Insights

<p>Here’s what we’re checking out today:</p> <p><strong>Rehab:</strong> Can the hallucinogen <a href="http://www.pitch.com/2010-11-18/news/ibogaine-helps-addicts-heroin-meth… help drug addicts kick the habit</a>? Keegan Hamilton reviews the evidence on ThePitch.&nbsp;</p>

<p><a href="http://www.consumersunion.org/">Consumers Union</a> invited me to speak at its Safe Patient Summit in Austin last week. The group of patient advocates, health care providers and reporters engaged in a fascinating discussion about how health care might become a more transparent industry and a less frightening and frustrating experience for those who are the victims of medical error or negligence.

<p>Here’s what we’re checking out today:</p> <p><strong>Gimme Insurance:</strong> Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, Trudy Lieberman <a href="http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_education_of_congressman-elect_and… the astonishing case of a newly elected doctor-Congressman</a> who was irked because his new health insurance didn’t start on the very first day of his new job. Welcome to the rest of America, Rep. Andy Harris.</p>

<p>Health reform may go under the knife when Republicans take control of Congress in January – but reform-related scams likely will remain <a href="http://health.usnews.com/health-news/managing-your-healthcare/insurance… and well</a>. Here are some resources for reporting on these scams should they crop up in your community.</p>

<p>What does it mean to be a “good girl” or “bad girl,” and who is making the wiser sexual choices? This was a topic discussed at the <a href="http://www.breakingthesilenceevent.com/BTS_Home.php"><span style="color: #99338a;">Breaking The Silence: Black and Latino Women Taking Care of Ourselves while Building Healthy Relationships with Men</span></a> conference Saturday, November 6th.</p>

<p>Here’s what we’re checking out today:</p> <p><strong>Alcohol Tax:</strong> Doubling the current tax on alcohol could <a href="http://inews.idsk.com/viewer/story.php?CLIENT=INFOMAILER&amp;NEWSID=imn… alcohol-related deaths by about 35 percent</a> and deliver other public health benefits, according to new research released at the American Public Health Association meeting in Denver.</p>

<p>When a patient is under anesthesia, they are truly at a doctor’s mercy.</p> <p>This makes the case of Dr. Russel J. Aubin, an osteopath and anesthesiologist, especially troubling.</p> <p>Antidote has written in the past about doctors who overprescribed medications, made the wrong diagnoses or started illicit affairs with their patients. At least these patients had control over their bodies and minds.</p>

<p>Today's <em>Daily Briefing</em> travels to Chinese mental institutions, California prisons, and all over the map with bogus trend stories.<br />

<p>Sometimes justice does win.</p> <p>Antidote <a href="../../../../../../../../blogs/doctors-behaving-badly-cornered-doctor-turns-nurses-help-friendly-sheriff">wrote last year</a> about how Dr. Rolando Arafiles in Kermit, Texas, had used his clout to persuade Winkler County Sheriff <a href="http://www.co.winkler.tx.us/wcso.htm">Robert Roberts</a> to go after two nurses who had accused him of stealing hospital supplies and using his medical office to run an herbal remedy business.</p>

<p>When Linda Marsa received a copy of the December issue of <em>Discover</em> magazine in the mail, she was thrilled. Her story about climate change and its effect on long forgotten diseases in America made the cover. Never mind that she has been a journalist for 30 years, Marsa finds health journalism as riveting now as when she first began. And she is still learning ways to be a better freelancer.</p>