Content about Insights and Perspectives

As the healthcare reform debate continues and discussions of public vs. private are tossed about, what seems to be getting lost in all of the muck are the cost-controlling levers that already exist, like those reforms CVS Caremark's Tom Ryan outlined.

For example, getting patients to take their medications as prescribed could have a major impact on driving down costs -- to the tune of billions of dollars a year -- while improving healthcare outcomes of patients.

NEW YORK Make no mistake, this Food and Drug Administration has shown time and time again this year that it has taken a shoot-first, ask-questions-later approach to ensuring the safety of the products it regulates. The FDA, in a news release, stated that the warning letter was posted due to an internal systems error, and in fact no warning had been sent to Procter & Gamble.

Yet. Because the letter was still written, and that fact can’t be explained away by an internal systems error.

NEW YORK There is a big danger here, and it’s a danger that has less to do with the neighborhood meth addict in search of pseudoephedrine, and more to do with appropriate access to medicines and who gets to be the gatekeeper to that access. Because not only will a prescription-only PSE restrict consumer access to a legitimate nonprescription cough-cold ingredient, but if successfully mandated by the local government, it also has the potential to limit legitimate access to just about any cost-saving OTC medicine and for just about any reason.

NEW YORK There still is widespread concern over the safety and efficacy of the new H1N1 influenza vaccine, despite public assurances from executives at the highest levels of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the point agency around the H1N1 pandemic — that the H1N1 vaccines have been subject to the same safety and efficacy protocols as seasonal vaccine, which generally is considered both safe and effective.

NEW YORK After months of hard-edged wrangling in Congress, on the Sunday morning political gab fests, on talk radio, in angry town-hall meetings and in dueling blogs online, the fate of President Obama’s top domestic priority – namely, the overhaul of the nation’s fractured healthcare system and the expansion of health coverage to the uninsured – appeared increasingly threatened. A growing chorus of Beltway insiders and pundits on the left and right were all but declaring health-reform legislation dead in the water for 2009.

NEW YORK No matter how this season breaks out — in terms of numbers of people who become sick with the cold or flu, or in terms of how severe their symptoms may be — there is one sure thing: People know about the flu vaccine. And through this government Web site, they can find out where to get that vaccine if they are so inclined.

NEW YORK The real issue here is (and always has been) the inclusion of diabetes supplies as part of durable medical equipment under Medicare Part D billing. That’s because diabetes equipment is considered a part of DME, the same as walkers and canes, motorized wheelchairs and oxygen supplies. And that doesn’t look likely to change. It's unfortunate.

NEW YORK Here’s the breakdown: Two government officials representing the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Agency joined Travis Tygart of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (the body responsible for keeping performance-enhancing drugs out of U.S.

NEW YORK GNC is taking its boutique-style specialty shop to a whole new level, especially as it starts folding in product lines not normally part of a specialty supplement shop’s repertoire — yoga, pet supplements, probiotics, homeopathic health remedies, natural skin care, natural oral care and a wider assortment of arguably commodity-type supplement offerings, such as multivitamins and such popular health supplements as vitamin D or fish oil.

NEW YORK The greater awareness raised around the potential of abuse of drugs commonly stored in the consumers’ medicine cabinets among teens, the greater chance of reducing that drug abuse.

According to surveys conducted on behalf of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association and others in the past, when a parent talks to their children about drug abuse, it reduces the chances that that child abuses drugs by some 50%.

NEW YORK Vitamin D continues to be the rock star of the nutrient world as study after study, and researcher after researcher, build upon the body of evidence that vitamin D is one of those crucial nutrients your body needs.