceding us. Leading the conversation will be my buddy Bob Brooks of WEGO Health, and sitting with me in judgement will be Amy Gurowitz (who’s gonna channel either J-Lo or Ellen, she hasn’t decided yet) of MS-LOL and MS SoftServe, as well as the founder of Divabetic, Max Szadek (he’s Paula).
The challenges that mobile health development face were summed up brilliantly by Dr. Kenny Linn in a post on the US News health blog:
Apps have … advantages over traditional medical texts. The information is always current, whereas many textbooks are already dated by the time they hit shelves. If I have a question, I can look up the answer on my smartphone without leaving my patient’s side.
But smartphone apps also have downsides—despite their enormous potential to improve the quality and convenience of healthcare. While textbooks undergo rigorous review by experts, apps vary in quality and don’t have to be vetted for accuracy or safety.
That point was driven home to me recently when a colleague shared a nifty app she’d downloaded that acted as a mobile electrocardiogram (ECG) monitor: Just place your finger tip on the smartphone’s camera, and your heart rate and electrical rhythm appear on screen. Visions of chucking our office’s bulky and temperamental ECG machine briefly danced in my head—until I tried the app out and found the readings to be completely wrong.
That’s a pretty clear indication that mobile apps, particularly those meant to be used by clinicians, or to be used by patients to provide data that clinicians can use in their clinical decision making, need to be vetted as thoroughly as a medical text must be.
What would your requirement(s) for a healthcare mobile app be? You can answer as a patient, as a caregiver, as a clinician, or as all three.
I really do want your answers, and even if you’re not seeing this until days/weeks/months after it posts, please share your thoughts in the comments.
I have the ear, the eye, and the attention of a whole host of people who are working on creating meaningfully useful apps for doctors, nurses, lab techs, patients, caregivers, and more.
Let ‘er rip!
Things that make you go “thanks”
Posted by: | Comments
Let’s not be turkeys this Thanksgiving.
Let’s not start fights with the relatives while we’re together for the weekend.
Don’t let it matter that someone voted for Obama, or is backing Newt.
Let it ride that somebody’s a Dallas Cowboys fan (that’s work for me) or passionate about defending Penn State (it’s a great school, with a great history).
Accept the fact that Aunt [whoever] will always bring the thing you absolutely hate to eat. Put a teaspoonful on your plate, and suck it up. Or hide it under some mashed potatoes.
Surrender to the idea that, at Thanksgiving, we are brought together to be thankful.
Here’s my list:
- My family, who I love to death (even if sometimes one or the other of you will get on my last nerve)
- My friends, who are from all points of the globe and give me hope that I’ll visit each and every one of you (promise? threat? you decide.)
- My customers, who have kept me afloat in some really interesting-in-the-Chinese-curse-way times (divorce + cancer = challenging fiscal cocktail. Trust me on that one.)
- My healthcare team, who kept (and keep) me firmly planted on the planet (they all help me find the funny – see my latest post on Disruptive Women in Health Care for deets)
A short list, but it’s got some serious meat on its gratitude-fueled bones.
What are you grateful for this year?
Be grateful for too much turkey, if you’ve got that. Be grateful for annoying family, because it means you’re not alone. Be grateful for living in a free country, if you do – if you don’t, you can earn the undying gratitude of your community by driving an Arab Spring within your borders.
Be grateful that you’re alive. I have studied history, and the human race is at a point where we can learn to link together in a true global village, and make life vibrant and rewarding for each and every one of us.
Let’s get to work.
Thanks.
DNA: it’s not just for cop shows any more
Posted by: | Comments
“It’s in my DNA.”
You hear people say that all the time about something they love to do, a passion, an attitude.
There are things that actually are in your DNA that could save you money, and even save your life. Those things are the P-450 enzymes CYP-2C19, CYP-2C6, CYP-2D9 - pay attention, there’ll be a test later – which can predict your response to a wide array of drugs. Statins, blood thinners, anti-anxiety meds, anti-fungals, anti-depressants, antihistamines, beta blockers, and more – in all, about 50% of the pharmaceutical menu.
So why isn’t this being offered at every doctor’s office and pharmacy throughout the land?
I’ve asked this question in arenas as diverse as women’s health events and healthcare industry conferences, and have gotten a combination of responses:
- Really?
- Physicians don’t know enough about it.
- Patients don’t know about it.
- Does insurance cover it?
The answers to those, in order:
- Yes.
- Here’s a link.
- Here’s another link.
- Yes.
On the insurance question: even if you don’t have insurance, the test itself only costs about $400. And you only have to have it done once. Unless you wind up in a Fukushima-level radiation accident or have massive radiation treatment for cancer.
A question: why isn’t pharma, which is so good at saying “ask your doctor about [insert name-brand drug here],” trumpeting DNA drug-response testing? That approach wouldn’t impact their bottom line negatively, even if it works out that some patients need less of the standard dosage of a drug. Because there will be plenty of cases where the standard dose of that same drug won’t be enough for someone else.
Another question: why aren’t health insurers pushing this? They can save money with wider use of DNA drug-response testing, because over- and under-medicating leads to poor outcomes. If you get more of a blood thinning drug than you need, that could have dire consequences. As could not getting enough of the same drug. The right dose, right from the start, saves money that would have to be spent on hospitalizations due to the wrong dosage.
Doctors do know about DNA drug-response testing, but it’s not on the standard order set. Yet. It needs to be, if only to ensure better outcomes. Which is the whole point of healthcare, isn’t it?
There are a number of companies offering DNA drug-response testing, more than enough to make testing available to anyone who wants it. There’s one that’s headquartered right down the road from me: Genetworx.
If you’re a doctor or nurse practitioner, start telling your patients about it, and keep test kits in your office.
If you’re a pharmacist, stock test kits and reach out to the doctors you fill prescriptions for to tell them the tests are available at your pharmacy.
If you’re a health plan/benefits administrator, let everyone you cover know that testing is available, and encourage the providers – doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists – on your list to start using DNA drug-response testing as a must-do step when they’re prescribing a new drug for someone you cover.
It seems really simple to me. Doesn’t it seem simple to you?
That logic thing. It’s in my DNA.
Retail healthcare. At Walmart. The pluses and minuses.
Posted by: | Comments
Image credit: Walmart
Walmart is going into the healthcare business.
This is notable for a number of reasons:
- 8¢ of every dollar spent in retail in the US is spent at Walmart
- It’s the largest employer in the US
- It’s the largest retailer in the US
Those stats add up to a behemoth. If Walmart enters an industry vertical as a competitor, it says they’ve run the numbers, and it makes revenue sense.
While listening to Morning Edition on NPR this morning, I hung on every word of the piece that revealed that Walmart was planning on putting clinics in their stores. Even Walmart has been hit by the downturn in the economy, so they likely see healthcare as an additional draw – get someone in the store for a doctor’s appointment, and sell them some groceries and housewares while they’re there.
Here’s why this could be a great idea:
- Access. You don’t have to make an appointment, you can just walk in. And you’re getting care in a place that you’re likely visiting anyway, given Walmart’s ubiquity.
- Cost. We all see what Walmartization has done to retail pricing in most of the retail sector. Walmart entering the healthcare vertical will put downward pressure on primary care pricing.
- Quality. Walmart is known for cheap and plentiful. Those are not the key words for good outcomes in healthcare.
- Doctor-patient relationship(s). This effort could turn in to a trip in the way-back machine to the bad old days of the early HMOs, when “doctor, doctor, who’s my doctor?” felt like a bad game of musical chairs.
I’m going to watch closely to see how this story plays out. It’s already getting interesting – Walmart’s Senior VP & President of US Health & Wellness John Agwunobi M.D. issued a statement at 2:52pm Eastern today (11-9-11) saying that “The RFI statement of intent is overwritten and incorrect. We are not building a national, integrated, low-cost primary care health care platform.”
Well, John, then what the H-E-double-hockey-stix ARE you building? And who will come?
Will you? I really would like to know.
Comments open. WIDE open. Please share!
It’s the month of “pink” + I’m seeing red
Posted by: | Comments
The month of October is awash in pink. Everyone from the NFL to Panera Bread is on the pink bandwagon in support of breast cancer “awareness” – is awareness an end in itself?
Gayle Sulik, who I’ve mentioned before here, does a masterful job of ripping the lid off the damage that pinkwashing has done. Her book, Pink Ribbon Blues, is linked in the image on the right.
I think awareness alone falls very short of the goal if ending the disease is the goal. Unfortunately, I think that Susan G. Komen – and I’m talking the Houston mothership here, not the local chapters – is now much more about the brand than it is about the cure.
When it comes to “pink”, I see red. And I’m not alone.
- In 2005, the estimated mortality rate for breast cancer was 15% of those diagnosed with the disease
- In 2007 (the year I was diagnosed), the estimated mortality rate was 17%
- In 2009, the estimated mortality rate was 16%
Where’s the win here? If mortality rates are essentially holding steady, where’s the progress on “the cure”?
In the pink avalanche that is now the month of October, where is the discussion of the fact that the very products being pink-washed carry toxic substances with a link to cancer?
That includes the Avon Army of Women campaign (most Avon cosmetics contain paraben preservatives, which are estrogen mimickers that have been linked to breast cancer).
It also includes the Promise Me fragrance – also an Avon product – that has toluene and galaxolide in it, both of which are toxins. Read about them here.
There are a host of other regrettable “pink” products flacked in October, including Kentucky Fried Chicken (really?) and dairy products with rBGH, the growth hormone pumped into dairy cows that has in turn driven the rise in breast cancer diagnoses. Which hormone is, BTW, made by Eli Lilly, who also produces a number of breast cancer drugs. Talk about milking cancer!
And don’t get me started on the pinkwashing of the NFL. The pink gloves/cleats/dancing-ribbons-at-halftime do NOT mean that the NFL is giving one thin dime to Komen. It’s “awareness” – where’s the ****ing money, dudes? Don’t tell me it’s coming from the pink products being flacked on NFL team sites. The league keeps the lion’s share of that money.
Komen is a brand, it’s no longer a cause. They’ve started “lawsuits for the cure” – you can read my buddy Alicia Staley’s take on that here, which includes a good drill-down into the numbers. There is also a follow-up here, and you’ve really got to read the comments on both, which include a “harrumph” from the Director of Communications at Komen, Andrea Rader.
If you want to support action to stop breast cancer – and other cancers – join the movement to cut down on environmental toxins, to end plastic food, to stop ingesting endless amounts of crap through our skin, our lungs, our mouths. It’s not just about cancer, it’s about the health of our entire community – the human community. On the whole dang planet.
I recommend Breast Cancer Action and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation if you’re passionate about ending breast cancer.
Stop buying makeup and skin care products with parabens and other toxins in them. You can get information on most products via SkinDeep, the Environmental Working Group‘s searchable cosmetics/skin care products database.
Stop eating food out of boxes, and introduce yourself to your stove. Cooking is easy, it’s fun, and it puts you more in touch with your family. Make time to cook together, you’ll be amazed at the conversations and communication that develop in the kitchen. Make trips to your local farmer’s markets a weekend excursion for the family.
And stop buying “pink”.
