Insights

<p>Reading Dr. Michael E. Stoddard's history of infractions, like so many medical board records in Colorado, is a little like reading Tom Stoppard's play <em>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead</em>. Each disciplinary document focuses on what happened offstage, omitting key details and leaving the real drama, tragedy, or dark comedy to the imagination.</p>

<p><img src="/files/u47/Antidote_-_Salt_2.jpg" width="67" height="100" style="float: right;" />Yikes: "Analysts estimate that population-wide reductions in sodium could prevent more than 100,000 deaths annually."</p>

<p>In October, <em>Antidote</em> reported that <a href="../../../../../../../../blogs/researcher-regrets-ghostwritten-hormone-therapy-review">Dr. John Eden</a>, a well-respected Australian hormone researcher and the founder and director of the <a href="http://www.sesiahs.health.nsw.gov.au/rhw/MenopauceCentre.asp">Sydney Menopause Centre</a>, had second thoughts about his participation in a review article about hormone replacement therapy (HRT) that was written with the help of pharmaceutical giant Wyeth.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.marynmckenna.com/home.html">Maryn McKenna</a> has lived inside the "hot zone" for much of her reporting career. She honed her craft at the <em>Atlanta Journal-Constitution</em>, where she was much admired for her coverage of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It takes skill to persuade any large government agency to give up some of its secrets, but McKenna did just that and turned them into fascinating stories. She has since taken the enviable career path of writing books.

<p>What does it take for a doctor to lose his license in Arkansas?</p> <p><a href="http://www.armedicalboard.org/public/verify/results.aspx?strPHIDNO=ASMB…. Randeep Singh Mann</a> appears to have pushed the envelope just about as far as it can go, and he is still holding an active medical license from that state.</p> <p>Mann, an internist in Russellville, is accused of <a href="http://www.justice.gov/usao/are/news_releases/PDFs_2010News_Releases/Ja…; the head of the Arkansas State Medical Board by planting a bomb in his driveway.</p>

<p>The '<strong>Public Health Awareness</strong>' segment will be a recurring feature here on the Pulse + Signal blog where we highlight relevant public health focused observances (e.g. cancer awareness, heart disease awareness, etc). The purpose of this feature is to continue to spread the word around specific health awareness dates to spur increased understanding and prevention.</p>

<p>Health care reform, and the ideological, political and public health battles that surrounded it, reached a fever pitch in the media by the time the legislation reached the House of Representatives in March. Many members of ReportingonHealth were watching and chronicling these events closely. Here, a cross-section of reporters discusses their experience working on these complex stories.</p>

<p><em>Cross posted, with permission, from <a href="http://www.reportingonhealth.org/users/marylou">Mary Lou Fulton's</a> blog <a href="http://mediaoptimist.wordpress.com/">The Media Optimist</a>:</em></p>

<p>One doctor allowed her clinics in Santa Ana, California, to be used as front operations for selling highly addictive painkillers.</p> <p>Another doctor agreed to be paid $2,000 a month for the use of his registration with the DEA so that the front operations could keep up their supply.</p> <p>Another doctor was willing to rent his registration for half that.</p> <p>All of them were caught red-handed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Medical Board of California investigations are not made public, but, so far, none of them have been disciplined in California.</p>

<p>Devoted readers of Antidote's <em>Doctors Behaving Badly</em> posts might get the impression that all doctors have trouble cutting straight, prescribing properly or keeping their hands out of their patients' underwear.</p> <p>Of course, these doctors are a small, but pungent, sore on an otherwise healthy body of professionals working diligently help cure what ails us. I received an email this week that proved to me just how small the world of dangerous doctors is.</p> <p>It was within minutes of my sending out a <em>Doctors Behaving Badly</em> about Dr. Gary W. Hall in Phoenix.</p>