Insights

<p>Even the most curious of Dr. Barbara Philipp's patients probably didn't notice that she had a drug problem. </p><p>That's because her patients were kids. </p><p>The <a href="http://www.massmedboard.org/public/">Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine</a> wrote in its disciplinary <a href="http://www.massmedboard.org/public/pdf/philipp20090225.pdf">report</a&gt; that the 55-year-old Boston pediatrician wrote fake prescriptions for family members and friends just to get painkillers and sleeping pills for herself. </p>

<p>Six of the world's biggest drug companies are about to be winnowed down to three. If all the mergers go through, we will have Pfizer-Wyeth, Merck-Schering-Plough and Roche-Genentech controlling more than $100 billion in drug sales every year - amounting to one seventh of all revenues for drug companies worldwide. (I wrote a <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-merck10-2009mar10,0,1530157.story…; about this a couple weeks ago for the Los Angeles Times.)</p>

<p>This UCI orthopedic <a href="http://www.charlesrosenmd.com/">surgeon</a&gt; is on the shortlist for the U.S. Surgeon General job. He has been an outspoken critic of medical device companies and is fighting to limit the influence of money on medicine.</p><p>Here is a recap of our conversation:</p><p>Q: You were in Washington last year testifying before Congress about doctors who are paid by companies to put in certain medical devices. Did they understand why you were so concerned about this? </p>

<p><i>When the <a href="http://www.peanutcorp.com/">Peanut Corporation of America</a> recalled thousands of peanut butter products in January for fear they were tainted with salmonella, news organizations all over the country rushed to local stores to find out what where PCA products were being sold. </i><i>Justina Wang, 25, a recent Northwestern University grad who works at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, went a step further.

<p>The transaction was quick. </p><p>In the parking lot of a pastry shop, a patient handed Dr. Kachun ClementYeung $400. Yeung handed the patient a prescription for 800 milligrams of OxyContin. It took less than five minutes.</p><p>The exchange was part of 23,000 milligrams worth of the addictive painkiller that Yeung prescribed to patients who were never properly diagnosed with chronic pain during a 168 day period in 2002.</p>

<p>Justina Wang at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle tackled a topic that seems to scare most local publications: food safety. </p><p>With each food poisoning scare, local reporters cover what's happening at their corner stores. Few examine the root causes. With school board meetings, octuplet moms and a weekender due tomorrow, how could one possibly get to the bottom of our fractured food safety system?</p>

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p><i>We seem to be gripped by a national state of shock at the news that Nadya Suleman, a single mother with no job and six children, was able to have eight embryos implanted in her uterus, all of which resulted in children. </i></p><p></p>

<p>Health care reporters know how rarely hospitals suspend a doctor's privileges. Those rights are granted and revoked by other doctors, and doctors are loathe to set a precedent by saying a botched surgery or missed diagnosis should bar a doctor for life.</p><p><br /><br />That's why it was a big deal when the Reston Hospital Center in Virginia took away Dr. Bahram Tafreshi Moshiri's right to practice there in November 2001.</p>

<p>One would think that everything that could possibly be said about lead poisoning has been printed, broadcast and e-mailed around the globe countless times. </p>