Insights

<p>When does it make sense to tamper with a time-released medication? If the drug is a controlled substance, like the painkiller <a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/concern/oxycodone.html">OxyContin</a&gt;, the answer is: never.</p><p>Doing so damages the time-released properties of the drug and can lead to a massive dose all at once. This is what makes OxyContin such a great high for people who crush it, and such a long, painful addiction for them, too.</p>

<p>Writer, editor and blogger Angilee Shah is live-blogging the California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships seminar for broadcasters taking place May 28-31 in Los Angeles. She's also on Twitter @ReportonHealth.</p><p>Angilee, a former managing editor of <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/">AsiaMedia</a&gt;, has written for the Far Eastern Economic Review, The China Beat, TimeOut Singapore , Asian GEOgraphic and Asia Pacific Arts.</p>

<p>The American Academy of Pediatrics doesn't issue policy statements all that often. When it does, the statements tend to be deeply researched and full of fodder for future stories. That's the case with the <a href="http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/pediatrics;12… Built Environment: Designing Communities to Promote Physical Activity in Children,"</a> which appears today in the AAP journal <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/">Pediatrics</a&gt;. </p>

<p>It's a common complaint among police officers. In the wake of television shows like CSI, the public expects too much. They think that cops can lift a 30-year-old fingerprint off a Pabst Blue Ribbon bottle found at the bottom of a lake just by running it through the portable 30-PBR-H2O scanner the CSI team members carry in their Thermoses. </p><p>That type of technology just doesn't exist, police are fond of saying. And even some of the high-tech stuff that does exist is only accessible by the elite officers of the major metropolitan departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. </p>

<p>After California voters soundly rejected several proposals to mitigate the state's staggering $21 billion budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is suggesting unheard-of cutbacks in health and social programs. This time, the discussion isn't just about cutting money from the Healthy Families subsidized health insurance program, it's about <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-budget22-2009may22,0,3512305.story">s… it altogether</a>.</p>

<p>The <a href="http://www.chcd.org/">Center for Healthcare Decisions</a> has given itself a tough task. Its staff tries to bring together people from different economic brackets and get them to talk in very specific terms about all facets of health care. </p>

<p>Matthew William Wasserman of Katy, Texas, found a unique way to treat a female patient's back: "a sensory examination of the genital area."</p><p>That was according to the Texas Medical Board.</p><p>Now, Wasserman had only been out of medical residency for three years when this happened, and he did not have a lot of women in his graduating class at <a href="http://www.bcm.edu/ortho/class2003.htm">Baylor Medical College</a>. Still, one has to assume that most doctors know the basics of anatomy, male or female.</p>

<p>California journalists, you know how the state's special election is going to turn out. Late on election night, all of the budget-related propositions - save for the one regarding lawmaker pay raises - are <a href="http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/props/59.htm">failing miserably</a>. Even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1056032.html">skipped town</a>.</p><p>So, now that ticked-off voters are turning down the stopgap budget fix proposed by Schwarzenegger, the question in the coming days will be: what happens to health care? </p>

<p>Anyone who has driven the highways around Los Angeles has seen the giant billboards with a chubby man stuffing a giant piece of cake in his mouth next to the words "Dieting Sucks." It's a promo for a plastic surgery practice that promises to use Lap-band surgery to cure overweight patients.</p>

<p>Anyone who has helped a friend or family member undergo cancer treatment knows the fear and frustration that can consume a patient's life. There are new, experimental treatments being touted every year, many of them only available outside of the United States.</p>