Insights

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/CHBLOW-BIO.html">Charles M. Blow</a> documents that President Obama's sales job for the health care reform law has so far resulted in his lowest approval ratings on health care (34%) since taking office. Blow writes that: "This underscores the current fight for the soul of this country. It's not just a tug of war between left and right. It's a struggle between the mind and the heart, between evidence and emotions, between reason and anger, between what we know and what we believe."</p>

<p>A quick heads up on some health data now available from the U.S. Department Veterans Affairs, pulled from the innards of a just released (and lengthy)&nbsp; <a href="http://www4.va.gov/OPEN/docs/open_govt_plan.pdf">"open government" report</a>. This should be of interest to journalists who have a V.A. medical facility in their community. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Veterans_Affairs_medical_facilitie… a list</a> of V.A. medical facilities in the United States.)</p><p>From the report:</p>

<p>Here's something a doctor should hope to never hear after performing surgery:</p> <p>"Doc, my eye feels like mayonnaise."</p> <p>That was the assessment of an 81-year-old patient operated on by Dr. Gary W. Hall, a Phoenix ophthalmologist.</p> <p>The patient had cataracts in both eyes, but her vis

<p>When word hit the grapevine that the <a href="../../../../../../../../blogs/shadow-practice-part-5-drug-pushers-running-clinic-were-far-saints">Madre Maria Ines Teresa Health Center</a> in Santa Ana had prescription painkillers for the asking, the place couldn't keep them in stock.</p>

<p>Radio reporter and freelance writer Nathanael Johnson followed <a href="http://californiawatch.org/health-and-welfare/more-women-dying-pregnanc… fascinating story</a> on maternal mortality for <em>California Watch</em> with <a href="http://californiawatch.org/watchblog/after-death-childbirth-family-woun… piece about a few of the families</a> left behind when women died from pregnancy-related causes.</p>

<p>The CDC today released <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5912a2.htm">some surprising MMWR statistics</a> on H1N1/swine flu vaccination rates around the United States today. The regional variation, especially for children under 17, is striking, particularly amid news that <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/31/AR20100… than half of the nearly 230 million vaccine doses</a> available to Americans have been used, leaving a staggering surplus that's soon to expire.</p>

<p>Luckily for Dr. Dan Stephen Hollis, an Alabama ophthalmologist, medical boards rarely see selling drugs over the Internet in the same way that police officers see selling drugs in the street.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>My Dennis Hunt grant story, <a href="http://www.reportingonhealth.org/fellowships/projects/hivaids-among-asi… Racial Boundary for HIV</a>, was published in <em>Sing Tao Daily</em> on the World AIDS Day in 2009. It was the only feature story published in any publications in New York, if not in the nation, that focused on the AIDS/HIV issue in the Asian community.</p>

<p><em>This article was first&nbsp;published by <a href="http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/thepublicsquare/2010/03/29/can-the-go… Public Square</a>, and is reposted here with the author's permission.</em></p>

<p>This probably sounds familiar to most local health reporters.</p><p>A public health department puts out a press release about someone in their county catching a communicable disease like West Nile virus, meningitis or H1N1. The press release doesn't provide a person's age or hometown. If you're lucky, it might provide the patient's gender. A little digging reveals that the person was sickened so long ago that the news seems stale at best.</p>