It’s early, but nothing like these drugs has existed before… In fact, much about the drugs remains shrouded in mystery. Researchers discovered by accident that exposing the brain to a natural hormone at levels never seen in nature elicited weight loss. They really don’t know why, or if the drugs may have any long-term side effects.
Category: Drug Prices & Regulations
Thursday Links
JAMA study: Air pollution associated with dementia. The study is behind a paywall, but if this is a typical medical study, no one asked if the parents or grandparents had dementia.
State CON regulations are hurting patients.
Where the highest-paid doctors live: South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, and Wyoming.
Tyler Cowen has an explanation for this: Rural America has about 20 percent of the U.S. population but about 10 percent of its doctors.
Wednesday Links
- Jeff Goldsmith does an about face: vertical integration in health care doesn’t work.
- Study: Which matters more for ER spending – price increases or upcoding? Next study should examine the IQ of the insurers who pay the ER fees.
- 99% of hospitals pharmacists report drug shortages, causing 85% to ration treatments and 84% to rely on different dosages. (STAT)
- Another cost of covid lockdowns: fewer stage 1 cancers were diagnosed and treated – leading to more stage 4 cancers and deaths. (WSJ)
- The next president of Argentina may be a libertarian.
- School Choice in Los Angeles: It works.
- Scott Sumner has the best explanation I have seen on why inflation is a monetary phenomenon – something Keynesians have been slow to accept.
Pharmacies Put More OTC Drugs Behind the Counter to Avoid Retail Theft
Over the years I’ve written a lot about shopping for drugs, using price comparison and other techniques like pill splitting, asking for a generic or all the above. The best deal in health care (almost the only deal in health care) is over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. Almost all OTC drugs were once available only by prescription.