Better Health Care Newsletter - February 2025

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Love, the many splendored (but plenty challenging) thing

Long before Christians in ancient Rome venerated Valentine and designated the priest-physician as the patron saint of lovers, the Greeks had studied humanity’s varied affection for members of our species. The ancients defined the various types of love in ways that are valid for us today.

We could all use a reminder that love is a many-splendored thing, with pluses and minuses of not just the erotic (eros) but also the vital need for friendship (philia). People can’t be healthy if they are deficient in universal love (agape) and familial affection (storge). How much better would society be if more people figured out how to be true to themselves (philautia) and consider that higher powers accept them for what they are (agape)?

Before we rush out to spend big on flowers, chocolates, champagne, and fancy dinners to mark the greeting-card holiday on February 14, let’s unleash from Cupid’s quiver a few words to the wise about loving, and what it means for our physical and mental health.

A dimming of eros and the erotic

In the 1970s, a Broadway show captured a moment with its catchy title: No Sex, Please, We’re British.Today, alas, that farcical labeling describes the bedroom lives of increasing numbers of Americans, especially the young. It seems that eros — as the Greeks termed romantic, passionate, sexual love — has taken a back seat for many.

As The Los Angeles Times describes a sociological phenomenon that may perplex Baby Boomers who were — and are — notably sexually active:

“For what researchers say is an array of reasons — including technology, heavy academic schedules, and an overall slower-motion process of growing up — millennials and now Gen Zers are having less sex, with fewer partners, than their parents’ and grandparents’ generations did. The social isolation and transmission scares of the Covid-19 pandemic have no doubt played a role in the shift. But researchers say that’s not the whole story: The ‘no rush for sex’ trend predates the pandemic, according to a solid body of research …

“The University of Chicago’s General Social Survey — which has been following shifts in Americans’ behavioral trends for decades — found that 3 in 10 Generation Z males, ages 18 to 25, surveyed in 2021 reported having gone without sex the prior year. One in four Gen Z women also reported having had no sex the prior year, according to Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor who reviewed the data for her book Generations. In an age where hook-ups might seem as unlimited as a right swipe on a dating app, it’s easy to assume that Gen Z ‘should be having the time of their lives sexually,’ Twenge said. But that’s not how it’s playing out. Twenge said the decline has been under way for roughly two decades.”

Younger generations, experts say, are taking longer to launch into adulthood and delaying what studies show are the clear health benefits of responsible adult sexuality. Like what? A CNN report detailed some of the research describing the health and mental health benefits of sex, including how it lessens stress, boosts mood, improves sleep, supports the immune and cardiovascular systems, enhances cognition and intimacy, and reduces prostate cancer risks.

Risks and sexual activity

Sexual activity also can have health harms, notably in transmissible infections. The spread of diseases — STDs or STIs like syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia — has declined slightly from scary highs, federal health officials say. Still, as U.S. News and World Report found in federal data:

“More than 2.4 million total cases of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia were diagnosed and reported in the U.S. last year, marking a 2% decrease from the case count in 2022 and a 4% drop from 2019. The combined rate of infections from chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis in the U.S. decreased 2.3% from 2022 to 734 cases per 100,000 people, according to a U.S. News analysis of the data.”

STDs are both extremely preventable and more treatable than ever. Safe sex practices, combined with antiviral drugs, have changed HIV-AIDS from a lethal to a chronic illness. Other infections also can be averted, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, with steps including:

§ Abstaining from vaginal, anal, or oral sex. This is the only way to completely avoid STIs.

§ Getting vaccinated. Vaccines are recommended for some people to prevent hepatitis B and HPV.

§ Reducing your number of sex partners.

§ Regular testing. You and your partner should get tested and share your results.

§ Being in a mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has been tested and does not have an STI.

§ Using condoms the right way every time you have sex.

By the way, too many of the young and impressionable — as well as older and folks with issues — have made porn a major component of the online world. Lawmakers and others are considering crackdowns on the rampant sexual fare, including age checks and aggressive law enforcement against violent, abusive, and exploitative content, especially if it involves minors.

In an anti-social era, philia falls away

Ask most adults about how different everyday life used to be, even before the pandemic. Certain practices and rituals of friendship have fallen away. Who still goes out to bowl on a Wednesday or Saturday? Who hits a nice restaurant or a comfortable tavern, to catch up with friends and colleagues? Who has a regular meet-up to catch a new movie, then grab a salad or burger to discuss the flick?

The Greeks reshaped the world with their belief in philia, which a writer described as “the deep bond of friendship and camaraderie.” As author M.J. Kelley II wrote in an article on Medium:

“Unlike eros, which is driven by passion, philia is characterized by trust, loyalty, and mutual understanding. It is the love that we share with our closest friends and companions, based on shared values and experiences. In ancient Greece, philia was highly valued … We cultivate philia through shared activities, meaningful conversations, and acts of kindness. It is the love that withstands the test of time and adversity, providing us with a sense of belonging and emotional support.”

Lonely and alone

While those characteristics may sound valuable and virtuous, they are losing out in modern life, experts say. This newsletter wrote recently how “America’s doctor,” former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, warned of the damage inflicted by Americans’ widespread loneliness. Murthy cautioned:

“Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling — it harms both individual and societal health. It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day and even greater than that associated with obesity and physical inactivity.”

Derek Thompson, a staff writer for the Atlantic, delves further into Murthy’s public health diagnosis, examining in a cover story how Americans may not only be lonely but also that they are choosing to be alone. This is a major shift in our society. Philia has been flung out the window, and, instead, Thomson reported:

“Americans are spending less time with other people than in any other period for which we have trustworthy data, going back to 1965. Between that year and the end of the 20th century, in-person socializing slowly declined. From 2003 to 2023, it plunged by more than 20%, according to the American Time Use Survey, an annual study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among unmarried men and people younger than 25, the decline was more than 35%.

“Alone time predictably spiked during the pandemic. But the trend had started long before most people had ever heard of a novel coronavirus and continued after the pandemic was declared over.”

He added:

“Self-imposed solitude might just be the most important social fact of the 21st century in America … Day to day, hour to hour, we are choosing this way of life — its comforts, its ready entertainments. But convenience can be a curse. Our habits are creating what [Enghin] Atalay [an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia] has called a ‘century of solitude.’ This is the anti-social century.

“Over the past few months, I’ve spoken with psychologists, political scientists, sociologists, and technologists about Americas anti-social streak. Although the particulars of these conversations differed, a theme emerged: The individual preference for solitude, scaled up across society and exercised repeatedly over time, is rewiring Americas civic and psychic identity. And the consequences are far-reaching — for our happiness, our communities, our politics, and even our understanding of reality.”

Homebound, hearts and all

As the article finds, bars, restaurants, movie theaters, and publicly funded spaces — rec centers, gyms, and meeting halls —have emptied. Women, and men especially, cocoon at home, glued to electronic screens of all sizes.

Houses have become individuals’ redoubts, from which increasing numbers eat, work, and play. They emerge less — and they have curtailed contact with those welcome into their closed worlds.

Regular folks may be spending more time with family — sort of, and at a cost. Even domestic encounters are interrupted, or even dominated, by family members fixated on smart phones or watching larger screens. Further, the failure to connect with outsiders has wide, deep effects, the Atlantic article argues, in part quoting Marc J. Dunkelman, an author and a research fellow at Brown University:

“Home-based, phone-based culture has arguably solidified our closest and most distant connections, the inner ring of family and best friends (bound by blood and intimacy) and the outer ring of tribe (linked by shared affinities). But its wreaking havoc on the middle ring of ‘familiar but not intimate’ relationships with the people who live around us, which Dunkelman calls the village. ‘These are your neighbors, the people in your town,’ he said. We used to know them well; now we dont. The middle ring is key to social cohesion, Dunkelman said. Families teach us love, and tribes teach us loyalty. The village teaches us tolerance.”

In an anti-social world, it is unsurprising that politics has become a blood sport in which vanquishing opponents and showing zero compassion for others has become the norm. It’s easier to see how so many folks, with so little contact IRL (“in real life,” as the kids say) can lose trust in evidence-based science and medicine and behave in abusive and violent ways in doctors’ offices, clinics, emergency rooms, and hospitals?

The Atlantic cover story makes a powerful case for how damaging the anti-social century has been to the young:

“Human childhood — including adolescence — is a uniquely sensitive period in the whole of the animal kingdom, the psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes in The Anxious Generation. Although the human brain grows to 90% of its full size by age 5, its neural circuitry takes a long time to mature. Our lengthy childhood might be evolutions way of scheduling an extended apprenticeship in social learning through play. The best kind of play is physical, outdoors, with other kids, and unsupervised, allowing children to press the limits of their abilities while figuring out how to manage conflict and tolerate pain.

“But now young peoples attention is funneled into devices that take them out of their body, denying them the physical-world education they need. Teen anxiety and depression are at near-record highs: The latest government survey of high schoolers, conducted in 2023, found that more than half of teen girls said they felt ‘persistently sad or hopeless.’ These data are alarming but shouldn’t be surprising. Young rats and monkeys deprived of play come away socially and emotionally impaired. It would be odd if we, the self-named ‘social animal were different.’”

Family love (storge) feels a crunch

Who doesn’t burble and coo at an adorable baby? Who doesn’t feel a ray of optimism seeing youngsters out in public enjoying quality time with their parent(s)?
The ancients, like all of us, valued family — highly. The Greeks had a word for domestic affection ­—storge — and as that Medium article noted of this term:

It describes “the love that exists within families and close relationships. It is the natural and unconditional love that parents have for their children and siblings have for each other. Storge is characterized by a deep sense of affection, care, and familiarity … It is a love that exists regardless of personal flaws or mistakes, offering a sense of security and stability. Storge can also extend beyond biological families, encompassing the love and loyalty we feel towards our chosen family …”

Most folks in the 21st century U.S.A. would endorse these sentiments, though the reality in this country differs, experts report. As researchers found in a recent survey:

“According to a February 2024 Pew Research Center poll, 30% of 18- to 34-year-olds without kids aren’t sure if they want children, and 18% say they don’t want any. That follows a rise between 2018 and 2021 in the percentage of nonparents under 50 who said they were ‘not too likely’ or ‘not likely at all’ to have kids (16% versus 21% and 21% versus 23%, respectively).”

The Washington Post dug into federal data to find that — contrary to what some people may think, based on observation ­­— no rise has occurred in parents deciding for various reasons to have just one child. As the newspaper reported, the numbers show that “If people want kids, they want more than one. A consistent minority stops at one … But otherwise, children seem to be a multiple-or-nothing proposition.”

Avoiding having kids

Across the globe, birth rates are falling. This is especially true and deeply concerning in this country, as the American Psychological Association reported:

“According to a 2020 analysis that looked at trends across 195 countries, the average number of kids a woman had dropped from 4.7 in 1950 to 2.4 in 2017. The study authors predict it will fall below 1.7 by 2100. In the United States, in particular, the birth rate has been on a steady decline for decades, bottoming out around 2019 … There are myriad reasons people are having fewer children. For one, traditional markers of adulthood, like moving out of your parents’ house and getting married, are hitting later, and having kids is following suit. That’s largely due to financial realities like skyrocketing mortgage rates and the loss of many middle-class jobs, which make self-sufficiency a higher bar to reach.”

Domestic bliss may be a celebrated ideal, but the reality of child-rearing in this country is harsher, the APA noted, examining the indecision expressed by adults of child-bearing age:

“Many fence-sitters … cite a lack of societal, workplace, and financial support for parents, especially mothers, in the United States. The Pew Research report found that 17% of childless adults under 50 said they probably wouldn’t have kids for financial reasons. The country has no paid parental leave policy and sparse and expensive childcare options yet still expects more from women than men at home. A 2023 literature review looking at mostly middle-class Americans and Europeans found that women perform the majority of ‘mental labor,’ especially when it comes to childcare and parenting decisions. Women also experience more related negative consequences, like stress, lower life and relationship satisfaction, and career disadvantages ….”

Men don’t hear the biological clock tick in the same way that women do. But reading (as in the section above) about our now “anti-social” country raises significant issues about the fertile future and cocooned young men. Indeed, experts have sounded alarms about the disturbing rise of “incels,” which the New Yorker Magazine reported are: “a subset of straight men [who] have constructed a violent political ideology around the injustice of young, beautiful women refusing to have sex with them. These men often subscribe to notions of white supremacy. They are, by their own judgment, mostly unattractive and socially inept … They’re also diabolically misogynistic.”

Such extreme views and individuals must be dealt with appropriately by mental health experts, law enforcement, and others. For mainstream America, though, the issue of families and domestic life sits, in one way or another, as a central public policy challenge. Here’s why, as described by a writer for the conservative American Enterprise Institute:

“Even without the deaths and foregone births of the pandemic, our population would already be dramatically shrinking if not for immigration. According to the Congressional Budget Office, deaths will consistently exceed births by 2043 in the U.S.”

The nation, by election, has endorsed a presidential administration determined to stanch immigration. At the same time, as New York magazine reported from a recent national conservative conference in Washington, D.C.: “Faith, family, and fertility are ‘the new mainstream,’ Chris DeMuth of the Heritage Foundation told a pale and predominantly male crowd.” DeMuth and others have made plain that Americans, especially women in this country, must start having more kids — no matter how it might affect their situations and aspirations.

Shortfalls in medical staff

The question looms: How will this nation thrive if younger generations are not populous enough to support their elders? And, more pressingly, who will provide needed medical care and social support, if extreme immigration actions occur? As the online news site Axios reported:

“Some of the earliest and lasting effects from [President] Trump’s promised immigration crackdowns would be in home health and long-term care, both of which rely on a substantial number of immigrants and undocumented workers … Reducing an already thin labor market could have serious ramifications for aging adults or those with disabilities — and potentially put more stress on family caregivers … ‘Immigration policy is long-term care policy,’ said David Grabowski, a Harvard Medical School professor who’s chronicled how foreign-born workers filled key nursing home roles early in the pandemic. He found nursing homes in regions with a higher share of foreign-born nursing assistants provided more direct care and better quality.”

The Migration Policy Institute reported how the pandemic surfaced the big role that foreign-born people of various legal statuses play in U.S. medicine:

“Immigrant professionals have long played an important role in the U.S. health care workforce and make up disproportionate shares of both certain high- and low-skilled health care workers. For instance, the foreign-born accounted for 26% of the 987,000 physicians and surgeons practicing in the United States in 2021 and almost 40% of the 559,000 home health aides.” The group found that 16% of registered nurses are immigrants, while 21%+ of nurses’ aides came from other countries.

“By the 2030s, the country could be faced with a shortage of nearly 200,000 nurses and 124,000 physicians,” the online political new site The Hill has reported.

By the way, just a reminder that even if the nation witnessed a sudden baby boom, making doctors and welcoming them into the medical family takes more than a decade for a specialist, say, like an internist: four years of undergraduate education, four years of medical school, and a residency of three years ­— plus, perhaps a one- to three-year fellowship.

In much self-care, a miss for philautia (and agape too)

It can be infuriating and destructive. Love of self, or as the Greeks termed it, philautia, has features that we all recognize as dangerous: selfish, self-absorbed and narcissistic, among other traits.

Yet the ancients knew that philautia often can be crucial for individuals to thrive and hold others with the highest value.

The Greeks believed that philautia “is the foundation for our capacity to love and care for others,” as a writer noted in the online magazine Medium.

The term, the article reported, “refers to a healthy self-love that promotes self-care, self-compassion, and a positive self-image … philautia can also manifest as an unhealthy form of self-obsession and narcissism. When self-love becomes excessive and preoccupied with personal fame and fortune, it can hinder our ability to connect with others and cultivate meaningful relationships.”

In this country, men — and especially women — spend billions of dollars annually on products and services to alter themselves and to make them more “beautiful” and lovable by others. They do so even as they ignore healthy basics like a good diet, restful sleep, and moderation in drinking and use of other intoxicants.

In the name of self-care and improvement, they also have turned exercise and leisure into their own spending categories with billions of dollars annually spent. Woo-woo claims abound in the promotion of wellness, while common sense flies out the window. The affluent fritter away money for exercise bikes and treadmills rather than jogging, walking, or bicycling neighborhoods and trails.

The lack of love and care for one’s existing body shows up glaringly in the popularity of cosmetic surgeries. These are procedures for which one opinion survey found that 83% of those asked afterward said they would never subject themselves again.

Still, hundreds of thousands of women annually elect to have breast implants for cosmetic reasons unrelated to illness. They do so even as studies and experience increasingly show these are procedures they regret and too often damage their overall health. Tens of thousands of women now risk invasive surgeries for cosmetic breast reductions. Patients keep pursuing one of the fastest growing cosmetic surgeries — augmentation of their buttocks ­— despite the well-publicized fatalities linked to shady types performing the procedures.

Not self-love but self-destructiveness

Too many folks, for various deep-seated reasons, also torment themselves for not meeting personal or professional goals that they know are unreasonable.

This country has not begun to deal with the mental health crisis that became shockingly clearespecially among the young — during and after the pandemic. Too many people cannot deal with their burdens and tens of thousands of them, especially in a nation awash in firearms, take their own lives. This is a preventable and tragically increasing cause of mortality in this country.

If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988. You can also reach a crisis counselor by messaging the Crisis Text Line at 741741. Disaster survivors can also reach out to the disaster distress helpline at 800-985-5990.

It is a painful, lesser-known hazard of medicine and medical training that doctors, as the Guardian newspaper reported, “are dying by suicide at higher rates than the general population. Somewhere between 300 to 400 physicians a year in the U.S. take their own lives, the equivalent of one medical school graduating class annually.”

In a poignant profile of one medical resident in the Washington, D.C., area who recently took his own life, the Washington Post reported this:

“[D]espite a growing acceptance nationwide of the benefits of mental health care, barriers persist in residency programs that keep doctors from seeking help during a time when many need it. Many factors, experts say, make doctors at that high-stress, high-stakes stage in their careers vulnerable. Residents — medical school graduates who spend three to seven years training in their specialty under the supervision of attending physicians — can face grueling 80-hour workweeks on modest salaries. They can also feel compelled to hide their struggles, fearing the repercussions that disclosure might bring. Success in their programs is critical to landing the jobs that will launch their careers.”

The late Dr. William Ballantyne West Jr. left handwritten notes to those who would later find him and parts of one of these were shared, with the family’s permission, by the newspaper:

“To those who will be negatively affected by my actions, I’m so sorry. I have simply run out of gas and have nothing left to give. To those in a position of authority over residents, a simple reminder that we come to you seeking the possibility of a better life. Some of us with challenges you do not see or backgrounds of which you are not aware.”

Humanity, as perfected by our makers?

The pagan Greeks believed in many deities, not the single God that Christians, Jews and Muslims worship. The Greeks also knew of agape. Medium reports that it represents a selfless and unconditional love that extends beyond personal relationships. It is often associated with divine love or the love of God for humanity. Agape is characterized by its unselfish nature, as it involves caring for and loving others without expecting anything in return. This type of love is not limited to romantic or familial relationships but can be extended to strangers, neighbors, and even enemies. It is a love that transcends boundaries and promotes empathy, compassion, and kindness. Agape calls us to act with selflessness and to prioritize the well-being of others above our own.”

We surely need loads of agape, especially in extending as much love, compassion, forgiveness, and caring as we can to those in need and those who have forgotten that higher forces shaped us to be as perfect as possible — yet still flawed and human.

Redirecting those big love bucks

Is there a Valentine’s Day naysayer akin to Christmas’s Grinch?

Surveys tell us that the amorous shell out billions of dollars for Feb. 14. It’s the third costliest holiday on the calendar.

Know this: consumer surveys report that recipients really aren’t that keen on tokens of affection like furry handcuffs, “love coupon” books, paid (as opposed to impromptu, amateur) holiday serenades, or yes, those standbys like boxes of chocolate or other candies, and many arrangements of flowers.

Maybe try a change-up, strengthening a relationship in ways that experts say are proven — just doing different stuff together and finding meaning and purpose in mutual undertakings?
Sure, a nice dinner could be a highlight. Go easy on the excess calories and drinking, please.

But why not start the morning by taking a little of that Valentine loot and buying books for kids and donating them and reading them aloud at a welcoming daycare center or shelter? Or maybe spend part of the Valentine’s weekend volunteering together in a food bank, or visiting friends or family who are caregivers or shut-ins (see the other sidebar)?

The December newsletter offered suggestions for donating to those with medical or health needs — why not revisit the options and see if they might delight a sweetie more than, say, a glob of unneeded calories? The year had barely started when gales and raging wildfires made thousands homeless and bereft in Southern California. Thousands are still recovering from end-of-the year hurricanes and floods. Conflicts around the globe have only heightened the need for aid. And the need is unceasing for those who can help ­— on everything from the unhoused to abandoned animals.

Caring for our unpaid caregivers

Tens of millions of people across the country would love to enjoy a night out with a special Valentine. They can’t, though.

That’s because as many as 100 million Americans provide desperately needed, too often unpaid, care for loved ones or friends, according to studies by the RAND Corp. As researchers from the Santa Monica, Calif., think tank wrote in a recent online post:

“If the U.S. government paid caregivers for every hour they spend providing this care, it would cost well over $100 billion. But caregivers also have a lot on their shoulders. Many are working, but due to their caregiving responsibilities, many caregivers have to cut back their work hours, switch jobs, or leave the labor force altogether. Our estimates suggest that these disruptions cost caregivers approximately $5,000 in household income per year.

“These caregivers also have emotional needs. Many tell us that they are excessively stressed, sometimes in surprising ways. For example, many caregivers help arrange care from a distance, visiting the individual a few times per week or per month. Our research reveals that these caregivers are even more stressed than those who provide most of their care in-person.”

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health studied federal data and found that “millions of young Americans between the ages of 15 and 22 are providing essential care to adults, significantly impacting those young people’s educational opportunities and achievements.” In a recent online post, the researchers noted:

“[Y]outh caregivers are more likely to be non-white, with a nearly equal distribution of male and female caregivers, contrasting with the predominance of female caregivers in the adult population. The study also highlights that both youth and young adult caregivers face educational disadvantages … They are less likely to be enrolled in school and spend significantly less time on educational activities, which may have long-term implications for their educational attainment and economic stability.”

For caregivers, it is not only the loss of education, work, money, time, and freedoms, the burdens of their responsibilities can be crushing due to the isolation they experience, the New York Times has reported. Family and friends mean well, but they forget caregivers. They lose touch and rarely call, perhaps out of fear of embarrassment about the diminished circumstances of loved ones, friends, and colleagues with physical or mental debilitation.

While celebrating a holiday dedicated to love, spread a little to caregivers, please. Give them a call. See if they need anything, especially a chance to get out for even a bit. Maybe you or yours can give them a respite and provide a nonjudgemental ear for a cup of tea or coffee.

Caregivers would appreciate the effort, the newspaper has reported. Think, too, about other shut-ins or those who don’t get the regular acknowledgement that they deserve — teachers, first responders, those in the military. And what ever happened to the societal gratitude for “essential workers?” Let Cupid empty his quiver for all the positive vibes that can be spread on February 14.

Recent Health Care Developments of Interest

Here are some recent health- and medical-news or online articles that might interest you:

§ The second-leading cause of death in the U.S. — which will kill more than 600,000 this year and be diagnosed in some form in more than 2.4 million people — is “striking young and middle-aged adults and women more frequently,” the New York Times reported, citing a new, annual report by the American Cancer Society. The group has found, the newspaper said, that “despite overall improvements in survival, black and Native Americans are dying of some cancers at rates two to three times higher than those among white Americans … Six of the 10 most common cancers are on the rise, including cancers of the breast and the uterus. Also increasing are colorectal cancers among people under 65, as well as prostate cancer, melanoma and pancreatic cancer. ‘These unfavorable trends are tipped toward women,’ said Rebecca L. Siegel, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society and the report’s first author. ‘Of all the cancers that are increasing, some are increasing in men, but it’s lopsided — more of this increase is happening in women.’” Investigators are unsure why forms of cancer affecting women are rising — they are turning their sights on environmental and lifestyle factors, among others.

§ Bubblegum, other candies, and fruit cocktails soon may look different to consumers. That’s because federal officials have moved to ban red dye No. 3. The substance, which the Washington Post reported, was approved for permanent use in food and ingested drugs more than 50 years ago. Studies have shown the dye in high doses can cause cancer in lab rats, though researchers at the Food and Drug Administration say it has not been proven to cause the disease in humans. Under fire from safety advocates, regulators already had barred the dye’s use in many other products. As the newspaper reported: “Red dye No. 3 must be removed from food by mid-January 2027 and excised from ingested drugs the following year. The FDA said its decision to ban red dye No. 3 was based on a federal law called the Delaney Clause, which prohibits additives found to cause cancer in humans or animals at any dose.”

§ No, it’s not a food fight, though advocates use of acronyms makes it sound like it might be. RICE, PEACE, MEAT — they’re also short-hand ways that experts try to suggest to regular folks an increasing number of different ways to best recuperate from all-too-familiar and painful minor injuries, according to the Wall Street Journal. These include bruises, strains, and sprains. The long-promoted RICE care plan calls for rest, ice, compression, and elevation of injured wrists, knees, ankles, and the like. This approach, especially cooling an injury, may discourage the important healing element of reducing inflammation, notably after an initial, pain-easing icing, some experts say. So, others have recommended, instead, injury-care steps involving protecting an injury and avoiding further harm, analgesics and movement. Still others, though, demure on use of common analgesics and modest pain-killer medications (aspirin, ibuprofen and the like) and urge treatment by skilled therapists. The approaches get distilled with alphabet reminders (A for analgesics, M for movement, T for treatment, P for protection)

§ Blaming and shaming isn’t always the optimal way to persuade others about the need for change. Still, the Lown Institute — a serious think tank dedicated to improving medical care — argues annually that much can be learned from negative examples. And so the group puts together its Shkreli Awards, the “perpetrators of the most egregious examples of profiteering and dysfunction in health care,” according to the institute. As Vikas Saini, M.D. and Lown president, explains of the awards (“named for the infamous ‘pharma bro’ Martin Shkreli,” who jacked up the price of a common anti-parasitic drug): “The Shkreli Awards serve as a stark reminder of what happens when profiteering outweighs the public good. By shining a light on these unethical practices we’re challenging industry leaders and policymakers to do better.” The newest recipients included an executive who was roundly criticized for his role in bankrupting community hospitals, a health care behemoth that maximizes profits to the extreme, a Big Pharma outlet that fiddled with approved dosages of its new drug to optimize its return (though this had potential poorer outcomes for patients), an oncologist who became a local powerhouse (even as his patients suffered a troubling results and possibly worse), and a medical center accused of demanding upfront payments and denials of cancer treatment otherwise.

HERE’S TO A HEALTHY 2025 AND BEYOND!

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations. Attorney Advertising.

© Patrick Malone & Associates P.C. | DC Injury Lawyers

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