My favorite editorial out of the 4 I chose is editorial #3, Inadequate Treatment of Ovarian Cancer. I chose this one since I have heard of many women dying from ovarian cancer and I was recently treated with the anti-ovarian cancer vaccination. This editorial talks about the amount of women that have lost their lives because of not receiving the correct treatment by their doctors. I think that the author is well informed, but I would have liked for more evidence.
"The study, presented at a conference on gynecologic cancers on Monday, analyzed the treatment of more than 13,000 women with ovarian cancer who received their diagnoses between 1999 and 2006. Only 37 percent received the care recommended in guidelines set by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of 21 major cancer centers."
I think that the author is passionate and absolutely concerned about what is going on. It is not fair that women keep dying of ovarian cancer because of the incorrect treatments.
"Lack of experience with ovarian cancer among many doctors may be a factor in poor treatment. But even patients treated by surgeons with 10 or more ovarian-cancer patients a year, or in hospitals with 20 or more such patients a year, received the recommended therapy only about half the time."
"The study, presented at a conference on gynecologic cancers on Monday, analyzed the treatment of more than 13,000 women with ovarian cancer who received their diagnoses between 1999 and 2006. Only 37 percent received the care recommended in guidelines set by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of 21 major cancer centers."
I think that the author is passionate and absolutely concerned about what is going on. It is not fair that women keep dying of ovarian cancer because of the incorrect treatments.
"Lack of experience with ovarian cancer among many doctors may be a factor in poor treatment. But even patients treated by surgeons with 10 or more ovarian-cancer patients a year, or in hospitals with 20 or more such patients a year, received the recommended therapy only about half the time."
EDITORIAL #4
By Editorial Board, Published: March 17
DEMAND FOR AMBULANCE SERVICE drops off at 1 a.m. and doesn’t pick up again until about 7 a.m. D.C. fire and emergency medical officials argue it makes sense to move some crews and equipment that are sitting idle to times when they are needed. The fact that such a common-sense change has yet to happen is testament to the dysfunctional politics that have brought the department to what Kenneth B. Ellerbe, chief of Fire and Emergency Medical Services, called a “tipping point.”
A series of incidents in which people in the District were kept waiting for ambulances — one man died of a heart attack after waiting 29 minutes for help — has brought renewed scrutiny to a department that is generally seen as having made enormous strides since the controversy caused by its mishandling of the case of retired New York Times reporter David E. Rosenbaum seven years ago. But the incidents — most recently, the need to summon an ambulance from a different jurisdiction to transport a D.C. police officer seriously injured in a hit-and-run because no city vehicle was available — have created a debate over the department’s needs and how best to deliver services. D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who chairs the committee that oversees the department, will hold a hearing March 28.
Pitted against each other, as The Post’s Peter Hermann reported, are a firefighters union that blames bad management and lack of resources for the department’s problems and an administration that sees union intransigence imperiling initiatives that would better serve public safety.
It is clear that a factor in the increasingly ugly debate (for which both sides bear blame) is Mr. Ellerbe’s proposal for a dramatic change in firefighters’ work schedules so that they would work shorter but more frequent shifts. The plan, opposed by firefighters who have built lives around a schedule that requires only eight or nine workdays a month, is mired in an impasse over a contract. The separate plan to concentrate more paramedic shifts during peak times also hasn’t progressed because, we were astonished to learn, the fire chief — unlike the police chief who is entrusted with deployment decisions — can’t make the changes without the D.C. Council’s approval. Significantly, the union that represents the department’s civilian paramedics agrees with the chief that the issue is not, as the firefighters union argues, insufficient resources but instead a lack of flexibility in the system.
Mr. Ellerbe makes a strong case for breaking with tradition in how the department schedules and deploys its staff. The mission of the department has changed as the result of advances in building safety and fire prevention; more than 80 percent of calls are for medical emergencies, not fires. There is no understating the importance of firefighters or the considerable risks they take, and they have raised issues that bear scrutiny. But decisions about the direction of the department should be made by those in charge, based on what best serves public needs.
By Editorial Board, Published: March 17
DEMAND FOR AMBULANCE SERVICE drops off at 1 a.m. and doesn’t pick up again until about 7 a.m. D.C. fire and emergency medical officials argue it makes sense to move some crews and equipment that are sitting idle to times when they are needed. The fact that such a common-sense change has yet to happen is testament to the dysfunctional politics that have brought the department to what Kenneth B. Ellerbe, chief of Fire and Emergency Medical Services, called a “tipping point.”
A series of incidents in which people in the District were kept waiting for ambulances — one man died of a heart attack after waiting 29 minutes for help — has brought renewed scrutiny to a department that is generally seen as having made enormous strides since the controversy caused by its mishandling of the case of retired New York Times reporter David E. Rosenbaum seven years ago. But the incidents — most recently, the need to summon an ambulance from a different jurisdiction to transport a D.C. police officer seriously injured in a hit-and-run because no city vehicle was available — have created a debate over the department’s needs and how best to deliver services. D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who chairs the committee that oversees the department, will hold a hearing March 28.
Pitted against each other, as The Post’s Peter Hermann reported, are a firefighters union that blames bad management and lack of resources for the department’s problems and an administration that sees union intransigence imperiling initiatives that would better serve public safety.
It is clear that a factor in the increasingly ugly debate (for which both sides bear blame) is Mr. Ellerbe’s proposal for a dramatic change in firefighters’ work schedules so that they would work shorter but more frequent shifts. The plan, opposed by firefighters who have built lives around a schedule that requires only eight or nine workdays a month, is mired in an impasse over a contract. The separate plan to concentrate more paramedic shifts during peak times also hasn’t progressed because, we were astonished to learn, the fire chief — unlike the police chief who is entrusted with deployment decisions — can’t make the changes without the D.C. Council’s approval. Significantly, the union that represents the department’s civilian paramedics agrees with the chief that the issue is not, as the firefighters union argues, insufficient resources but instead a lack of flexibility in the system.
Mr. Ellerbe makes a strong case for breaking with tradition in how the department schedules and deploys its staff. The mission of the department has changed as the result of advances in building safety and fire prevention; more than 80 percent of calls are for medical emergencies, not fires. There is no understating the importance of firefighters or the considerable risks they take, and they have raised issues that bear scrutiny. But decisions about the direction of the department should be made by those in charge, based on what best serves public needs.
EDITORIAL#3
Inadequate Treatment of Ovarian Cancer By THE EDITORIAL BOARDPublished: March 13, 2013
A new study has found widespread failure among doctors to follow clinical guidelines for treating ovarian cancer, which kills 15,000 women a year in this country. This disturbing news shows the kind of challenge that health care reformers are up against in improving medical care — even when cost is not the issue.
The study, presented at a conference on gynecologic cancers on Monday, analyzed the treatment of more than 13,000 women with ovarian cancer who received their diagnoses between 1999 and 2006. Only 37 percent received the care recommended in guidelines set by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of 21 major cancer centers.
This kind of failure is not uncommon in American medicine. A decade ago, RAND Corporation researchers reported that just 55 percent of a large sample of patients suffering from a broad range of diseases received care that met quality guidelines. Numerous studies since then focusing on specific diseases have found similar problems.
In the case of ovarian cancer, the consequences of inadequate care are tragic. The recommended guidelines specify combinations of surgery and chemotherapy, depending on the stage of the disease, including debulking surgery to remove all visible traces of the tumor and aggressive chemotherapy that can prolong life. Women who received the recommended treatment were 30 percent less likely to die than those who did not. Among those with advanced cancer, the stage at which ovarian cancer is usually first found, 35 percent of the women treated in accordance with the guidelines survived at least five years compared with 25 percent for those whose care fell short.
Lack of experience with ovarian cancer among many doctors may be a factor in poor treatment. But even patients treated by surgeons with 10 or more ovarian-cancer patients a year, or in hospitals with 20 or more such patients a year, received the recommended therapy only about half the time.
The poor showing raises perplexing issues for health care reform. The Affordable Care Act has many provisions intended to improve the quality of care. They include new research organizations to help doctors and patients understand which treatments work best as well as pilot projects to test new ways of paying for and organizing health care delivery to reduce costs and improve quality.
However, such measures won’t accomplish much if doctors continue to ignore the recommendations made by experts from their own professional societies. One of the surest ways to improve performance would be to analyze and make public how well individual doctors and hospitals do in treating various diseases. This is controversial among many doctors, who question the accuracy of measures used or fear their records will look bad. While some data are kept on a fragmented basis around the country, the reform law gives doctors incentives to report various quality measures to the federal government.
The law promotes treatments based on sound evidence and electronic health records (which allow for data collection), two advances that could make it easier for patients and their primary-care doctors to find specialists who have had superior results.
Inadequate Treatment of Ovarian Cancer By THE EDITORIAL BOARDPublished: March 13, 2013
A new study has found widespread failure among doctors to follow clinical guidelines for treating ovarian cancer, which kills 15,000 women a year in this country. This disturbing news shows the kind of challenge that health care reformers are up against in improving medical care — even when cost is not the issue.
The study, presented at a conference on gynecologic cancers on Monday, analyzed the treatment of more than 13,000 women with ovarian cancer who received their diagnoses between 1999 and 2006. Only 37 percent received the care recommended in guidelines set by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of 21 major cancer centers.
This kind of failure is not uncommon in American medicine. A decade ago, RAND Corporation researchers reported that just 55 percent of a large sample of patients suffering from a broad range of diseases received care that met quality guidelines. Numerous studies since then focusing on specific diseases have found similar problems.
In the case of ovarian cancer, the consequences of inadequate care are tragic. The recommended guidelines specify combinations of surgery and chemotherapy, depending on the stage of the disease, including debulking surgery to remove all visible traces of the tumor and aggressive chemotherapy that can prolong life. Women who received the recommended treatment were 30 percent less likely to die than those who did not. Among those with advanced cancer, the stage at which ovarian cancer is usually first found, 35 percent of the women treated in accordance with the guidelines survived at least five years compared with 25 percent for those whose care fell short.
Lack of experience with ovarian cancer among many doctors may be a factor in poor treatment. But even patients treated by surgeons with 10 or more ovarian-cancer patients a year, or in hospitals with 20 or more such patients a year, received the recommended therapy only about half the time.
The poor showing raises perplexing issues for health care reform. The Affordable Care Act has many provisions intended to improve the quality of care. They include new research organizations to help doctors and patients understand which treatments work best as well as pilot projects to test new ways of paying for and organizing health care delivery to reduce costs and improve quality.
However, such measures won’t accomplish much if doctors continue to ignore the recommendations made by experts from their own professional societies. One of the surest ways to improve performance would be to analyze and make public how well individual doctors and hospitals do in treating various diseases. This is controversial among many doctors, who question the accuracy of measures used or fear their records will look bad. While some data are kept on a fragmented basis around the country, the reform law gives doctors incentives to report various quality measures to the federal government.
The law promotes treatments based on sound evidence and electronic health records (which allow for data collection), two advances that could make it easier for patients and their primary-care doctors to find specialists who have had superior results.
EDITORIAL #2
Cruelty to Women OverseasBy
THE EDITORIAL BOARDPublished: March 17, 2013
Each year some 47,000 women around the world die as a result of unsafe abortions. Efforts to reduce that toll are severely hampered by the Helms amendment, which was originally enacted in 1973 and restricts the use of United States foreign aid money to finance abortions overseas, even in places where abortion is legal.
President Obama can significantly reduce the harm by directing the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development to reject a longstanding misinterpretation of the amendment under which aid cannot be used to help women whose lives are endangered or in cases of rape or incest. According to the amendment, foreign assistance money may not be used to “pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.” That wording plainly excludes cases of life endangerment, incest and rape.
Providing abortions to women and girls subjected to rape as a weapon of armed conflict obviously has nothing to do with planning family. Yet this has not stopped successive Republican and Democratic administrations from treating the amendment as an absolute abortion ban. The misinterpretation has also prevented foreign aid recipients from offering abortion information even though a separate 1994 amendment makes clear that providing information does not amount to improper coercion. There is a strong case to be made that the current reading of the amendment violates Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which entitles all victims of armed conflict, including rape victims, to complete and nondiscriminatory medical treatment, like access to abortions.
Anti-abortion zealots in Congress may oppose a change in the implementation of the Helms amendment, but virtually every federal abortion policy includes exceptions for life endangerment, incest and rape. Mr. Obama has room under the law to abide by the amendment in a way that is true to its wording, more humane and consistent with his own ideals. He should use it.
Cruelty to Women OverseasBy
THE EDITORIAL BOARDPublished: March 17, 2013
Each year some 47,000 women around the world die as a result of unsafe abortions. Efforts to reduce that toll are severely hampered by the Helms amendment, which was originally enacted in 1973 and restricts the use of United States foreign aid money to finance abortions overseas, even in places where abortion is legal.
President Obama can significantly reduce the harm by directing the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development to reject a longstanding misinterpretation of the amendment under which aid cannot be used to help women whose lives are endangered or in cases of rape or incest. According to the amendment, foreign assistance money may not be used to “pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.” That wording plainly excludes cases of life endangerment, incest and rape.
Providing abortions to women and girls subjected to rape as a weapon of armed conflict obviously has nothing to do with planning family. Yet this has not stopped successive Republican and Democratic administrations from treating the amendment as an absolute abortion ban. The misinterpretation has also prevented foreign aid recipients from offering abortion information even though a separate 1994 amendment makes clear that providing information does not amount to improper coercion. There is a strong case to be made that the current reading of the amendment violates Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which entitles all victims of armed conflict, including rape victims, to complete and nondiscriminatory medical treatment, like access to abortions.
Anti-abortion zealots in Congress may oppose a change in the implementation of the Helms amendment, but virtually every federal abortion policy includes exceptions for life endangerment, incest and rape. Mr. Obama has room under the law to abide by the amendment in a way that is true to its wording, more humane and consistent with his own ideals. He should use it.
EDITORIAL #1
16 de marzo de 2013
Ataquemos el flu responsablementeEs necesario que la población tome conciencia y asuma su responsabilidad ciudadana para contribuir a la prevención y diseminación de la influenza tomando medidas preventivas de higiene y de vacunación, la vía más efectiva para evitar el contagio.
Cada año hay miles de adultos y menores en el mundo que mueren innecesariamente por enfermedades que se pueden prevenir y para las cuales también existen vacunas. Uno de estos casos es el de la influenza que ya ha afectado a alrededor de 9,400 personas en la Isla desde que comenzó la temporada el 1 de octubre. Y la enfermedad continúa en alza. Afortunadamente, no se ha reportado ninguna fatalidad, pero el 57% de los que se han contagiado son menores de 19 años, en su mayoría niños de cuatro años o menos, justo los más vulnerables a sufrir complicaciones y a ser hospitalizados.
Y mientras hay asuntos de salubridad pública en que el Estado tiene responsabilidad absoluta, en lo que respecta al contagio de influenza, la principal razón de que estemos en la antesala de una epidemia viral es porque la ciudadanía ha desoído los llamados a que se vacunen. El que apenas un 35% de la población está vacunada es inaceptable porque hay disponibilidad de dosis de la vacuna contra la influenza.
Y no es por falta de exhortación. En los últimos tres años fiscales (2010-12) el Departamento de Salud ha invertido más de $500,000 de fondos federales en campañas educativas de vacunación, según datos suministrados por la agencia. A ello se suman clínicas de vacunación masiva que la agencia realiza anualmente en los que se provee la vacuna gratuitamente. Desde octubre, cuando comienza a circular el virus con mayor fuerza, Salud ha realizado más de una docena de estos eventos en diferentes puntos de la Isla; sin embargo, apenas 11,000 personas se vacunaron.
El designado secretario de Salud, Francisco Joglar Pesquera, hizo bien en declarar un alerta de vacunación y tiene razón cuando señala que el problema de la influenza aquí no es la supuesta escasez de Tamiflu, un medicamento que no detiene el contagio y cuya eficacia para tratar la influenza o evitar hospitalizaciones es cuestionada por gran parte de la comunidad científica, sino la apatía ciudadana en asumir la responsabilidad preventiva. En consecuencia, aquí lo que hay que atacar es la apatía ciudadana hacia la vacunación.
Es imperativo que los proveedores privados aumenten sus porcentajes de vacunación y ayuden al Gobierno a neutralizar los mitos contra la vacuna, siendo uno de los principales que los efectos secundarios de la vacuna son peores que la misma gripe.
La ciudadanía, por su parte, tiene que aceptar la vacunación como la herramienta de mayor eficacia contra el contagio.
Asimismo, es necesario adoptar hábitos de higiene básica y medidas preventivas ampliamente diseminadas desde que el 2009 hubo una pandemia de gripe y se detectaron casos en Puerto Rico, como son el lavado frecuente de manos, cubrirse la boca al toser o estornudar con pañuelos desechables o con el ángulo interno del codo, nunca con las manos.
Y si alguna persona está atravesando por un proceso gripal debe abstenerse de asistir a sitios de aglomeración humana como cines, lugares de trabajo, iglesias, e incluso asistir a clases para evitar la propagación viral.
Lo único que debe imperar con respecto a la influenza es un sentido de responsabilidad ciudadana en torno a la prevención. Todos estamos obligados a cumplir con nuestro deber cívico de protegernos y proteger a otros, de los altos riesgos de las complicaciones de la influenza.
16 de marzo de 2013
Ataquemos el flu responsablementeEs necesario que la población tome conciencia y asuma su responsabilidad ciudadana para contribuir a la prevención y diseminación de la influenza tomando medidas preventivas de higiene y de vacunación, la vía más efectiva para evitar el contagio.
Cada año hay miles de adultos y menores en el mundo que mueren innecesariamente por enfermedades que se pueden prevenir y para las cuales también existen vacunas. Uno de estos casos es el de la influenza que ya ha afectado a alrededor de 9,400 personas en la Isla desde que comenzó la temporada el 1 de octubre. Y la enfermedad continúa en alza. Afortunadamente, no se ha reportado ninguna fatalidad, pero el 57% de los que se han contagiado son menores de 19 años, en su mayoría niños de cuatro años o menos, justo los más vulnerables a sufrir complicaciones y a ser hospitalizados.
Y mientras hay asuntos de salubridad pública en que el Estado tiene responsabilidad absoluta, en lo que respecta al contagio de influenza, la principal razón de que estemos en la antesala de una epidemia viral es porque la ciudadanía ha desoído los llamados a que se vacunen. El que apenas un 35% de la población está vacunada es inaceptable porque hay disponibilidad de dosis de la vacuna contra la influenza.
Y no es por falta de exhortación. En los últimos tres años fiscales (2010-12) el Departamento de Salud ha invertido más de $500,000 de fondos federales en campañas educativas de vacunación, según datos suministrados por la agencia. A ello se suman clínicas de vacunación masiva que la agencia realiza anualmente en los que se provee la vacuna gratuitamente. Desde octubre, cuando comienza a circular el virus con mayor fuerza, Salud ha realizado más de una docena de estos eventos en diferentes puntos de la Isla; sin embargo, apenas 11,000 personas se vacunaron.
El designado secretario de Salud, Francisco Joglar Pesquera, hizo bien en declarar un alerta de vacunación y tiene razón cuando señala que el problema de la influenza aquí no es la supuesta escasez de Tamiflu, un medicamento que no detiene el contagio y cuya eficacia para tratar la influenza o evitar hospitalizaciones es cuestionada por gran parte de la comunidad científica, sino la apatía ciudadana en asumir la responsabilidad preventiva. En consecuencia, aquí lo que hay que atacar es la apatía ciudadana hacia la vacunación.
Es imperativo que los proveedores privados aumenten sus porcentajes de vacunación y ayuden al Gobierno a neutralizar los mitos contra la vacuna, siendo uno de los principales que los efectos secundarios de la vacuna son peores que la misma gripe.
La ciudadanía, por su parte, tiene que aceptar la vacunación como la herramienta de mayor eficacia contra el contagio.
Asimismo, es necesario adoptar hábitos de higiene básica y medidas preventivas ampliamente diseminadas desde que el 2009 hubo una pandemia de gripe y se detectaron casos en Puerto Rico, como son el lavado frecuente de manos, cubrirse la boca al toser o estornudar con pañuelos desechables o con el ángulo interno del codo, nunca con las manos.
Y si alguna persona está atravesando por un proceso gripal debe abstenerse de asistir a sitios de aglomeración humana como cines, lugares de trabajo, iglesias, e incluso asistir a clases para evitar la propagación viral.
Lo único que debe imperar con respecto a la influenza es un sentido de responsabilidad ciudadana en torno a la prevención. Todos estamos obligados a cumplir con nuestro deber cívico de protegernos y proteger a otros, de los altos riesgos de las complicaciones de la influenza.
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