Insights

<p>The FDA has been cracking down on companies claiming they can cure deadly diseases with unproven technologies, reminding health writers everywhere to be skeptical of the latest fads in alternative medicine.</p>

<p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"></span>When I was a kid, my parents gave me an Isaac Asimov book. &nbsp;I don't remember which one, but it was non-fiction, and his way of engaging the reader directly immediately drew me in. &nbsp;Several years later I found the works of Stephen Jay Gould. &nbsp;I dug up every book of his I could find and ended up getting the hardcover of each new collection as it was published.</p>

<p>When you first start a health beat, visit the licensing agency for all the health facilities in your area. It will give you a great story or two out of the gate. It also will initiate a work pattern that should yield many great stories in the years to come.</p>

<p>Many journalists trying to cover their county’s safety-net health care system find it confusing at first, what with its alphabet soup of DSH payments, FQHC and CHC clinics, SNCP funds and MISP programs.</p>

<p>We last heard about Dr. Lawrence James Williamson when he had gone through an <a href="../../../../../../../../blogs/contraindications-dr-lawrence-james-williamson">extremely bad year</a> of temper tantrums, pill popping, waking blackouts and accusations he threatened his ex-wife and the mediators in his divorce.</p>

<p>I have completed one of my projects for The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowship. Last Wednesday, I produced an hour-long segment on <a href="http://www.kpbs.org/news/these-days/">These Days</a> about the short- and long-term effects of concussions. <a href="http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/jan/20/repeated-concussions-can-cause-lif… segment</a> featured a neurosurgeon and a psychiatrist from the UCSD School of Medicine, and a ton of phone calls from our listeners.</p>

<p>One of the happiest moments of 2009 for me personally was when I found out I received a fellowship from the California Endowment to produce a video series on <a href="http://www.nami.org/Content/ContentGroups/Helpline1/Teenage_Suicide.htm… suicide</a>.</p>

<p>When undergoing an invasive procedure, such as a colonoscopy or biopsy, patients trust that the equipment being used is clean.</p> <p>Nurses often open syringe containers in front of patients to emphasis that they are using the syringe for the first time. When they are done, they throw it into a biohazard container, often on display for the patient’s benefit.</p>

<p>In the first of my “<a href="../../../../../../../../blogs/making-hepatitis-history-michael-jackson%E2%80%99s-deadly-drug-strikes-again">Making Hepatitis History</a>” series of posts, I wrote about the Southern Nevada Health District’s <a href="http://www.southernnevadahealthdistrict.org/download/outbreaks/final-he… Health Investigation Report</a> about the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada, the epicenter of the worst hepatitis C outbreak ever to hit the US.</p>

<p>One question that’s getting lost in all the chatter after Scott Brown’s historic election and Nancy Pelosi ‘s <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/21/AR20100… comments on health reform</a> today is what’s going to happen to the concessions that the insurance and pharmaceutical industries offered last year as serious reform discussions were just getting underway. &nbsp;The Wall St.