Health stories in the news

Medicaid patients trapped in state’s hospitals

A Seattle Times investigation has found that each year hundreds of Medicaid patients who no longer need to be the hospital can’t leave because they cannot find a nursing home or other facility that is willing to take them.

The Seattle Times staff reporter Michael Berens writes that the paper’s investigation found “at least 2,025 such cases from 2000 to 2008. Overall price tag: $461 million.” He writes:

“Increasingly, Washington hospitals have become way stations for the medically undesirable — a growing population of seriously ill or disabled residents who receive Medicaid, the government’s insurance program for the poor.”

One reason: “Operators of nursing homes and adult-family homes say they often lose money caring for Medicaid patients,” writes Berens.

To learn more:

• Read Michael Berens article: Hospitals care for hundreds of Medicaid patients per year others won’t take.

Many who think they have food allergies do not, report

New York Times health reporter Gina Kolata reports about a new study, commissioned by the federal government, that the science behind food allergies is rife with poorly done studies and current medical approaches are based on tests that can give misleading results and misdiagnoses.

About 30 percent of Americans believe they have food allergies, but most do not have true allergies, Kolata writes.

While there is no doubt that people can be allergic to certain foods, with reproducible responses ranging from a rash to a severe life-threatening reaction, the true incidence of food allergies is only about 8 percent for children and less than 5 percent for adults, said Dr. Marc Riedl, an author of the new paper and an allergist and immunologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The paper appears in this week’s issue of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.

To learn more:

• Read Kolata’s article: Doubt Is Cast on Many Reports of Food Allergies
• Read the report “Diagnosing and Managing Common Food Allergies: A Systematic Review” in JAMA:  (fee or subscription may be required).
• Visit the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Food Allergy information page

White House task force outlines plan to reduce child obesity

Michelle Obama has released 120-page document outlining a plan to reduce the country’s rate of childhood obesity to 5 percent by 2030, the same as it was in the late 1970s, reports Washington Post blogger Jane Black.

Black writes:

To that end, the report outlines 70 recommendations that include the reasonably simple, such as educating women about the health benefits of breastfeeding, and the sure-to-be controversial, such as boosting the quantity of fruits and vegetables grown in the United States.

To learn more:

• Read Jane Black’s blog: All We Can Eat.
• Read the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity report.
• Visit the website of Let’s Move, the childhood obesity initiative led by Michelle Obama.

Tags: Food Allergies, Medicaid, Obesity

Category: Allergies, Child & Youth Health, Diet & Nutrition, Hospital News